Festive Review:- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I don't know if I've mentioned that Dickens and I do not usually get along. I've only read two of his novels so far, Great Expectations and Hard Times both of which were horrendously hard work and if not for them being required reading for uni, I doubt I would have ever finished either of them. It would have been a shame as I ended up really liking both of them but still, Dickens is not what I usually turn to when I'm in such a lazy reading mood as I have been lately. In light of this fact, you can imagine my surprise when amongst all the re-reads and Jane Austen related reading I've been doing this month I suddenly got an insatiable urge to read A Christmas Carol. It was like there was an actual voice in my head telling me I needed to read it, right that second, and I'm thinking, (whiny voice) 'but it'll be hard work and full of description which means I'll have to concentrate and nothing will happen for the first half of the book...'. I was wrong about all of these things.

Just to clarify, I am aware that this is a picture of the Muppet's Christmas Carol, but my book doesn't have a pretty cover image, and the Muppets are awesome and part of my tradition Christmas viewing schedule, so there we go.

Despite never having read A Christmas Carol before, I don't remember ever not knowing the story. Ebenezer Scrooge has been a character in my head all of my life, and his visitations from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future are such a part of my feelings about the point of Christmas that it was kind of as if I was re-reading the story. The classic tale of the tight-fisted, miserable Scrooge who is visited by three ghosts who help him to see the error of his ways and become a much better person was exactly right for my mood. I've been very down about the state of the world recently, and in the space of 184 pages, Dickens managed to restore my faith in people's capacity for humanity and change. I know that Scrooge is just a character in a book, but let's face it, he's got to be up there with the most iconic and well-known characters from books ever, and reading A Christmas Carol  has not only made me feel happy and hopeful, but also changed my attitude towards Dickens. I'm actually excited to read more of his books now! I've been trying so hard for so long to get excited about reading Dickens - how weird is it that it just happened like that, by random?

A Classics Challenge

Continuing with my plans for reading my own books and library books only for as long as possible in 2012, I’ve signed up for what seems like it will be an awesome challenge. Katherine at Novembers Autumn is hosting A Classics Challenge, for which all you have to do is make a list of 7 classics you plan to read in 2012. On the 4^th of every month, she will post questions on her blog, and the idea is for participants to answer these questions which will be broad enough to apply to whatever book people happen to be reading. Also, you only have to commit to question answering during three months of the entire year, which is great for people who are a bit rubbish at consistently remembering about all the challenges they’ve signed up for, like me!

So here is my list of the seven classics I’m hoping to read in 2012:

1.       The Odyssey – Homer

2.       The Awakening – Kate Chopin

3.       Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoevsky

4.       Shirley – Charlotte Bronte

5.       The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Bronte

6.       North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell

7.       A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway

All of these are currently on my 'Classics' shelf, and all of them are books I've been trying to get to for a while!

Sorry about all the challenge sign up posts going up at the moment, I’m getting them out of the way and will get back to the reviews soon I promise!

The Three Musketeers Readalong : Part 1

I've wanted to read this book for a long time, so when I found out about the readalong, I had to join in! As a child, I remember watching loads of adaptations of The Three Musketeers. In the first 29 chapters, though, everything I remember happening in the animated children's series, has already happened, so I'm really interested to see what happens next!

When I started reading, I really didn't think I was going to like the characters at all. D'Artagnan in particular, came across as a bit of a self-important, oversensitive child, and all of them really, seemed overly ready to draw their swords for the smallest percieved insult. Within about ten minutes of being in Paris, D'Artagnan managed to offend, and thus end up engaged to duel, each of the Three Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. When they are attacked by the Cardinal's guards, D'Artagnan steps up to help the musketeers, after which they take him on as their protege, and somewhere along the line, I started to like him. His self-importance became determination, oversensitivity, romanticism, and the desire to duel with everyone has turned into a really quite touching bravery, and desire to defend and protect his friends. I do feel that so far, a lot of the time, D'Artagnan comes across as a boy, pretending to be a man.

I've only been reading this two chapters a day, and to be honest, I think that's probably what's keeping it fresh for me. There have been days when I've wanted to read lots more than two, and equally days where the two have seemed like an impossible chore, although there have definitely been less of these! The only other Dumas book I've read is The Count of Monte Cristo, which is an absolutely huge, beast of a book. I really enjoyed it, but I (and my sister) both did manage to skip a fair few chapters in the middle where not much was happening, and pcik it up again at the end, not having missed much. So far with The Three Musketeers, I'm wanting to stick with it all the way through, for the most part.

