I'm just not getting it. And I'm going to be brave and voice all my ignorance and THEN go look stuff up on the internet.
This does not seem to be a tale of two cities. To me it's a tale of one city (Paris during the revolution) with the second city existing only as an escape location for some characters. The very famous beginning, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times," yada yada yada makes me think the story is really going to compare/contrast London and Paris. Does the reader have to be a British Dickensian contemporary to see the comparison? (Or a historian?)
All this makes me sound like I didn't like the book. Which is not true. In fact, I found myself not wanting to put it down at some points. I just figured the best place to start a discussion is at the beginning, no?
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I definitely felt like there were parts where Dickens was painting a portrait of London at that time. But I think you are right that it primarily seems to be about Paris during the revolution. And to be honest, neither one of them came off sounding like the best of times when told from the perspective of the poor. I'd like to spend some time on why he thought it was the best of times.
Did your edition have a lot of endnotes? Did you read them as you went or not until the end?
Sorry for my brevity. I kept waiting for a longer period of leisure to write a comment and shockingly, it never came! So I am snagging two minutes before I catch the bus to say that I finished and that I am excited to discuss it!
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