AJ Dunn Reads

  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens This novel takes place during the lead up and onset of the French Revolution. Dr. Manette is found, by his daughter Lucie who he's never met, making shoes in a room above a wine seller unable to remember who he is until he meets her after having spent eighteen years imprisoned. Later Charles Darnay is being tried for treason against the English Crown but is defended and acquitted. He is a French aristocrat who left France for England. The Manettes were witness to the trial, with Lucie showing deep sympathy for Darnay. They meet later on and he falls in love with her, asking Dr. Manette for her hand in marriage.  In France a Marquis runs down a child in his carriage, setting off the constant sentiment that the aristocracy abuses and cares little for the common folk. Darnay returns to France and confronts the Marquis, his uncle, about these things and renounces his family name and legacy. The Marquis is murdered. Manette relapses into hi...

  Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens This is the tale of an orphan named Oliver Twist who ends up finding his way to his original family, rising from the depths of the seedy underbelly of London to a life of love and means. Oliver is born in a workhouse and his mother dies. Mistreated, in typical Dickens style, Oliver runs away and falls in with a band of thieves who plan to use his innocence for their own evil ends. But one of them, Fagin, knows who Oliver is and has been told to keep him in a position of poverty and loneliness. Oliver Twist is full of delightfully awful characters, fully drawn in their wickedness. I often wonder when reading Dickens if people back then were really this terrible to one another. There is no compassion for poor little Oliver by anyone until he meets those who recognize a resemblance in his face to someone they loved who has passed. Oliver is repeatedly saved by them only to again be duped by Fagin and his crew, and dragged back into their realm. When ...

  David Copperfield by Charles Dickens In David Copperfield , Dickens explores his favorite themes of the industrial Victorian era: the exploitation of the weak and poor by the wealthy, and the moral integrity of the exploited versus the evil and greed of their superiors. The story follows the life of David Copperfield, who lives with his young mother and nursemaid as a young boy. As he grows he has to navigate an overbearing and abusive stepfather; an abusive schoolmaster; hunger and child labor; and the difficulties of making a life for himself out of those circumstances as he grows into adulthood. Along the way he encounters a large cast of characters, all with their own Dickensian quirks who help and hinder him along the way. Some he comes to love who then betray his trust and confidence, some he despises who return the favor, and some who seem bad at the beginning but become his saving graces. David Copperfield, himself, is very likeable, almost too likeable. He is morally upr...

  Hard Times by Charles Dickens My first foray into the world of Dickens long after my reading of Great Expectations , Hard Times explores the ideas of morality, and viewing the world in either black and white terms or in shades of gray. It asks whether we should focus on reason in all things or let our hearts be our guide in many things. Set in the industrial mid-19th century, Hard Times mainly follows Tom and Louisa Gradgrind through their youth, tutored to believe in nothing but the facts, into adulthood where reality is confused by the heart conflicting with reason. Tom grows into a man interested more in drink and gambling than in hard work. He is a character of self-interest in-so-far as it works out to his advantage, such is the case when he uses a working class man to act as a cover for himself to rob the bank he works for. The man is blamed and Tom is silent, until it is discovered that Tom was the robber. His own life is eventually saved from accountability because of h...