Pride and Prejudice: The first time I read Jane Austin was about five years ago when I read "Sense and Sensibility". I didn't much care for that book at the time, yet I was compelled to read it. I read "Pride and Prejudice" in September while I was on holiday in Vancouver Island. I was taking a train ride to Victoria, and it was then I fell in love with the book and Austin's prose. The book succeeds all its expectations on being a wonderful romance, plus having a heroine which was written in the 19th century but was so modern and witty. I can understand why "Pride and Prejudice" holds such esteem to classic readers.
Our Mutual Friend: Dickens' final finished book, one I read for the first time this past November. When I read the beginning paragraph of a Dickens book, I am automatically transported to his time and place, his characters more than any other writer's become alive in my mind, his themes are universal and I am constantly touched by his books. I'm like a broken record, I am very unhappy that I have read all of his finished novels now. I still have "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" to read, but it will be incomplete, it's not difficult to wonder why Dickens was so beloved, and why he is still revered today as the greatest novelist of all time. Despite what cynics think, his books I will cherish for all time.
True Grit A wonderful little compact book just a little over 200 pages tells the story of a young girl in the frontier time who hires a marshall named Rooster Cogburn to hunt the man that killed her father. The story is told from the girl's perspective and has that wonderful sense of old American dialect mostly associated with Mark Twain. The book is a great yarn, I couldn't put it down, it was just very entertaining not to mention the filmed remake of this year which I put as the best time I had at the movies so far this year.
Robinson Crusoe: Another book of mine that has been lying on my shelf for years and just waiting for someone to open its pages so that it might live. I finally read the book that I was curious about for sharing my same name. It is a classic story, yet it is very much one that is of its time, telling the story of a permanently unlucky britishman who is stranded on a desert island for 28 years. For most of that time he spends it alone fending for himself and having a spiritual awakening in the process. Yet the politics the book depicts of the time are very old fashioned, when it is revealed that the reason Robinson Crusoe goes on his voyage is to find slaves to work on his plantation, it's also disheartening to see the way he treats his tribal companion Friday whom he rescues. Despite Crusoe's spiritual awakening, it doesn't stop him from treating Friday as a sub creature, more of a pet than a man. Of course in one way, the novel could be thought of as an allegory of the civilization of the western world, there is probably no inaccuracy the way Crusoe is depicted. Yet the book fell apart at the end when Crusoe does get back to civilization, and it takes too much time discussing his financial issues of the plantation. Here was a man stranded on an island for 28 years, someone who learns to fend for himself, yet when he returns, it's business as usual, he seems to have learned nothing from his experience, only now he has a loyal companion who will work for him for free. Amazingly enough, I learned "Robinson Crusoe" was the most popular novel of the 19th century.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
What Christmas Means to me
Christmas has come once again, it's in the air, it's barely felt these days but it's there. You have to try harder to find the true spirit of Christmas these days, what exactly the true spirit is it's hard to tell. For the Christians it is indeed the most joyous time of year, the birth of Jesus, for close families it's a time to come together, it's the time of peace on Earth and good will toward men. For me the romantic who likes to find humanism wherever he can find it, it's probably my favorite time of year.
I always, as Dickens has said have tried to keep Christmas in my heart all year round, we sometimes forget it, but I do indeed feel happier when it is. Christmas has always been special to me, since I was a child, of course there's something magical to it when you're young, and I think people try to keep that magic with them, it's the disappointment we feel as adults that sometimes ruins that illusion we once had.
Christmas has become more complicated and I think we've made it as such. We've built more stores to buy things, we make more cool things to buy, and some of us are not afraid to go into debt to capture that wonderful feeling of opening the gift we truly want.
We all know the importance of getting that child that special toy, I can only understand the anxiety parents feel when they realize that special toy is now sold out, they go on a searching binge trying to find it, checking every nook and cranny available to them, the one thing in the world they don't want is to disappoint a child's Christmas and who could blame them.
Yet the mistake is made by making Christmas purely materialistic, it adds to the pressure of the holidays, we work ourselves into an early grave to achieve this unseen happiness. There is that brief relief one can feel when they find the gift they've been searching for, but that sort of happiness is fleeting. After the gift comes the next gift, then the turkey dinner, then the Christmas cards to those people who might not be as important in your life but you feel bad if you don't include them as well. Then there's the post-Christmas boxing day shopping, a custom that boggles my mind which celebrates gift returns and buying more things for yourself you perhaps didn't get. Therefore the point of finding that perfect gift come Christmas is lost, since you can just pick it up the next day at a lower price.
