Don't give up, I'm glad I didn't.

Have you read other authors from that time period? Long descriptions were pretty typical, it's not just him. I've read enough books from that era that I'm used to it, and sometimes I feel that more modern stuff isn't descriptive enough.

I have and I enjoy most of them. However I just can’t get past his writing style for some reason. Reading long descriptions is something that didn’t bother me with other authors of his time. So I’m assuming it’s something about the way the book is written that nags me.

I feel exactly the same way. Luckily I discovered, no joke, two glasses of wine or beer made it much more tolerable. I think it slowed my brain down enough to not keep it trying to skip ahead to the point. Just a suggestion.

These books were written at a time when people were not exposed to imagery in media to the extent you are used to. My example is the description of a street festival in count of Monte Cristo. It goes on for pages. Nowadays, a few lines to set the scene would be enough, because we have all seen various street parties in person while traveling, or in movies and tv. Back then, those experiences were far less common. I think this his, then, one factor...the author needed to be able to describe what was unfamiliar to the reader, and do it well without spoiling the pace of the story.

Fascinating point! I haven’t thought of it like that before!

I posted the exact same thing a couple years ago when I read it. People told me that was the wrong choice for a first dickens. But I haven't tried another one since

Try David Copperfield - semi-autobiographical with some outrageous characters. Tale of Two Cities is not his best.

He got paid more to write more (not by the word but by the number of instalments in his stories, which were released in chapters serially) and tastes were different in the Victorian era. Authors could make shit up as they went along. Novels weren't edited in the same way and people expected a book to take a good long amount of time to read. People still enjoy his colourful characterisation but don't feel like you have to read him. Victorian literature, by our standards, is sentimental and slow.

Edit: I say this with love, I find the 19th century really interesting.

I'm a big fan of Great Expectations. It's one of my favorite books. Oliver Twist was good. I did not like Tale of Two Cities and disliked Bleak House even more. So, not sure where I fall on the Dickens' love meter.

Don't read stuff you don't like, if you are reading for pleasure. There are plenty of other classics that you might like better. If you hate long-winded description, the answer is Austen.

I'm not a huge fan of Dickens, either, but I did genuinely enjoy Great Expectations. That's a good starting point.

It sounds like you want to like him. Maybe put this one down and try Great Expectations and/or David Copperfield.

I loved The Pickwick Papers. It’s hilarious!

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Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities,” was my first novel, period. And I was so so young when I read it I don’t remember it at all and did not understand it then. My reading skills came early, prematurely even, and my comprehension came much later. I tried it again a few years ago but couldn’t get in to it. It’s on the to-do list, but honestly I’m the same way about Dickens. And I want to be better about it…because to be well-read you have to know Dickens and I struggle with his work, honestly I do. It’s hard to get used to, especially if you are a fan of classics! He invented a writing style that still remains fairly unique to him. That’s his genius but…I’m not quite cultured enough I guess (?) to fully realize it I suppose. But I completely empathize.

Many authors like Dickens during Victorian time would publish their work in newspapers, they were paid by word this is another reason for over description.

You are definitely onto something. First time I read "Tale of Two Cities" I was sitting in a hostel in Sydney, AUS, polishing off a bottle of wine becuase I realized I had more than I could take out of the country duty free. I finished the wine, then shortly after finished the book. I remember thinking. "Am I just drunk, or was that a really good book?" I still think it's a really good book. Haven't been able to enjoy as much or even finish some of Dickens's other works.

I dont get it either. For me another author whose style is just too pre-modern for me …

He starts slow but finishes well

It’s one of my favorite books. If you don’t like it, I would assume that you just won’t like Dickens.

A tale of two cities is a beautiful but very difficult read. You need to know some history surrounding the events of the French Revolution of 1789. Absent that, you need to read the footnotes and endnotes carefully. And you need to read the corresponding chapter summaries by Cliffnotes or Sparknotes as you go through the chapters for better understanding. It'll become easier after a while. And the book is absolutely worth sticking with until the end.

However, I would recommend starting with one of his early and more accessible works like Oliver Twist, then returning to ATOTC and adopting the approach described above. Best of luck!

This "paid by the word" myth about Charles Dickens has been debunked many times.

I also feel with Charles Dickens in particular, his language is very morose and bleak (hehe Bleak house). It kind of emphasizes the poverty of the industrial era, imo. It can get heavy and boring at times for sure! Where’s the sunshine lol

These also came in periodicals, like TV shows for us almost. He had a certain quota plus he was creating a bigger world imagery since there werent many other forms of entertainment.

Such a great book... but i was lucky enough to have the eloquent Georgina Winsberg my junior and senior year English teacher. She new the book pretty f'n well.. always would go into detail about Madame DeFarge and the other characters, which was so valuable to this stoned all ears guy for first period English.

My favourite as well!

Just adding in to the chorus of people saying try Great Expectations! If you want to get the best of Dickens. If you still don't like him I will concede

I stopped reading Oliver Twist halfway (my first Dickens) because I did not like it. The characters were to black and white (good vs. bad) for my taste. I don't think the writing was my cup of tea...

