Read Merrily: December 2005

Saturday, December 31, 2005

A Christmas Carol

Reading Dickens, i've decided, is not really my thing. I find it too wordy and laboured and it bores me a little. That said, listening to Dickens is a whole different ball game. I downloaded this one from a free Podcast, in 5 easy stages, and listened to it as i was getting ready to sleep over several nights. It was the full version but i much preferred having it read to me. Dickens lends itself very well to performance i think and possibly to being delivered in chunks in the way it was often done, serialised in the papers of the era.

I have to say, then, that i very much enjoyed this one in the format i partook of it. It's a funny book, an emotional book, a gentle and sometimes not so gentle poke at human nature. At times it is brutal and judging and with a message in it that is just as relevant, perhaps even more so, today as it was then. It is touching to see Scrooge want to change, to be easily changed, to be mortified and humbled by the person he has become. I don't think that tv versions do that side of it justice; they show, for dramatic effect perhaps, a man who has to be tuned, but the book shows a Scrooge who is humiliated and brought low by his lowness from almost the beginning. It is a story of someone getting their comeuppance early, for their own good. it is a story of faith, perhaps, a story of friendship, of change, of doing right.

I came unstuck trying to decide if Scrooge would have changed had he only seen his affect on other people and not seen that he was hated and despised. The Scrooge at the beginning of the book wouldn't have cared, the Scrooge after one spirit has already begun to care. Does he care that his chains are waiting or that he has brought sadness? I'm not sure it is that cut and dried, i think there are elements of both in there - change for good for others, change to change his own future, beyond that which is bound by living time. Clever Dickens, more than meets the eye there, i felt.

I think, in the end, i am most fascinated by something that i blogged; why, when this story is the story of a man changing, of a man rebeginning, of a man making amends do we use the term Scrooge to refer to a person who is mean? It should refer to someone who is the opposite, someone who befits the moral of the story. Do we, the reader, decern his true motivation? Is that why Scrooge lives on, because he reminds us of our own natural selfishness?

12:32 PM 0 comments

Friday, December 23, 2005

Back to the point.

Picked up Vicky Angel today in Oxfam and read it instead of talking to the children. Its the first of her books i've read. I can see the appeal, i'd have liked books like that when i was growing up. it's about 14 year olds but i can't see kids older than about 9-10 thinking it was something they wanted to read. I think Fran would quite like it in a couple of years; maybe a bit too in your face before that. A good description of those feelings of teenage grief after a death though, liked that side of it a lot.

Also read Case Histories by Kate Atkinson - excellent story, well worth a read. Also The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory, another take on the Elizabeth/Dudley thing.

EDIT: And The Wish List by Eoin Colfer. Not quite up to the early Artemis books, but a good read, i liked it. Lots of inventive ideas and a good twist on the "buy a second chance to get into heaven" idea.

3:19 PM 0 comments

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Yet more spiritual porridge.

But now Josie goes to bed of an evening, i'm going to get back to reading some of those big books on my shelf.

I've had a bit of a Dan Brown fest recently, aided and abetted by MyBookYourBook which is just such a great thing - please sign up, it deserves to be well supported. I've yet to send a book of my own out, though spookily received one from someone who knew me!

So, first it was The Da Vinci Code - started brilliantly, kept me enthralled the whole way through . Enjoyed it, and the genre, enormously. Then i read Angels and Demons, not as good and a bit silly but still a gripper, The Deception Point which i really rated and finally Digital Fortress which i thought was weak by comparison to the others. But i'd like to read more similar stuff; Max has been recommending Michael Crighton.

Since then i've read Chick Lit, to see me through novelling and a busy period. Restoring Grace by Katie Fforde, her best in a long while, though ended a bit weakly. After that it was Love Rules by Freya North, again her best in a while, much better than Pip and Fen and excellent for not having a perfect wrap up of an ending. Well done Freya. Loved it. Now i'm reading Case Histories by Kate Atkinson, another writer i rate highly.

After that i'm going to go for Far From the Madding Crowd and i've just ordered 5 more from MBYB that are all on my list of Top 100. Going to crack that this year, i'm on the home straight. Gave up on Midnight's Children. What a load of tosh.

5:18 PM 0 comments

An attempt to get through everything i haven't already read in the BBC Big Read Top 100 during this year (hmmmm... maybe a little longer than 2004 actually... didn't bargain on the pregnancy and baby!!!!!)

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