Sunday Salon: A Very Dickens Christmas

 

If I asked you to name one Charles Dickens book, I am sure that you would easily name A Christmas Carol. You might name others, but that one would be sure to be named. But did you know that Dickens wrote several Christmas novels, and multiple short stories

When we went England and Scotland earlier this year, we were flying home, and I was found some podcast episodes about books. One of the podcasts was talking to one of Charles Dickens descendants Lucinda Hawksley  During the course of the podcast she talked about how there were multiple Christmas books and short stories, and so I was determined that this year I would read some.

A Christmas Carol was the first of Dickens Christmas book, and is the one that still continues to remembered nearly 200 years ago. There have been multiple movies including the one featuring the Muppets, plays, and the idea of being visited by the ghosts of the past, present and future continues to be referenced in modern culture. Recently I watched Sabrina Carpenter's A Nonsense Christmas and there was a skit in that show where they talked about being visited by the ghosted of past, present and future, as in when you are dating someone and they stop returning text, calls etc with no explanation.

I don't know why, but I hadn't read A Christmas Carol before. It seems like an oversight really, but it is what it is. I have rectified it now!

When I was reading it I was surprised at how readable it was, which lead me to wonder if maybe this was because  I was pretty familiar with the story, so my brain was reading what it already know. Or maybe Dickens is really not that hard to read. He does love a run on sentence, and repetition, but for the most part it was an easy read. What that means is that really The Chimes was the story to gauge this accessibility on. After all, I was not familiar with this story at all. And my outcome - well, it is definitely readable.

I don't feel like I need to spend too much time on talking about A Christmas Carol, other than to say that I can see myself reading it again in the Christmas futures, but I did want to talk a little more about The Chimes.

The Chimes, or to give it it's full title The Chimes: A Goblin Story of Some Bells that Rang an Old Year Out and a New Year In, was written one year after the hugely successful A Christmas Carol, and to be honest, it has a lot of similarities in terms of the themes that are being talked about. It was very successful when it was published, but has not stood the test of time in the same way.

In A Christmas Carol, the main character is the rich man Ebenezer Scrooge, but in The Chimes it is a very poor ticket porter by the name of Toby Veck, also known as Trotty. We first meet Trotty in the present, when we learn that his beloved daughter Meg is to marry her fiance Richard on New Years Day. They are poor but they are determined to marry and build their life together. However, a rich man name Alderman Cute plants doubts in their minds about being able to do so given their situation in life. Alderman Cute and Sir Joseph Bowley have very firm ideas about the poor, which basically say that it is their own fault that they are poor, and if they cannot pay their debts or meet their bills then they must be "Put Down", as in sent to jail.

Next we see Trotty in the near future, then much further into the future as he learns what becomes of both he himself and his family and friends, some of whom have spent considerable portions of their lives in and out of jail.All the while, Trotty hears the chimes, the bells in the local church. Sometimes, they call encouragement to him. Other times, the chimes are far more nefarious, but they are ever present.

Dickens was championing the rights of the poor, to say that mercy and charity were of no less importance than justice, that being poor does not make them automatically unable to be valuable members of society, destined for a life of crime. 

Ultimately, then end of the story is quite uplifting but it does get quite dark at times. 

There are another 3 novellas in the book that I have, but I won't get to them this Christmas. I think it is likely that I might re-read  A Christmas Carol and one of the other stories next year but we will see.

This is my contribution to A Very Dickens Christmas hosted at Snapdragon Alcove. I am also sharing it with Sunday Salon hosted at Readerbuzz.

In closing, I wish all those that are celebrating a very Merry Christmas, and to all of us a very safe and happy holidays and New Year period.

This Week...

 

Before I jump into my normal what I'm reading, watching and doing post, I wanted to share that the 2025 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge is ready to go. 

If you love historical fiction, or if you would like to read some historical fiction in the hope that you will find some books to love, or if you love reading challenges, we would love to have you join us!

You can find out all the details here.

I'm reading

This week I didn't really get as much liked as I would have. I finished The Silver-Haired Sisterhood by Judy Leigh, which is another book set on the Isle of Skye. I seem to be reading quite a few of them at the moment. You can find my review here.

