Bővebb ismertető
INTRODUCTION
A Tale of Two Cities is both the least typical oL all Dickens' novels and the one that most deeply symbolizes the entire drive of his career. It is one of his shortest, only some 100,000 words as against a usual length of 380,000. It has none of the discursive elaboration of episode and character that makes his more monumental novels resemble some intricate Gothic cathedral, bursting out into casual substructures and comic detail and crowded with incidental figures. The Vincent Crummies theatrical troupe, for example, in Nicholas Nic^leby, are pure frisky embroidery; Quilp, the malign dwarf of The Old Curiosity Shop, is a demon from a frieze; little Miss Mowcher and Uriah Heep in David Copperfield are gargoyles; and the oily Chadband, in Blea\ House, might have provided some medieval carver with the model for a fat monk squatting cross-legged on the capital of a column.
In contrast, the plot of A Tale of Two Cities subdues every detail to its stark speed of purpose. All of its small group of characters are essential to their function, none introduced merely for fun or in sheer creative ecstasy. Indeed, it has little of that unquenchable hilarity that overflows Dickens' serious intent in its predecessor. Little Dorrit, and its successor, Great Expectations; no such laughable outpourings as the breathless and disjointed volubility of Flora Pinching or scenes like Mr. Wopsle's tragically preposterous performance as Hamlet. With only the smallest glints of comedic exception, A Tale of
vii