“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”
The final line of A Tale Of Two Cities is one of the most celebrated in literature. It is an exquisite piece of writing that strikes the perfect chord at the end of a truly great novel.
I knew the line long before I read the book for the first time, which was about a month ago. What I didn´t know was just how tumultuous, how dramatic and how emotional the final quarter of the book is.
A month on, and I still can´t get it out of my head. And it is not as if the ending is unexpected or surprising. Dickens begins the process of signaling that end fairly early in the book and the looming sense of it coming becomes increasingly heavy as it draws nearer.
But the sheer drama and tension of the final scenes are special, perhaps beyond anything I´ve previously read. I listened to, rather than read, the novel, a version performed by Simon Callow. He is predictably brilliant. But Dickens is the true star.
I was running when listening to the scene in which Miss Pross confronts Madame Defarge at the lodgings of the Manettes. And as I did so, I had tears streaming down my face, and I would not like to know where my heart rate must have been. I must have looked mad, grief-stricken or both.
The film industry would need light and shade, dramatic music, period sets and supreme performances from all its actors to even get close to replicating the sheer drama of the scene. And with all that, my money would still be on the words being worth a thousand pictures.
Dickens, with only the craft of his writing to draw on, (and in the audio version, of course, the talent of Callow) does something simply incredible. He ratchets up the tension to an almost unimaginable level in the confrontation between these two fierce souls and produces an extraordinary portrait of stubbornness, courage and selflessness in Miss Pross.
There are two similarly intense scenes playing out in parallel to Miss Pross´ stand. The anxious flight of the Manettes and the final journey of Sydney Carton.
Together they are almost too much. Too much pathos, too much tension. We have incredible portraits of fear, desperation, courage, sacrifice, redemption, hope and anger.
This is an unusual Dickens novel, in so much as it is narrative rather than character driven. It´s a shame he didn´t write more thrillers, because that´s what this felt like: the best of thrillers.
Of course, in telling people what an outstanding writer Dickens was, I´m hardly breaking news. But having read Little Dorrit, Nicholas Nickleby and The Pickwick Papers in the preceding months – all wonderful in their different ways – I wasn´t expecting this thrilling rollercoaster ride.