Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
Hey, English learners, this is Connor, and you're listening to episode 269 of the Listening Time Podcast.
I hope you're doing great.
I hope that you're ready to practice your listening comprehension with another episode.
Today we're going to talk about a couple books that I read recently.
I'm gonna do some book reviews.
I'm not gonna go into too much detail, but I do want to warn you that there will be spoilers in this episode.
A spoiler is when someone tells you
What happens in a book or a movie or something before you've seen it.
So, for example, they might ruin the ending for you.
Because they tell you what happened before you have even read the book.
So if you are very interested in reading these two books that I'm going to talk about,
Then I recommend that you read them first before you listen to this episode.
I'm going to talk about A Tale of Two Cities and Crime and Punishment.
These are the two books that I read recently that...
I want to talk about, I have kind of an informal book club with a few members at my church
We had started reading books and then we discussed them.
But I finished these two books way before they did.
And so they're still reading this second book today.
They're probably halfway through or something, but I finished it weeks ago, probably two or three weeks ago, and so I want to talk about it, but I have no one to talk about it with because I
I can't spoil the ending for the other people in my book club.
So I thought it would be a good idea
To talk to you guys about my thoughts regarding these two books.
My thoughts will be scattered, meaning not organized.
They'll be all over the place.
And there might be some harder vocabulary in this episode.
I don't know.
But this should be good listening practice for you and maybe vocabulary practice as well.
So that's what I'm going to talk about today.
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Okay, let me talk about these two books.
First, I'll talk a little bit about A Tale of Two Cities.
So this book was already finished by the other members of
Of my book club except for one person and I was able to talk about it a little bit with them but I still want to talk a little more about it here today because A Tale of Two Cities
Is actually one of my favorite books.
I'm sure some of you have heard of this if you translate the title to your language because this is a very famous book.
It's probably one of the greatest selling books of all time, I'm guessing.
I don't know if that's true, but it's a very famous book by Charles Dickens.
Charles Dickens is also one of my favorite authors.
He wrote many books.
A lot of them are very famous.
He wrote books many, many years ago, so nothing recent, of course.
I love A Tale of Two Cities, and this was actually the third time I have read the book.
I wouldn't normally do this.
I'm not someone who goes back and reads the same book multiple times or watches the same content like movie or TV series multiple times.
That's not really...
Who I am.
I prefer to go on to new content, read new books.
However, this is an exception.
I have read A Tale of Two Cities three times now and that should show you that it's one of my favorites.
I think one of the reasons why this book stands out, meaning it is more noteworthy, it's more memorable or different from some of his other books,
Is because the plot, which is the story of the book, is unlike any of his other plots of other novels that he wrote.
The reason why I'm saying this is because A Tale of Two Cities is kind of like historical fiction.
It revolves around the events leading up to and during and after the French Revolution.
I don't think Charles Dickens wrote other books that were so historical like this.
Obviously, the book is not just about history, and some people might say that the historical elements...
Aren't 100% historically accurate.
They never are when it's historical fiction, of course.
But what I'm saying is
This historical element is unique to this book.
In his other books, they're different.
They're not like historical fiction like this book.
So the book revolves around the French Revolution and
And specifically, there are a handful of characters whom the book follows, and these characters are in England and in France.
There are some complicated relationships and storylines, and it's very rewarding to see how all of the characters end up
And to follow them throughout the story.
I think that most people, if they read the whole book, would probably like it.
Of course, when it comes to classic literature, not everyone likes to read these types of novels.
I think that A Tale of Two Cities is probably one of the classic novels that most people like, even if they're not really into classic novels.
However, I do want to warn you that the beginning of the book
Can be hard to read, especially if you're new to classic literature.
The first few chapters can be really challenging for people,
And the first third of the book maybe is not very fast paced.
So the first third of the book moves very slowly.
Maybe even more than the first third, but at least the first third moves slowly.
However, it speeds up as you get further along into the book.
And if you stick with it, meaning you don't quit, you will feel very rewarded and satisfied, I think, at the end because it's a very memorable ending experience.
And it's an ending that you think about even in the future after you read the book, at least I do.
What is the theme of the book?
Well, the theme could be summarized in one phrase.
This phrase is used
In the book itself, the phrase is recalled to life.
And this phrase sounds very cryptic.
At first but it makes sense as you read the book recalled to life so why recalled to life
Well, there are several storylines throughout the book where we see this idea of someone or something being dead or
Almost dead or dead in some form, but then later on they receive new life.
They receive life again even though it seemed like they were dead or almost dead or on the brink of death.
When you're on the brink of death, that means that you're very close to death.
So the book is.
Saturated with this theme, meaning it's filled with this theme.
For example, Dr. Manette, one of the main characters, he was locked away in a prison for many, many years.
He was in a French prison and
Many people thought he was dead, but then one day he was released from the prison and in a way came back to life.
Obviously, he wasn't really dead, but you get the point.
He was restored back to a normal life, kind of.
Also, another main character in the book, Charles Darnay.
This happened to him twice, really, where he was on the brink of death.
He was about to be condemned to die in two different countries actually, and both times he was saved even though it was like certain that he was gonna be condemned to die.
So he was recalled to life twice.
There's also a character in the book, Jerry, who does a very dishonorable type of work that
Where he digs up people's coffins once they have died and been buried, and he makes money from
The body that's there in the ground.
I won't give more details about it.
It's not a pleasant topic, but he kind of recalls these bodies back to the living world, brings them up out of the ground.
And perhaps the greatest image of Recalled to Life comes from one of the main characters named Carton.
I'm gonna give a spoiler here, so if you don't want to hear this, make sure you skip this part.
But he ends up sacrificing himself in a very noble way.
And before he does that, he reminds himself of the Bible verses, the scriptures.
