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3.02 AVERAGE
3.02 AVERAGE
Another cute story with lively, engaging characters. Again, I wouldn’t consider this a Christmas story though....
It had the typical Dickens charme but the ending didn't work for me.
Other than being baffled by that, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.The whole book has you guessing because you know there will be some kind of twist and I'll always be amused by the way the author writes characters.
Other than being baffled by that, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.The whole book has you guessing because you know there will be some kind of twist and I'll always be amused by the way the author writes characters.
First sentence: "Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought."
Last sentence: "I hardly know what weight to give to his authority."
After reading 'A Christmas Carol' and the disappointing 'A Christmas Tree' I wanted to stay a bit longer in the Christmas atmosphere, so I looked in my (extensive) e-book list to see if Dickens had some more stories set in this period of time. And of course he did. There were mentioned 5 so-called Christmas novels (A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth , The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain) among his works and some short stories. So I choose The Battle of Life, a short novella (78 pages) about the love between two sisters, Grace and Marion, and the sacrifice that one brings for the other. But why this story is called a Christmas book... I wouldn't know. The books begins on a warm summer day, twice the story enfolds in autumn and there is only one scene that takes place on a cold snowy winter night.
All in all, a heart-warming but rather simple read
Last sentence: "I hardly know what weight to give to his authority."
After reading 'A Christmas Carol' and the disappointing 'A Christmas Tree' I wanted to stay a bit longer in the Christmas atmosphere, so I looked in my (extensive) e-book list to see if Dickens had some more stories set in this period of time. And of course he did. There were mentioned 5 so-called Christmas novels (A Christmas Carol, The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth , The Battle of Life and The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain) among his works and some short stories. So I choose The Battle of Life, a short novella (78 pages) about the love between two sisters, Grace and Marion, and the sacrifice that one brings for the other. But why this story is called a Christmas book... I wouldn't know. The books begins on a warm summer day, twice the story enfolds in autumn and there is only one scene that takes place on a cold snowy winter night.
All in all, a heart-warming but rather simple read
I have mixed views on this, the fourth Christmas story. Difficult to read in parts but beautifully written in others. A peculiar plot with characters acting pretty peculiar too. My favourite character was Clemence and I especially liked Dickens description in the way that she moves. The ending was unsatisfactory leaving us with the notion that the couple may or may not have married and settled. All in all it was ok hence the two star.
Not my favorite of Dickens' short Christmas stories that I've read, but it was cute. Absolutely loved the character of Clemency.
Some quotes I liked:
"But Clemency, who was his good Genius—though he had the meanest possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her seldom troubling herself with abstract speculations, and being always at hand to do the right thing at the right time—having produced the ink in a twinkling, tendered him the further service of recalling him to himself by the application of her elbows; with which gentle flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more literal construction of that phrase than usual, that he soon became quite fresh and brisk."
"The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes it roared as if it would make music too. Sometimes it flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room: it winked too, sometimes, like a knowing patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes it sported with the holly-boughs; and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its genial humour grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation leaped and bounded, like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney."
"Though the host of the Nutmeg Grater had a lively regard for his good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind; and she amused him mightily. Nothing would have astonished him so much, as to have known for certain from any third party, that it was she who managed the whole house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift, good-humour, honesty, and industry, a thriving man. So easy it is, in any degree of life, (as the world very often finds it,) to take those cheerful natures that never assert their merit, at their own modest valuation; and to conceive a flippant liking of people for their outward oddities and eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we would look so far, might make us blush in the comparison!''
"Time—from whom I had the latter portion of this story, and with whom I have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance of some five and thirty years’ duration—informed me, leaning easily upon his scythe, that Michael Warden never went away again, and never sold his house, but opened it afresh, maintained a golden mean of hospitality, and had a wife, the pride and honor of that country-side, whose name was Marion. But as I have observed that Time confuses facts occasionally, I hardly know what weight to give to his authority."
Some quotes I liked:
"But Clemency, who was his good Genius—though he had the meanest possible opinion of her understanding, by reason of her seldom troubling herself with abstract speculations, and being always at hand to do the right thing at the right time—having produced the ink in a twinkling, tendered him the further service of recalling him to himself by the application of her elbows; with which gentle flappers she so jogged his memory, in a more literal construction of that phrase than usual, that he soon became quite fresh and brisk."
"The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes it roared as if it would make music too. Sometimes it flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room: it winked too, sometimes, like a knowing patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes it sported with the holly-boughs; and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its genial humour grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation leaped and bounded, like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney."
"Though the host of the Nutmeg Grater had a lively regard for his good-wife, it was of the old patronising kind; and she amused him mightily. Nothing would have astonished him so much, as to have known for certain from any third party, that it was she who managed the whole house, and made him, by her plain straightforward thrift, good-humour, honesty, and industry, a thriving man. So easy it is, in any degree of life, (as the world very often finds it,) to take those cheerful natures that never assert their merit, at their own modest valuation; and to conceive a flippant liking of people for their outward oddities and eccentricities, whose innate worth, if we would look so far, might make us blush in the comparison!''
"Time—from whom I had the latter portion of this story, and with whom I have the pleasure of a personal acquaintance of some five and thirty years’ duration—informed me, leaning easily upon his scythe, that Michael Warden never went away again, and never sold his house, but opened it afresh, maintained a golden mean of hospitality, and had a wife, the pride and honor of that country-side, whose name was Marion. But as I have observed that Time confuses facts occasionally, I hardly know what weight to give to his authority."
Opening lines:
Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate colour from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red. The trodden ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of human feet and horses' hoofs, the one prevailing hue still lowered and glimmered at the sun.
Free download available at Gutenberg Project.
Once upon a time, it matters little when, and in stalwart England, it matters little where, a fierce battle was fought. It was fought upon a long summer day when the waving grass was green. Many a wild flower formed by the Almighty Hand to be a perfumed goblet for the dew, felt its enamelled cup filled high with blood that day, and shrinking dropped. Many an insect deriving its delicate colour from harmless leaves and herbs, was stained anew that day by dying men, and marked its frightened way with an unnatural track. The painted butterfly took blood into the air upon the edges of its wings. The stream ran red. The trodden ground became a quagmire, whence, from sullen pools collected in the prints of human feet and horses' hoofs, the one prevailing hue still lowered and glimmered at the sun.
Free download available at Gutenberg Project.