"Liberté, égalité, fraternité or death" indeed.
Two confessions, first, this was my first Dickens book, with both this work and the great writer often labeled as the most read of all time I thought I best give it a try. Second, I had thought that he wrote books for children, I believe this happened as in my mind I had conflated the famous Dickens character Scrooge with Scrooge McDuck from Ducktails!
I am glad to have started Dickens, and glad to clear up my folly. This is a wonderful, complex, (and adult!) book.
We have an intertwining story set over the decade or so leading up to the terror period of the French Revolution. The social commentary is excellent, vividly portraying the injustice, cruelty, and rage of both the ancien regime and what the revolution became "the evil of this time and that what birthed it". Even the evil characters have very human origin stories, products of their situation not fully in control of them.
Yet most of the time we spend in England, and I would note the same criticisms are not leveled at British society, most of the characters are upper class, with only fleeting (though entertaining) forays into the working classes.
It is structured in three books, and I found them quite different. The first is long and seemingly meandering, though full of genuinely beautiful writing - 3*. Second picks up the pace and notches up the tension, including an astonishing section at the Bastille - truly one of the best passages I've ever read, pulsating with a furious energy - 4*. And the third brings everything together during an emotional rollercoaster, dramatic, heart wrenching, brilliant - 5*.
An investment that Tellson's bank would have been proud to be a part of, it really pays off.