A Christmas Carol-Charles Dickens

Well, it is Christmas and I just have to post about A Christmas Carol. Over the course of forty years, I have accomplished the goal of reading every work of Charles Dickens, and I owe it all to the first book I read by him, A Christmas Carol. I was first exposed to A Christmas Carol at a department store display in Mpls., MN. If any of you reading this live in Minnesota , you may remember the Dicken's London Towne animated figure display at Dayton's Department Store. A Christmas Carol. Initially I thought it was sacreligious, (being a good little Catholic girl) pairing ghosts with Christmas, but I soon set my narrow views aside and devoured the book. To this day I give this short novel and Daytons Dept. Store credit for giving me my life long love affair with Charles Dickens. What are your memories about A Christmas Carol or other books about the season?

It was a magical, wonderful exhibit in their auditorium with moving figures (like at Disneyworld) all dressed up as Dickens characters. Spectators would wind through the snowy streets of 19th Century London and peek through mullioned windows at the characters inside. Some of the scenes were Fezziwig's warehouse during the Christmas Eve ball, Fagin's hideout in Oliver Twist and many more. I wish I could revisit it because, at the time, I was a child and unfamiliar with all of his books, so I did not know who all the figures were representing. I did recognize though, Ebenezer Scrooge and his ethereal guides. I was captivated and from that point I was determined to read every work of Charles Dickens.

The World According to Garp

I just commented on another blog, that I am reading outside my comfort zone and it is not always a pleasant experience. This is the second novel I have read recently that I thought was a waste of time. I must be narrow minded, but I like to know what I am reading. If it is a comedy, great. If it a tear jerker, fine, but I do not like it when a writer combines quirky comedy with graphic violence. This is what John Irving did in the World According to Garp. This style of writing reminded me of the movie Fargo, exceedingly violent but the characters are "real cards." I also did not like the way Irving portrayed the Feminist Movement either, as if it was only odd balls, fanatics and "wanna be men" embracing the idea of equality.

I watched the movie The World According to Garp yesterday, and they did a terrific job of staying true to the book but beyond that the only redeeming quality was John Lithgow's portrayal of Roberta Muldoon, the transsexual former line-backer. I really loved the movie version of The Cider House Rules, but after reading The World According to Garp, I am apprehensive about other Irving novel.

Emily Bronte-Wuthering Heights

Although Dickens is my favorite author of all time, Emily Bronte is a close second. I should say that the novel Wuthering Heights is a close second. I don't even know if Emily Bronte wrote anything else so I cannot say that I like her body of work. She died so young that I don't think she wrote anymore novels (Just a little gruesome sidebar here, I was reading that there is speculation that the parsonage cemetery of Haworth was contaminating the Bronte drinking water causing premature deaths in the family).
Early on, Wuthering Heights activated my love of the tragic romance. When I was a teen, I was interested because my mother told me there was a ghost involved.

A few years later, when I read it I was moved by their despairing love. I traveled to the modest home of the Bronte's on the moors and loved the landscape, again the romantic in me. Years later when I re-read the novel, I was moved in a different way. I saw Cathy and Heathcliff as less romantic characters and more as selfish brutes.
That is what I love about the classics. They speak to you differently at different times in your life. When my oldest daughter read Wuthering Heights, she hated it, saying Cathy and Heathcliff were selfish pukes, but she has since re-read it and feels differently again (maybe she will comment).
My mother always wondered how these Bronte women with so few life experiences outside the lonely moors could write such wrenching romances and I wonder too, but then inspiration, I guess, is not necessarily an outcome of life experience. Obviously.
On Cathy and Heathcliff, I would love to hear what you think...
Although Heathcliff, became an abusive brute as an adult, I was more sympathetic to him, and I felt like he was more of a victim. Whereas Cathy was a spoiled brat from beginning to end. What do you think?
I LOVE this book!

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unbearable Lightness of Being was unbearable.

If a writer wants to write philosophy, write a non-fiction book about philosophy, don't cloak it in fiction. Ken Follett said something to the effect, that good fiction should, and must be. about good storytelling. I couldn't agree more.
Milan Kundera writes about four people living in Eastern Europe in the 1960's when the Russians rolled into Prague.  It is about how they look at life and respond to each other, and the chaos around them. It is too much work for me to say anything more about this book. Thank goodness it was short. I do not recommend it.

Conrad Richter-The Awakening Land

Conrad Richter-The Trees, The Fields, The Town
This is the Awakening Land Trilogy of Conrad Richter and I believe it is some of the best writing of the 20th Century. I never knew that his work existed until the 1980's when I happened to watch the miniseries starring Elizabeth Montgomery(remember Bewitched?) and fell in love with the story.

He captures the day to day life and problems of everyday people on the Ohio frontier with such richness, intensity and drama that to this day I still think about his characters. Memorable scenes from his books have had a profound influence my writing. He traces the evolution of an Ohio settlement from the early days of hardship in the wilderness, to the prosperous development of a town years later, a theme and evolution which is repeated time again across our entire continent. In 1951, he was awarded Pulitzer Prize for this work.