Like a lot of people, though, I'm finding it hard to get to grips with the terrible lack of morals the musketeers have. It's equally hard to balance this lack of morals, with the kind of religious scenes which run through the book. The chapter about Aramis' thesis was the one I found hardest to get through, so far.  I do feel, though, that the novel is much more about the characters than the setting, and, for me, the two haven't really connected yet. It may sound like a silly thing to say about a novel that's so specifically French, but to me, the setting just hasn't really come alive. Thankfully, the adventure side of the story totally makes up for any of the things which are lacking.

I'm really looking forward to finding out what happens in the last half of the book!

The Man who Would be King and Other Stories by Rudyard Kipling

In my last post, I wrote about the difficulty I was having wading through this book, short as it is. Well, I've finally finished it, and it's taken me a week. I am literally so relieved to be done! That being said, at no point did I feel like giving up on it. On paper, the collection is the kind of thing I should really love: the women and children are the heroes, and the men, mostly, are fairly useless. However, and for no reason I can work out, it just didn't grab my attention like a lot of the things I've been reading lately have. While reading it, I could see all of its' literary merit, and that it was very well written and structured. I think that maybe I just didn't relate to it too well. Having said that, the stories that I enjoyed the most (and actually got through without counting how many pages it was until the end!) were the ones featuring children as the central protagonists, and heroic characters. Most notably, 'Wee Willie Winkie', 'Baa Baa Black Sheep', and 'His Majesty the King'. They all showed the way that children unconsciously relate and respond to adults, and also, their resourcefulness, bravery, and the pain that they can go through as a result of adults not always understanding them. I think what I liked the most about these three stories was the authenticity of the children's voices. As opposed to the adult characters in other stories, they were very genuine and guileless, rather than contrived and manipulating, which is how many of the adults came across.
Oddly enough, I've not been put off wanting to read more Kipling. I'd still like to give 'The Jungle Books', and 'Kim' a go, but I think it will be a while before I attempt another one...

Rating: ***

White Boots and Dancing Shoes, by Noel Streatfeild

For a while, I've wondered why it is that Noel Streatfeild writes so much about 'shoes', and about children in the showbusiness and entertainment worlds, and then I discovered that she was an actress herself, before becoming a writer. For me, the worlds conjured up by her books were always hugely vivid, and on re-reading them, I was not disappointed. As an adult (supposedly, anyway!) reading Streatfeild's work is as delicious and comforting as it was when I was eight, and I think that this is a product of her consistency and attention to detail, coupled with her ability to create characters who resonate with her readers.

My copy of 'White Boots' is absolutely ancient! It may well have belonged to my mother in her youth, and I certainly remember first having this copy read to me as a bedtime story, many years ago. In comparison, the copy of 'Dancing Shoes that I have is one of the re-released ones, with the very girly pink covers, which makes it look like an Angelina Ballerina book! Subject-wise, though, the books are very similar, probably unsurprisingly, given their respective publication dates of 1951 and 1957.

'White Boots' is about Hilary Johnson, a girl from a poor family, whose doctor prescribes that she go skating as a way to build up her strength after a long illness. At the rink, she meets Lalla Moore, a girl whose father was a skating world champion, and since his death, her aunt has convinced her, and everyone around her, that she will follow in his footsteps. The book follows the story of their friendship, and not only the differences between being rich and poor, but the advantages money can bring as well as highlighting the emptiness it can cause in the life of an only child.

'Dancing Shoes' also highlights social inequality, as well as sharing the sort of morals present in lots of Streatfeild's books; that people who are nice usually get good things happening to them. It has similarites to 'Ballet Shoes', which is a book I love!

It is about orphaned Rachel Lennox, and her adopted sister Hilary. After their mother's death, they are brought to live with their aunt and uncle, and spoiled cousin, Dulcie. Simply put, Dulcie is the star of her mother's dancing school, and really doesn't like it when Hilary turns out to be as good as her. Again, this is basically the story of the relationship between Rachel and Hilary, and about people getting their just deserts.

Streatfeild has a way of describing things exactly as you can imagine a child of the time might, and this, as well as the wish-fulfillment quality of her storylines, where her characters always end up getting the thing they have worked and hoped for, is what makes me love her books. I could keep reading them forever, but I feel that I need to stretch my brain a bit after three of her books in a row, so I'll take a break for now, but there's a pile of her books in the corner which will be calling out to me before long!!

Rating: both *****