A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens

For the Decades ’08 reading challenge (first published 1843) and part of the BBC Big Read.

English
77 pages
Dover Publications
ISBN: 978-0-486-26865-1

First line: Marley was dead: to begin with.

Back cover blurb:
In October 1843, Charles Dickens—heavily in debt and obligated to his publisher—began work on a book to help supplement his family’s meager income. That volume, A Christmas Carol, has long since become one of the most beloved stories in the English language. As much a part of the holiday season as holly, mistletoe and evergreen wreaths, this perennial favorite continues to delight new readers and rekindle thoughts of charity and goodwill.

With its characters exhibiting many qualities—as well as failures—often ascribed to Dickens himself, the imaginative and entertaining tale relates Ebenezer Scrooge’s eerie encounters with a series of spectral visitors. Journeying with them through Christmases past, present, and future, he is ultimately transformed from an arrogant, obstinate and insensitive miser to a generous, warmhearted, and caring human being. Written by one of England’s greatest and most popular novelists, A Christmas Carol has come to epitomize the true meaning of Christmas.

Thoughts: I’ve been meaning to read this for years and years and years, but I never did get around to it until now.

I knew the basics of the story already, of course, having seen an animated adaption or two in my day, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good I found it. Somehow, I don’t know why, I was expecting to almost struggle through it and want to give up because of boredom, or what have you. There really was no reason for me to be expecting that, as I’ve liked all the Dickens I have read so far, plus there has to be a reason for its popularity.

At any rate, I get to mark another book on the BBC Big Read as successfully read, and to dole out a C rating.

Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad

For the Decades ’08 reading challenge (first published 1902).

English
111 pages
a Project Gutenberg e-book

First line: The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest.

Back cover blurb:
In this tale of colonial exploitation, the narrator, Marlowe, journeys deep into the heart of Africa. But there he encounters Kurtz, an idealist apparently crazed and depraved by his power over the natives, and the meeting prompts Marlowe to reflect on the darkness at the heart of all men.
This text refers to an edition other than the one I read.

Thoughts: I’ve heard this book mentioned again and again, and I’ve always sort of meant to read it, but I’ve never really known anything about it except the title.

This afternoon I took the time to read it and it was an interesting story. Very dark, but I should maybe have clued into that from the title, had I not been a complete idiot. I did find the narrative a little hard to follow at times, but I’m not sure how much that had to do with the format I read it in (e-book), and how much it was due to the actual writing.

Heart of Darkness receives a C rating. It was an okay read, but I had some issues with the flow of narrative, and at times I was made exceedingly uncomfortable by the blatant racism. It’s true that it was written over a hundred years ago, when racism was more accepted, but I’m reading it now, with 21st century sensitivities, and of course that’s going to colour my reading experience.

Daddy-Long-Legs
by Jean Webster

For the Decades ’08 reading challenge (first published 1912).

English
160 pages
J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd/E.P. Dutton & Co. Inc.
ISBN: n/a

First line: The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day—a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste.

Back cover blurb: n/a

Thoughts: I’ve read Daddy-Long-Legs before, but always in Swedish, so this was a bit like reading it for the first time. I’ve always liked it in Swedish, and I like it even more in the original.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it’s the story of Judy, a girl who’s grown up in an orphanage. Her real name is Jerusha, because the head of the orphanage had a habit of picking first names from head stones (and last names from the phone directory, which is why Judy is an Abbott). When Judy’s eighteen, one of the trustees of the orphanage decides to sponsor her education at college. His only demand on her is that she write him one letter a month, to tell him how she’s doing at school.

In essence, then, it’s a novel in letters. A format that is not always easy to pull off, but that Webster truly excelled at (she wrote other novels in the same style—the sequel to this one, called Dear Enemy, being one of them).

I’m giving this a B grade, in part because the writing is such that I got pulled in, and in part because there is an underlying romance that is lovely, but not too in-your-face and definitely not the only thing in the story. I like that sort of thing.

If you haven’t already read it, do it now! (Or at least soon. If you’re not averse to reading things on the screen, you can find this, and its sequel, at Project Gutenberg.)

Farlig midsommar
by Tove Jansson
Title in English: Moominsummer Madness

For the Decades ’08 reading challenge (first published 1954).

Swedish
146 pages
Alfabeta
ISBN: 91-501-0478-0

First line: Mumintrollets mamma satt på trappan i solskenet och riggade en barkbåt.

Back cover blurb:
Där kommer en teater på drift och med den driver muminfamiljen in i en midsommarnatt som är full av trolldom och överraskning, av nya vänner och fiender.
Vet ni att hattifnattar kommer ur frö och att man måste så dem på midsommarnatten? Har ni nånsin borrat hål genom ert eget golv eller sett en självlysande parkvakt? Och är ni medvetna om hur hemskt farligt det är att vissla på teatern?
Det här är en berättelse om vad som hände i den magiska månaden juni samma år som det eldsprutande berget rörde på sig och Mumintrollets mamma gjorde sin vackraste barkbåt.

Very short synopsis in English: After a huge wave floods Moomin Valley, the Moomins make their escape to a floating theatre.

Thoughts: I love Snufkin. I kind of always have. He’s fantastic and I’m terribly sorry to those who don’t read Swedish, because I am going to post some quotes and they are amazing but you won’t be able to tell. Woe is you.

Skräm dem med Mårran föreslog hon. Det gör min syster.
Blir du snäll då? frågade Snusmumriken.
Naturligtvis inte! sa Lilla My och skrattade så att hon ramlade omkull.

Förmårrade ungar! sa Snusmumriken som stod och tvättade deras strumpor vid husknuten. Har ni glömt att vi tjärade taket i morse? Vill ni att jag ska överge er, kasta mig i sjön eller slå ihjäl er?
Ingetdera! skrek ungarna och drog honom i rocken. Du ska läsa ditt brev!

There’s another quote from Snufkin that I love, but I forget which book it’s from. No matter, I shall insert it here and pretend I’m doing it just because I was talking about him anyway.

One can never be entirely free, if one admires someone else too much.

That is a very wise thing to say, indeed.

Farlig midsommar receives an A grade as well, because it deserves it.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
by Tom Stoppard

For the Decades ’08 (first performed in 1967) and the A-Z reading challenges.

English
77 pages
e-book

First line: “Heads.”

Back cover blurb: n/a

Thoughts: A couple of years ago I saw bits and pieces of the 1991 film adaption of this play. I don’t remember a lot of it, just that it seemed totally absurd and quite funny. Exactly what my thoughts on the play are, in fact. It’s so completely bizarre and absolutely hilarious — I loved it.

Rosencrantz: Shouldn’t we be doing something — constructive?
Guildenstern: What did you have in mind?… A short, blunt human pyramid…?

R: Would you like to play Questions?
G: How do you play?
R: You have to ask a question.
G: Statement! One – love.
R: Cheating!
G: How?
R: I hadn’t started yet.
G: Statement. Two – love.
R: Are you counting that?
G: What?
R: Are you counting that?
G: Foul! No repetitions. Three – love. First game to…

Reading the script was in other words a nice experience (one that warrants a B in my way of thinking), but my plan now is to hunt down the film once more and actually, properly watch it this time.

As a small morsel of trivia, I can tell you that the street I live on is named after Rosencrantz. In case anyone else thinks that’s as neat as I do.