That talk about how when someone believes on the Lord Jesus Christ, they shall never die, meaning never perish in hell.
They will have eternal life and go to heaven.
They are recalled to life in that way, right?
So that is all the detail that I'll give on that.
But of course, that was already a big spoiler.
I won't give any other spoilers here.
Overall, it's
A great book there's a reason why so many people love it and like i already mentioned before it has one of the greatest endings
I think it's one of the greatest endings in literature.
I go back and think about that ending from time to time and I think that it's a very satisfying read, a very satisfying book.
Some people might criticize the book for different reasons.
I've seen this online.
I get it.
But I think it's such a popular, famous book for good reason.
Okay, now let me talk a little bit about the book Crime and Punishment.
This is one of the masterpieces of Russian literature.
If you look up greatest Russian novels, this will definitely be on the top 10 lists that you find on the internet.
It is one of the greatest Russian novels people would consider it.
So I'll be quite honest, this is not my cup of tea, meaning this book is not really the type of book that I prefer.
If you want to know my exact preference, my favorite classic literature, I really like 1800s to early 1900s British literature.
A lot of my favorite books come from that era, that country.
It's just what resonates with me as a reader.
So I have not really had any experience with older Russian literature.
I think I had read one book before this one, but this was an introduction for me to this style of literature from that
Era, that country.
The reason why I say it's not my cup of tea is because the main character is not the type of main character that I really like.
Like.
If you read just a few chapters of the novel, you'll already see what I'm talking about.
He's not a likable character for me.
Another thing is that it's
A little bit too much like stream of consciousness for my liking.
This refers to when authors kind of just write and write and write, maybe from their own narration or maybe the person's thoughts in the book.
But they write it in a very fluid way without really stopping much and organizing much.
It's a type of writing, and I'm not saying that this whole novel is written like this.
Of course not.
But the way that the main character thinks, it feels like this a little bit.
It feels like I'm in the mind of...
Person who is very disturbed of course that's what the book is obviously and that's not really my cup of tea
The mood is not my favorite.
The setting is not my favorite.
Even though today I would love to visit St. Petersburg, which is where...
The book is set, but this book is set many, many years ago.
So it's obviously different than St. Petersburg today, of course.
So there were a number of things that I wasn't a huge fan of.
However, I will say I enjoyed the book, even though it's not my cup of tea.
And even though I just mentioned things that I
I was not a huge fan of.
I actually did enjoy it, and that's why I finished it way faster than the other members of the book club, aside from the fact that I read more than they do.
I also had periods where I just didn't put the book down.
I just read more and more, more than I had planned on reading.
Because I did enjoy it.
It was enjoyable because I actually appreciate the idea behind the book, actually, the philosophy behind the writing of the book.
I also thought it was written in a way that kept me interested.
So I know it sounds like a contradiction.
I said that this wasn't my cup of tea, but I enjoyed it.
But that's the truth.
Like, I wouldn't come back and read this book again.
And I probably wouldn't want to read a lot of books that are very similar to this book but this book itself was entertaining for me.
I was engaged when I was reading it.
I hope that makes sense.
Like, A Tale of Two Cities is more my cup of tea.
I would read other books similar to it.
It is exactly the type of literature I like, whereas Crime and Punishment
It was enjoyable, but I don't necessarily want to read a lot of literature like this.
So now let me just give a synopsis, just a very general summary of the book, and there's going to be spoilers here, so if you don't want to hear what happens...
Stop listening now or skip a couple of minutes.
I'm almost done here.
But the book is about this main character who commits a really brutal murder of two people, actually, and then it follows the aftermath.
Meaning what happens after the murder.
He has psychosis, it seems like, and delirium, like he's hallucinating.
You don't know if his thoughts are actually of real things or not.
He's confused.
He's
Just in a very weird state of mind.
And he goes through all of these moral and philosophical questions and difficulties afterwards.
And throughout the whole novel, he is...
Trying to avoid being captured, avoid being found out, like he is trying to make sure they don't find out that he committed the crimes.
So that's basically the summary of the story.
For some of you that might sound not so interesting.
For some of you it might sound really interesting.
Actually, the other people in my book club, they're really enjoying it.
This is more their cup of tea.
Like I said, even though it's not my type of book,
I still devoured it, meaning like I ate it up very quickly and read it fast because it is interesting.
However, if this sounds too dark and just brutal for you, then don't read it, of course.
I'm not really giving recommendations here.
I'm just...
Telling you what the book is about.
And of course, the book asks this question and deals with the question of the reason behind the murder, like why he committed the murder, the philosophy behind it.
And the book follows
The main character and his realization after the murder of certain hard truths about himself, the world.
It's a very philosophical book.
And there's a reason why people consider it one of the great masterpieces of Russian literature.
It's a very important book.
In Russian history and I was interested by it.
I enjoyed reading it somewhat.
I should say that even though, yes, I was interested in it and enjoyed it,
It disturbed me as well, so I didn't like that, but I think you get my point.
It was still entertaining and engaging, even though it was disturbing and I didn't like what was happening.
I was disgusted.
It somehow was still an engaging read, I would say.
So I won't say any more.
I won't spoil any more.
I hope that you guys enjoyed hearing me.
Uh talk in a very disorganized way about these two books uh thank you for listening i just wanted to talk a little bit about these two books that i recently read
Because I love talking about literature.
So hopefully you enjoyed this.
Remember to follow this podcast if you find it useful.
And also you can support me by joining my membership.
And you'll also get listening training and bonus content if you sign up.
And if you want my advanced episodes in which I speak fast, you can become a listening time family member specifically and check out my us conversations podcast.
So you can practice listening to two people speaking and not just one.
That will be one of the next steps for you if this normal podcast has become pretty easy.
So those links are down below.
Thank you all for listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