I then read Starting Over at Starlight Cottage by Debbie Viggiano who is a new author to me! I reviewed that book here.

Currently I am reading Stuck in Second Gear by another new to me author, Carmen Reid. This one features a roadtrip through France which I am very much enjoying, and my review will be up later this week.

I finished doing my annual listen to Hogfather by Terry Pratchett! Even though I have listened to it multiple times there are still things that I remember and other things that I do not!  

I have now gone back to listening to The Missing Sister by Lucinda Riley. 

It was our final meeting for our read-on-a-theme book club on Saturday so we had a lunch instead of our customary meeting. Everything was delicious, and not just the food. The theme for this selection was food/cooking. Here are just some of the choices that we shared.

I thought I was being a bit clever as suggesting 25 as our next theme. I was thinking people could read a book from when they were 25, or that was published 25 years ago, or the 25th book in a series, but it might actually be a bit tricky. I have chosen a book now, but it did take some searching to find the book that I wanted to read.

Finally, I am intending to join in with the  "A Very Dickens Christmas" challenge hosted at Snapdragon Alcove. 


I'm watching


If I didn't get as much reading done as I would like, I did get a lot more watched than I have been in previous weeks.

The latest season of Great British Bake Off started here last week. I also watched a couple of the festive specials.

We binged watch two shows. The first was Muster Dogs: Where Are They Now. A couple of years ago now we watched the first season of Muster Dogs, which is when they took a group of Kelpie puppies and sent them off to be trained. At the end of the year they came back together and did a series of tests to work out which the best dog/trainer combination was. Last year, in the second season, they did the same experiment with a litter of Border Puppies. This season was to go back to see how some of the dogs and their owners/families are doing. It's such a delightful show.

The second show we binged was A Man on the Inside which stars Ted Danson as a man who goes undercover in a retirement village to solve a crime! It was so good! We loved it!

We also finished watching Shogun, which I thought was really good but it did take us a while to get through as it is not a show that I could watch more than one or two episodes at a time.

I watched several Christmas movies this week. I loved one, like another a lot, and had a don't waste your time reaction to the third. 

The one that I loved was That Christmas, which is an animated movie written by Richard Curtis, who is famous for a lot of big movies such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Love Actually. It was so sweet.

I liked The Text Before Christmas, which follows a woman who receives a wrong number call very close to Christmas from an older woman, and they build a relationship which leads them to spending several Christmases together. And she has a dishy son and so on.

Finally, we like British comedian Jack Whitehall and we are even going to seem him live in a few months. However, his Christmas special, Jack in Time for Christmas, is ....not good. It does have a funny part with Michael Buble right at the beginning but it all goes downhill after that.

I did go to the movies this week. I was going a little bit stir crazy from being at home, or maybe from so many Christmas movies. I chose to go and see an Iranian movie called My Favourite Cake. I will confess that I thought it was going to be more foodie than it was, but it was interesting, and the story about the movie was very interesting. It is about an older woman who has been a widow for many years, who decides that she needs to meet a man, but it all goes a bit wrong!

Here's the trailer for That Christmas

Posts from the last week

It's been a very busy blogging week this week, mainly because I am participating in Countdown to 2025 which means a post for that everyday, plus whatever else I am posting. 

Top Ten Tuesday: Short Stories
Countdown to 2025: Days 1, 2 and 3
Countdown to 2025: Day 4

Blog Tour: A Christmas Surprise in Pelican Crossing by Maggie Christensen
Blog Tour: The Silver-haired Sisterhood by Judy Leigh

Countdown to 2025: Day 5

Blog Tour: Starting Over at Starlight Cottage by Debbie Viggiano

Countdown to 2025: Day 6

Historical Fiction Reading Challenge 2025 Sign up post

Weekend Cooking: What I Baked In My Kitchen in November

Countdown to 2025: Day 7

Six Degrees of Separation: Sandwich to Agnes and the Hitman

Countdown to 2025: Day 8





I've linked this post to Sunday Salon, hosted at Readerbuzz and  It's Monday, what are you reading? as hosted by Book Date