A Christmas Carol
A few years ago, I was at the semi-annual booksale at the Portland Public Library and I found this copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The book was in ok shape (it has been repaired with scotch tape)and I don't think I would have bought it if I hadn't opened the cover and found the history of annual readings. The former owner of the book was Alice E. Thornton and, oddly enough, I have bought other books that have belonged to her at book sales and in shops in town. The card she used as a book mark indicates that it was a gift to her from Marian Heseltine. I tried a Google search on Alice, but didn't find anything . . . not much of a surprise. Seeing these dates, year after year, mostly, just sets in motion reflections on my part. Why the breaks, of course? I wonder when she started reading this to her children, if she ever did? The clear writing throughout the 30's giving way to the shaking writing of the 80's? (There is one more date - December 30, 1930 - on the back flyleaf.) This list of dates is another tangible reminder of year upon year rolling forward. To read a book is to absorb the author's place and time and ideas. Do books themselves absorb the environment around them over the years, listening from their place on our shelves? I wonder how old she was when she received the book? Did she always read it by electric light? Where was it moved to over the years? Or did it stay in house until it was packed up and donated to the Library? It does not appear to ever have been part of the circulation. I started adding my own readings in 1995 and have read it six times so far.
A few years ago, I was at the semi-annual booksale at the Portland Public Library and I found this copy of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. The book was in ok shape (it has been repaired with scotch tape)and I don't think I would have bought it if I hadn't opened the cover and found the history of annual readings. The former owner of the book was Alice E. Thornton and, oddly enough, I have bought other books that have belonged to her at book sales and in shops in town. The card she used as a book mark indicates that it was a gift to her from Marian Heseltine. I tried a Google search on Alice, but didn't find anything . . . not much of a surprise. Seeing these dates, year after year, mostly, just sets in motion reflections on my part. Why the breaks, of course? I wonder when she started reading this to her children, if she ever did? The clear writing throughout the 30's giving way to the shaking writing of the 80's? (There is one more date - December 30, 1930 - on the back flyleaf.) This list of dates is another tangible reminder of year upon year rolling forward. To read a book is to absorb the author's place and time and ideas. Do books themselves absorb the environment around them over the years, listening from their place on our shelves? I wonder how old she was when she received the book? Did she always read it by electric light? Where was it moved to over the years? Or did it stay in house until it was packed up and donated to the Library? It does not appear to ever have been part of the circulation. I started adding my own readings in 1995 and have read it six times so far.
The story kind of grows on you, I must admit. I haven't read much Dickens, but there is a breezy kind of writing style and use of colloquial speech that makes you think. When Scrooge first sees Marley's face in his doorknocker, Dickens says it "had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar". (I thought I read somewhere that a lobster was a name for a furnace, but I can't seem to find my source now.) The story is well known, of course, although I must admit that my introduction was to the Mr. Magoo version.
There have been many other versions,including a Growing Pains version (author comments forthcoming?)
The cold described seems so bitter cold, even by Maine standards. A couple of years ago, I read a book that described what has been called the Little Ice Age, a period of colder than usual weather in the northern hemisphere from the 1650's thru 1850. It included the Year with No Summer (1816). So when Dickens wrote the book (1843), he no doubt would have considered the weather as it was. Even as later as the 1790's, ice fairs were held on the frozen Thames - something that does not happen now.
Things That Piss Me Off
Ok, I know that motion picture production companies feel compelled to create those little video signatures at the beginning of movies so we know who made the movie. (and how come it take four or five production companies?) but how come after I have sat through three or four of those little video brands, do I have to see the SAME company names roll by on the credits??
The cold described seems so bitter cold, even by Maine standards. A couple of years ago, I read a book that described what has been called the Little Ice Age, a period of colder than usual weather in the northern hemisphere from the 1650's thru 1850. It included the Year with No Summer (1816). So when Dickens wrote the book (1843), he no doubt would have considered the weather as it was. Even as later as the 1790's, ice fairs were held on the frozen Thames - something that does not happen now.
To sit alone in the lamplight with a book spread out before you,
and hold intimate converse with men of unseen generations--
such is a pleasure beyond compare.
~ Yosida Kenko ~
Things That Piss Me OffOk, I know that motion picture production companies feel compelled to create those little video signatures at the beginning of movies so we know who made the movie. (and how come it take four or five production companies?) but how come after I have sat through three or four of those little video brands, do I have to see the SAME company names roll by on the credits??
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