I've spent this month re-reading Charles Dickens a man who at one point was known for revitalizing Christmas in the 19th century with "A Christmas Carol", a book so popular it brought back old customs that were thought lost in its time. Dickens was thought to be a sentimentalist and some would argue to a fault, yet when I read his everlasting story, there's a respect he feels to the spirit of Christmas, which was something he felt carried a little dignity to it, he felt it actually made people into better human beings, it wasn't just sentimental Victorian era schlock, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long.
In retrospect, I would feel Dickens would role in his grave if he saw the sight his words have taken this time of year. His sacred quotes have been twisted by advertisers in order to make us feel a certain phony sentimentality, or nostalgia towards Christmas. When Dickens published " A Christmas Carol", Scrooge told everyone to keep Christmas in his own way, this sentiment was meant to be a criticism to Scrooge, yet if one were to say it today, it would make a lot of sense, why bother to keep Christmas the way others keep it, full of materialism and phony sentiment, the spirit is lost that way, why not step back and choose to keep it your own way, you own honest and modest way whatever it may be.
In other words, I'm pleading, let's take Christmas back, take it away from the large chain stores, the huge advertisers and those pesky debt collectors who still haunt us from Dickens' era. Let's keep Christmas in our own hearts, as Dickens said for 365days a year. I'm a hopeful optimist, which is probably because when I see people, I see a great struggle to keep with the norm, they don't dare stray away from it, otherwise they could suffer unhappiness.
I hope we come back to the Christmas Dickens wrote about better than anyone, Christmas that was magical, where it seemed like some sort of presence overtook you for that moment and you felt good, and human, you felt peace around you and in your heart, that's what Christmas should be.
I always, as Dickens has said have tried to keep Christmas in my heart all year round, we sometimes forget it, but I do indeed feel happier when it is. Christmas has always been special to me, since I was a child, of course there's something magical to it when you're young, and I think people try to keep that magic with them, it's the disappointment we feel as adults that sometimes ruins that illusion we once had.
Christmas has become more complicated and I think we've made it as such. We've built more stores to buy things, we make more cool things to buy, and some of us are not afraid to go into debt to capture that wonderful feeling of opening the gift we truly want.
We all know the importance of getting that child that special toy, I can only understand the anxiety parents feel when they realize that special toy is now sold out, they go on a searching binge trying to find it, checking every nook and cranny available to them, the one thing in the world they don't want is to disappoint a child's Christmas and who could blame them.
Yet the mistake is made by making Christmas purely materialistic, it adds to the pressure of the holidays, we work ourselves into an early grave to achieve this unseen happiness. There is that brief relief one can feel when they find the gift they've been searching for, but that sort of happiness is fleeting. After the gift comes the next gift, then the turkey dinner, then the Christmas cards to those people who might not be as important in your life but you feel bad if you don't include them as well. Then there's the post-Christmas boxing day shopping, a custom that boggles my mind which celebrates gift returns and buying more things for yourself you perhaps didn't get. Therefore the point of finding that perfect gift come Christmas is lost, since you can just pick it up the next day at a lower price.
I've spent this month re-reading Charles Dickens a man who at one point was known for revitalizing Christmas in the 19th century with "A Christmas Carol", a book so popular it brought back old customs that were thought lost in its time. Dickens was thought to be a sentimentalist and some would argue to a fault, yet when I read his everlasting story, there's a respect he feels to the spirit of Christmas, which was something he felt carried a little dignity to it, he felt it actually made people into better human beings, it wasn't just sentimental Victorian era schlock, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted this long.
In retrospect, I would feel Dickens would role in his grave if he saw the sight his words have taken this time of year. His sacred quotes have been twisted by advertisers in order to make us feel a certain phony sentimentality, or nostalgia towards Christmas. When Dickens published " A Christmas Carol", Scrooge told everyone to keep Christmas in his own way, this sentiment was meant to be a criticism to Scrooge, yet if one were to say it today, it would make a lot of sense, why bother to keep Christmas the way others keep it, full of materialism and phony sentiment, the spirit is lost that way, why not step back and choose to keep it your own way, you own honest and modest way whatever it may be.
In other words, I'm pleading, let's take Christmas back, take it away from the large chain stores, the huge advertisers and those pesky debt collectors who still haunt us from Dickens' era. Let's keep Christmas in our own hearts, as Dickens said for 365days a year. I'm a hopeful optimist, which is probably because when I see people, I see a great struggle to keep with the norm, they don't dare stray away from it, otherwise they could suffer unhappiness.
I hope we come back to the Christmas Dickens wrote about better than anyone, Christmas that was magical, where it seemed like some sort of presence overtook you for that moment and you felt good, and human, you felt peace around you and in your heart, that's what Christmas should be.
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