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A review by flybyreader
Old Christmas: From the Sketch Book of Washington Irving by Washington Irving, Randolph Caldecott
4.0
What a grand depiction of a victorian Christmas!
Irving is quite grandiloquent and has a unique way with words. The pages are filled with vivid descriptions of English pasture, wintry landscapes, luscious dinner tables and fire crackling at the hearth. He has some specific notion of Christmas, I really enjoyed reading it. The countryside abundance manifests itself in Irving’s generous style and grandiose selection of words.
One thing though, I made a mistake of listening to the audiobook version and took a look at the book later. If you do not want to miss out on the beautiful illustrations which complete the pages, try the Gutenberg project for this.
I have to say I was hungry throughout this book! The eccentric food decorating the tables made me want to jump into a time machine to experience the olden christmas in England:
“I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently decorated with peacocks' feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which over shadowed a considerable tract of the table. This the Squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant-pie, though a peacock-pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.”
Well weirdly delicious!
Eating, drinking and dancing, what more would anyone want from Christmas?
In his final words, he puts himself in the readers’ shoes: “Me thinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "To what purpose is all this?—how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?"
And answers his question in his final words:
But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain.
Oh, he has a way with words, that’s for sure! I have to read his other works!
Irving is quite grandiloquent and has a unique way with words. The pages are filled with vivid descriptions of English pasture, wintry landscapes, luscious dinner tables and fire crackling at the hearth. He has some specific notion of Christmas, I really enjoyed reading it. The countryside abundance manifests itself in Irving’s generous style and grandiose selection of words.
One thing though, I made a mistake of listening to the audiobook version and took a look at the book later. If you do not want to miss out on the beautiful illustrations which complete the pages, try the Gutenberg project for this.
I have to say I was hungry throughout this book! The eccentric food decorating the tables made me want to jump into a time machine to experience the olden christmas in England:
“I could not, however, but notice a pie, magnificently decorated with peacocks' feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which over shadowed a considerable tract of the table. This the Squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant-pie, though a peacock-pie was certainly the most authentical; but there had been such a mortality among the peacocks this season, that he could not prevail upon himself to have one killed.”
Well weirdly delicious!
Eating, drinking and dancing, what more would anyone want from Christmas?
In his final words, he puts himself in the readers’ shoes: “Me thinks I hear the questions asked by my graver readers, "To what purpose is all this?—how is the world to be made wiser by this talk?"
And answers his question in his final words:
But in writing to amuse, if I fail, the only evil is my own disappointment. If, however, I can by any lucky chance, in these days of evil, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sorrow; if I can now and then penetrate through the gathering film of misanthropy, prompt a benevolent view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humour with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, surely, I shall not then have written entirely in vain.
Oh, he has a way with words, that’s for sure! I have to read his other works!