I’ve started A Tale of Two Cities and realised I don’t know the plot at all. I know there’s a love triangle with Lucy Manette, Charles Darnay and Sydney Carton and it’s about the French Revolution because I read the Shadowhunter books years ago, and I know there’s a woman who knits during an execution (so does my mum who never read it). I thought about it and I don’t know the plotlines of any Dickens novel (except *Oliver Twist* and *A Christmas Carol* I read for uni). I know of characters like Little Nell and Miss Havisham but that’s it. I read so many wikipedia summaries I don’t know how I missed Dickens.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar? Where you think you know about a classic but it turns out you don’t?
by msnoname24
6 Comments
I read a book to learn the plot of the book.
This sounds just like my experience reading Ulysses by James Joyce for the first time. I thought I had acquired a general outline of the plot in my head over the years. Oh how wrong I was!
I imagine there are a lot of folks out there who are familiar with the overall plot of many classics through adaptations like Wishbone, so the finer details (including some of the more grim/mature elements) might not be part of their vague recollections. It’s me. I’m folks.
I read that recently and had the EXACT same realization! It was great to see all the pieces fall into place. And oh, gosh, there are some wonderful descriptive passages! I vote that you keep reading and discover for yourself, but I won’t judge if you look up a summary.
Wishbone on PBS taught me all the plotlines of famous books.
I think most people THINK they know the plot of Frankenstein but on reading the novel get a completely different story than what Hollywood has portrayed in it’s adaptations
Edit: same goes for dracula actually.