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booksbyanneleen's review against another edition
2.0
I'm not quite sure what to make of this short story. Dickens is essentially linking ornaments to certain memories and family stories, but I would have preferred it if he had just picked one story and stuck with it.
woolfardis's review against another edition
2.0
A rather odd Christmas tale with a ghostly air to it: a decent enough yarn if a little tangential. It is written well in general, but as a whole it was difficult to follow. A description of a family's Christmas tree is giving at the beginning from the narrative of whomsoever owns it, with a plethora of what is to be found hanging upon it (a nice insight in to how they used to decorate the tree when it first came in to being used during the Victorian period thanks to the German royal Prince Arthur), but tales of ghostly apparitions crop up without any apparent reference to what came before in the story.
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introworded's review against another edition
3.0
"When did that Dreadful Mask first look at me? (...) perhaps that fixed and set change coming over a real face, infused into my quickened heart some remote suggestion and dread of the universal change that is to come on every face, and make it still?"
While many people are familiar with Dickens' A Christmas Carol , his "A Christmas Tree" doesn't ring a bell for the general public.
In this story he explores to a great extent the uncanniness (you bet your ass Freud has been reading Dickens) of Christmas as a time of duplicity, of mixed feelings, of joy and depression.
The present blurs into the past and a child is staring at a creepy Christmas tree - "which appears to grow downward towards the earth" - while recollecting all the objects in the tree which become a threat in his imagination and even stare back at him (hello, Freud).
Throughout the story there's a sense of a split personality between child and adult, later replaced by the narrator and himself and at times it's difficult to interpret who is focalizing the story (hi again, Freud).
Dickens can be difficult to read at times (at least I think so) but his stories often have more depth than might appear at first glance.
While many people are familiar with Dickens' A Christmas Carol , his "A Christmas Tree" doesn't ring a bell for the general public.
In this story he explores to a great extent the uncanniness (you bet your ass Freud has been reading Dickens) of Christmas as a time of duplicity, of mixed feelings, of joy and depression.
The present blurs into the past and a child is staring at a creepy Christmas tree - "which appears to grow downward towards the earth" - while recollecting all the objects in the tree which become a threat in his imagination and even stare back at him (hello, Freud).
Throughout the story there's a sense of a split personality between child and adult, later replaced by the narrator and himself and at times it's difficult to interpret who is focalizing the story (hi again, Freud).
Dickens can be difficult to read at times (at least I think so) but his stories often have more depth than might appear at first glance.
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