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dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Mr Dickens I was too harsh on you
(Read for uni)
(Read for uni)
It breaks down like this:
A Christmas Carol: 5 stars (Never gets old. I'm not sure how, but it just doesn't.)
The Chimes: 4 stars (Very good. Very bleak. Contains goblins.)
The Cricket on the Hearth: 5 stars (More popular than Christmas Carol until the turn of the 20th century, for good reason. Saturated with Dickensian sentiment, in the very best way.)
The Battle of Life: 2 stars (A strange one. Not quite sure what Dickens was going for here, but he ended up with something atypically messy in tone, structure, and character.)
The Haunted Man: 4 stars (Another ghost story, fairly entertaining and poignant. Not as effective as Carol and Cricket in washing down the moralistic pill at its center.)
Overall, definitely recommended for that time of year. Goes well with fuzzy blankets and hot chocolate or buttered rum.
A Christmas Carol: 5 stars (Never gets old. I'm not sure how, but it just doesn't.)
The Chimes: 4 stars (Very good. Very bleak. Contains goblins.)
The Cricket on the Hearth: 5 stars (More popular than Christmas Carol until the turn of the 20th century, for good reason. Saturated with Dickensian sentiment, in the very best way.)
The Battle of Life: 2 stars (A strange one. Not quite sure what Dickens was going for here, but he ended up with something atypically messy in tone, structure, and character.)
The Haunted Man: 4 stars (Another ghost story, fairly entertaining and poignant. Not as effective as Carol and Cricket in washing down the moralistic pill at its center.)
Overall, definitely recommended for that time of year. Goes well with fuzzy blankets and hot chocolate or buttered rum.
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
firstly i just want to say, i loved A Christmas Carol. sadly, the rest of the christmas stories were dire, very boring and hard to get into. I've finally given up trying to finish it.
A mixed bag of Dickens, though all inferior to his longer works - he seems to thrive more on a large canvas. Christmas Carol is easily the most magical and inventive (which accounts for its continued popularity). The Chimes is insipid and partly a knockoff of A Christmas Carol, while The Cricket on the Hearth and The Battle of Life are pleasant but pedestrian love stories. None have much of the verve, wit and semantic gymnastics that make a true Dickens classic.
Interesting to compare A Christmas Carol to the final Christmas book, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, which I thought second best in this collection. Where the first Christmas book is all fizz and bubble, the final one is dark and mournful; the message of the former is to be charitable and loving to all, whereas the message of the latter is to remember our sorrows because they make us better people. One gets the feeling that in the intervening years between writing the two, Dickens' attitude to life changed. To quote Coleridge, "A sadder and a wiser man / He rose the morrow morn."
Interesting to compare A Christmas Carol to the final Christmas book, The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain, which I thought second best in this collection. Where the first Christmas book is all fizz and bubble, the final one is dark and mournful; the message of the former is to be charitable and loving to all, whereas the message of the latter is to remember our sorrows because they make us better people. One gets the feeling that in the intervening years between writing the two, Dickens' attitude to life changed. To quote Coleridge, "A sadder and a wiser man / He rose the morrow morn."
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Read A Christmas Carol but couldn’t get through all the other tales.
challenging
emotional
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
I am kind of in two minds about this book, because there was lots to like, but the whole ‘Christmas Message’ theme can get old quite quickly.
I think my favourite was probably The Cricket on the Hearth, where I thought the build up of emotional tension was very well done. There was some lovely imagery at the beginning of The Battle for Life, where the ancient battlefield is incorporated into the life of the village, and I think the observations on grief and memory in The Haunted Man were very real.
Some of these stories had more supernatural elements than others, and sometimes I thought it was a bit much, for example in The Chimes, but in the whole I would say these stories still hold up for a festive read.
I think my favourite was probably The Cricket on the Hearth, where I thought the build up of emotional tension was very well done. There was some lovely imagery at the beginning of The Battle for Life, where the ancient battlefield is incorporated into the life of the village, and I think the observations on grief and memory in The Haunted Man were very real.
Some of these stories had more supernatural elements than others, and sometimes I thought it was a bit much, for example in The Chimes, but in the whole I would say these stories still hold up for a festive read.
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes