tale of two cities [dickens]

Dickens is such a canonical part of British culture, whilst at the same time there’s something so relentlessly pedestrian about him, that it’s hard to know how to engage with him. A contemporary of Flaubert or Eliot, lacking any real psychological insight; a political writer who rails against injustice and yet manages to feel profoundly conservative in his approach to the act of writing. The connection between Loach and Dickens runs deep. A very British instinct to disassociate content and form which makes for the creation of stylistically barren works of radicalism. The British addiction to social realism writ large. 

All of which is, of course, not entirely fair. There are passages in Dickens’ writing which possess a heightened, poetic quality, one which offers another dimension to the storytelling. Not merely descriptive passages, but meditations on the nature of contemporary existence. Dickens looks down on his characters from on-high, a puppet master. They dance to his tune, which is part of the reason they never seem to be three-dimensional; they are too in thrall to the requirements of their creator. As a result, these sequences always feel slightly disconnected from the novel, they are rhetorical flourishes which frame the narrative, rather than propel it. 

Tale of Two Cities is a curious novel in so far as it’s one of the few Dickensian works which is largely set beyond the borders of the UK, as well as being set in the past.  An innate patriotism is stirred. The cornerstone of his writing, a critique of contemporary British society, is neutered. The writer seems genuinely conflicted regarding the subject matter he has chosen. On the one hand, he’s a writer who rails against social injustice. On the other, his horror at the forces unleashed by revolution is evident. Somewhere in the middle of this dialectic lies the synthesis of British moderation, a common sense or common humanity which means the British remain reluctant to engage with the forces of extremism. (There are traces of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Coriolanus to be found in this dilemma). It’s here that the Dickensian conservatism seeks its redemption. Change must be evolutionary, rather than radical. Flights of fancy might be permitted, but the characters will remain grounded, servicing the story at all times. Perhaps this is what makes Dickens seem like such a quintessentially British writer. 

How curious to find ourselves living in an epoch when it seems as though this Dickensian dialectic has been turned on its head. For the first time in 350 years it is the British who are acting in accordance with what has always been perceived, on British shores, to be a radical, dangerous continental model; whilst paradoxically seeking to move away from what is being represented as the over-regulated, straight-laced narrative constraints of the Europeans. So much of modern European history, on both sides of The Channel, can be traced back to the events of the French revolution. The Dickensian distaste for revolution, made plain in Tale of Two Cities, has been cast aside. The sober continentals look on in dismay as the furious Brexiteer tricoteurs knit their utopian dreams.