Review | Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities brought to life by Simon Callow
Plus, tedious navel gazing masquerading as a guide to living with less from blogger Cait Flanders
by Charles Dickens (read by Simon Callow)
Audible
4.5/5 stars
British actor Simon Callow is probably best known for his rabble-rousing turn as party animal Gareth in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral. Here, his fluting voice, so often turned to comedic affect, sounds sombre without being earnest.
A handy introduction, written and spoken by Callow himself, places the novel in the context of world events and Dickens’ own career.
Although the mood is elegiac (see the final paragraphs concluding with “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known”), Callow exhibits the full “resonance of the human voice” whether he is roaring out Mr Cruncher the porter and body-snatcher or savouring the description of horses’ “drooping heads and tremulous tails”.
The best of audiobooks. James Kidd