Sorry you don't like him. I do, but he's very much a product of the 19th century and its conventions. Most of the books were serialized before they were published as full books. His audience had no TV, radio or internet to entertain themselves. His books were their entertainment. Plus language and storytelling conventions were different then than they are now.

You can find the confirmation of this online by googling: the modern attention span is gone.

Further, in part due to autocorrect, predictive typing, and various outrage types, the capacity to engage in "just think for two seconds" is diminished as well.

Many people have come of age in a civilization in which deep thinking is derided and criticized (as sexist or patriarchal or -shaming or whatever). No thought is given for (what used to be a standard consideration) what might the speaker be saying, behind what the speaker is saying? Is there a broader context? Is the speaker perhaps making an analogy or employing a metaphor or even engaging in sarcastic exaggeration in order to raise a point? (One friend of mine is almost pathologically incapable of considering anything other than, literally, the literal statement made. If I say, "Well, I've said it a thousand times," he will actually start to argue about how I couldn't possibly have said something "a thousand" times. He's not the only one who engages in that sort of behavior, and it is a new one I have only seen in the past 10 years.)

Dickens wrote in a time when people read chapters of a book in serial form (this survived into, IIRC, the 1970s in the U.S. in magazines and still exists in manga magazines in Japan). Modern technology has eliminated that capacity for patience that used to exist in our entertainment intake. Witness "episode bingeing" of television programs. We have such a glut of distractions now, no one can keep up with it all. I still haven't seen all of the Sopranos. And, in order to shift it all, we all have learned to pick up the pace: skip the commercials, order takeout, sit on the couch for seven hours watching. If possible, I suspect everyone would watch at 105% speed, just fast enough that the speaking isn't distorted too noticeably, but enough of an increase to add up over time.

If you don't like Dickens, try this: Turn off all the distractions for two days. No TV, no internet, no socmed. Then pick up Dickens.

Wish I could upvote this 100 times. Well done.

Tale of Two Cities is probably his least respected book (outside of the over quoted opening passage).

Try Pickwick, for a good laugh.

TL;DR

/s

I’m so shocked there isn’t more of a movement to unplug yourself from the internet for sanity’s sake. We are all so addicted.

You started on one of his better novels. Overall he might be one of the most overrated authors in classic literature. I don't recommend Dickens to anyone.

When I was a kid in the US everyone read Great Expectations in school. They must have gone away from it.

I recently reread ATOTC and was a bit shocked with the opening extended coach scene. Dickens generally jumped into establishing his protagonist’s personal and social situation very explicitly. The historical novel wasn’t his usual wheelhouse, so I do think a different book, like ‘David Copperfield’ would be a better way to try out the Dickens experience.

That's an interesting point, never had I considered that before.

I was quite disappointed with Great Expectations. One of life's little ironies.

Imo, Great Expectations is the book to begin. See how you feel after that one.

Totally agree that nineteen century readers had much smaller internal libraries of remembered visual images to draw on than we typically do. I suspect that at least some of those readers had developed their abilities to take in authors’ lengthy descriptions and build robust mental pictures from them. It’s easier and maybe a better strategy for us to pull up an image from memory or with Google for “Colorado mining town” or whatever than mentally build one following an author’s description, but really digging into the description and making something out of it can be its own experience.

Overrated.

Try Anthony Trollope.

Not a huge fan either but since his books were syndicated and published as chapters I do think he does a great job of hooking the reader at the end of his chapters

You picked the wrong book. TOTC doesn’t even sound like Dickens.

I recommend The Signalman, a ghost story that's short and relatively creepy even by today's standards. No long-winded descriptions. Dickens writes a great character study of someone who is creeped out in a train tunnel when he sees a ghost. Maybe in his novels he's long-winded but he can also evoke amazing imagery with just a sentence.

I loved learning about the French Revolution and, once I got used to the writing style, really enjoyed A Christmas Carol. I really tried to enjoy A Tale of Two Cities, but I felt like the characters were really wooden and one-dimensional. The only exception was the >!look-alike who sacrificed his life!< since he was the only one who did any actual growing through the story.

I also enjoy reading footnotes and endnotes to get more context for stories that were written in other times, but I still thought the book didn’t have any real depth. I was disappointed because I was really looking forward to enjoying this book.

Thanks for sharing your perspective. You should probably remove the spoiler in your comment or use a spoiler warning.

Forget you ever watched TV, saw a movie, or surfed the Web. .... Now you're a 19th century person. Try him again

To be fair, when I've episode binged, it wasn't completely due to attention span. It had more to do with my life being so freaking busy that if I didn't watch the whole season of "Breaking Bad" NOW, I wouldn't remember to watch the next episode next week. Yeah. That's just sad.

And pro tip -- never watch a whole season of "Breaking Bad" in one sitting.

Bonus pro tip -- don't watch more than two Harry Potter movies in a row. You'll see how they really are basically all the same movie, and it kinda ruins it.