A Tale of Two Cities

I am so confused!!!! After reading the opening lines of this book, I knew I was in some trouble. It took me a good fifteen minutes to look up the meaning behind it and after I understood (or at least I think I do) I moved on to only become more and more perplexed. I am not even understaning the plot. The one thing I do understand is that Dicken's is supposed to be extremely sarcastic in this novel yet I am missing it completey. To be honest though, I am only on page 38 and should probably continue reading so that I can understand what is going on.