A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

read by Frank Muller

reviewed by Rachel Murphy 

I first happened upon Frank Muller’s reading of A Tale of Two Cities (Recorded Books, 1986) from our local library last year, and it was clearly a well-used volume of cassettes. The sound quality of at least one of them made it nearly impossible to follow along, especially over the hum of the sewing machine. (Being a full-time seamstress, I often employ audiobooks as companions throughout the day.)

 

Having become more and more taken—indeed, obsessed—by Dickens over the past couple of years, I felt rather guilty about not having read this famous work, which seemed to have been standard fare for most high school students and which is now, unfortunately, replaced by Great Expectations—another comparatively shorter work of Dickens, which is more conventionally Dickensian, but also a less intriguing story. A Tale of Two Cities is Dickens at his best, his most focused.

After finishing the audiobook—in floods of tears, of course—I brought it back to the library, not realizing what a lasting effect it had had on me until, months later, I found myself “hearing” phrases from the book in Muller’s rich voice. They repeated again and again in my mind, like the incessant waves of the sea. Having recently subscribed to the Audible program, I was able to download a good recording of A Tale, and have, I confess, listened to it at least 3 more times within about an eight-week period.

With a book which has arguably the most famous first and last lines in all of English literature (though I would beg the unfamiliar reader not to look up the last line before reading the whole thing!), how could one not be intrigued when it is read with such expression: It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…

A Tale is a novel of the French Revolution, a time of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death; a novel of the turbulent workings of the two rival cities of London and Paris, and each city’s claims upon the fates of the main characters. The reader cannot help but be drawn in immediately, as a mysterious messenger “on a Friday night late in November” has business dealings with a passenger on the Dover mail. Soon we find that we are not in the usual Dickens territory, but something approaching that of Hugo or Dumas: a certain Dr. Manette has been found alive after being nearly forgotten after eighteen years in the Bastille prison; his daughter, Lucie, who was raised in England and believed him dead, must recall him to life; then, a treason case, where the recently-acquired friend of the Manettes, Charles Darnay—another Frenchman—is accused of treason, of supposedly aiding the French against Britain in the American Revolution, and in which trial the Manettes are to stand as witnesses against the prisoner. And this is only the beginning.

Soon we meet other characters besides the compassionate Lucie, upright Darnay, and the loveable “man of business” Mr. Lorry. To name a few, there is the shouldering, driving attorney Mr. Stryver, who seems altogether “too big for any place, or space”; and Stryver’s alcoholic, listless—indeed, somewhat manic-depressive—partner and jackal, Mr. Sydney Carton, who is the unacknowledged brains of the operation; the loveable, crusty Miss Pross; and the rather wicked but ultimately endearing character of Mr. Cruncher, a messenger for Tellson’s Bank by day and a grave-robber by night. And in Paris, like a shadow looming over the destinies of all, is the ever-menacing, ever-knitting figure of the vengeful Madame Defarge, who deals equally in blood and wine and who, with the fingers of Fate, knits into her registers the names of those who are ripe for cutting by the shears of La Guillotine.

Frank Muller, a classically-trained Broadway actor, has a dark and musical voice, with a perfect expression and with an unparalleled power to create an atmosphere for the listener. His voice is sometimes harsh, sometimes gentle…always intense. Muller conveys, seemingly without effort, a sense of a deeper and darker shade to every line; he is never rushed, but ever-busily winds “the golden thread” about us. Stephen King, whose works Mr. Muller has read, has said: “[When Frank reads] the blind will see, the lame will walk, and the deaf will hear.” Praise indeed!

Muller reads from within, and not without, like the best actors; he lends a force and meaning to the almost poetic repetition of phrases and words that Dickens often employs, which would have been—and, indeed, has been—lost by any lesser narrator. Dickens clearly meant certain themes, especially that of death and resurrection, of vengeful “justice” vs. sacrificial love, to be brought home to the reader. But never has his thematic intent, for me, been so effective, as when the rich voice reads: recalled to life; the golden thread; the living sea; deep ditches, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers; something was coming in the echoes; the wine was red wine; “if it had been otherwise”; and innumerable other phrases, many of which must not be highlighted here, for fear of giving anything away.

Having recently listened to an audiobook of Cornelia Funke’s young-adult fantasy Inkheart, whose theme—a delight to all book and audiobook lovers—is of certain people who, with their voice, have the magical ability to, quite literally, bring a story to life from the pages, I certainly was reminded of Frank Muller. What is this strange alchemy? A magic potion whose ingredients consist of some delicate and rare balance of a perfect story, a perfect reader whose expression is perfectly suited to that story. Part of this alchemy, too, is that the work becomes only more wonderful, more moving and not less, with each listening; we might feel like awestruck Ratty in The Wind in the Willows, who, having heard a strange music before meeting the mysterious Piper, might go on listening to it forever, if he could.

In such a case, a human voice might have the same effect upon the ear as the finest piece of music on earth. Certainly, even were I never to hear another performance of Mr. Muller’s, his A Tale of Two Cities will remain in my memory as the finest and most moving audiobook of all time, and Mr. Muller himself as the most talented reader.