Re: A Tale Of Two Cities question
Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Thu, 4 Jun 1998 11:41:18 -0100
My dear Sir,
Coincidence is essential to fiction. Novels relate to real life in the
way they show us the struggle to maintain the good over the bad, or the
struggle to achieve self knowledge. In real life these ends are almost
always attained - when they are - through a series of unrelated episodes. We
strive and fail to maintain the good in one set of circumstances. Learning
from our failure, we strive again in another, and perhaps succeed. We fail
to perceive ourselves as we are, in one set of circumstances, with one set
of people. Learning again from failure, we perhaps do perceive ourselves as
we are, in quite another set of circumstances, with quite another set of
people. Novels make us see these processes more clearly through a process
of intensification. Just one set of people are involved, just one great
central circumstance. There is a circularity which makes the errors and
their resolutions more striking.
That is why you will find coincidence in all of my novels.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
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>Mr. Dickens is a very talented writer, but one must believe in the constant
coincidences that he constantly uses, such as in "A Tale of Two Cities."
>What possessed you to use so many coincidences and how does it add to your
stories.
>
>
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Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author