Author: GK Chesterton (English, 1874-1936)
Originally written: before 1936
Page count: 80
Dates read: 11/24/2020-12/1/2020
2020 book goal progress: 28 out of 20
Reading category: TBR Shelf
Read my other book reviews for my 2020 goal HERE.
Description on back of book:
This new edition of Chesterton's writing includes his beautiful Christmas poems and a selection of stories as lively and imaginative as one might expect from the creator of Father Brown, together with penetrating and often hilarious comments on Christmas past and present.
A critic has said that Chesterton was "especially the poet of Christmas, as Charles Dickens was the prose master of Christmas." (My review of Dickens at Christmas.)
Mini-reviews and favorite quotes:
Mini-reviews and favorite quotes:
I love fiction, but I struggle through both poetry and non-fiction. Since a large portion of this book consisted of poetry and non-fiction essays, it wasn't an ideal read for me. I knew about the poems and essays before I started to read the book (thanks to the title), but even the heads up didn't make it better - I wish there were more stories in this collection. Overall, I enjoyed the "Christmas Spirit" in the whole book. Much of the reading was humorous in a satirical way, which I appreciated.
When looking at collections like this, I like to know what exactly is included, so I'm going to have the list of contents with mini-reviews and favorite quotes.
I. A Child is Born (Early Poems, 1894- 1900)
-Xmas Day
-The Nativity
-A Christmas Carol
-Joseph
-The Wise Men (My favorite from this section.)
The child that ere worlds begun
(We need but walk a little way,
We need but see a latch undone.)
The child that played with moon and sun
Is playing with a little hay.
(stanza 7 out of 10)
II. Sausages and Stars (Essays, Comment, and a story)
Note: The only difference I can tell between the 'essays' and 'comments' is the length. Together, they range from 2 sentences to 5 pages, with most being a half to a full page.
-Christmas that is Coming
+I found this particularly humorous.
-The Christmas Ballads
-Christmas Pudding
-Dickens' Christmas Tales
+I enjoyed this especially because I read all of Dickens' Christmas books last year. The link is in the description above.
+This was my favorite, not only of this section but of the whole book! I found it a clever Christmas ghost story. Below are the first several sentences. If you're interested, and I highly suggest the quick read, the title links to the whole story.
Nearly all the best and most precious things in the universe you can get for a halfpenny. I make an exception, of course, of the sun, the moon, the earth, people, stars, thunderstorms, and such trifles. You can get them for nothing. But the general principal will be at once apparent. In the street behind me, for instance, you can now get a ride on an electric tram for a halfpenny. To be on an electric tram is to be on a flying castle in a fairy tale. You can get quite a large number of brightly colored sweets for a halfpenny.
III. The Inn at the End of the World (Poems of Middle Life, 1900-1914)
-A Child of the Snows (favorite)
And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.
(stanza 3 out of 4)
-The House of Christmas (favorite)
A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost - how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky's dome.
(stanza 3 out of 5)
-A Word
-The Truce of Christmas
-A Song of Gifts to God
IV. A Feast of Fools (Essays, Comment, and a Story)
-More Thoughts on Christmas
-Dickens Again
-A Christmas Present
-The Theology of Christmas Presents (favorite)
Christmas is something better than a thing for all; it is a thing for everybody. And if anyone finds such phrases aimless or fantastic, or thinks that the distinction has no existence except in a refinements of words, the only test needed is the permanent test of the populace. Take any hundred girls from a board school and see whather they do not make a distinction between a flower for each and a garden for all.
-Christmas and the Professors (favorite)
-Some Fallacies and Santa Claus
-A Further Thought
-The Modern Scrooge (story)
+This was another heart-warming, Dicksonian Christmas ghost story. I enjoyed the short story, but, even with 'favorites,' a special quote doesn't always jump out to me.
V. The Turkey and the Turk (The Mummer's Play)
-The Turkey and the Turk: The Mummer's Play
+I was looking forward to reading a Christmas play, but it was a great disappointment. It was just a strange tale that could almost be considered sci-fi - which normally would be a good thing, it just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book. I was not a fan.
The first lines:
FATHER CHRISTMAS:
Here am I Father Christmas; well you know it,
Though critics say it fades, my Christmas Tree,
Yet was it Dickens who became my poet
And who the Dickens may the critics be?
VI. The Spirit of Christmas (Essays, a story, and a Comment)
-The Contented Man (favorite)
-Dickens at Christmas
-Christmas Must Go
-Christmas and Geoffrey Chaucer
-The New Christmas (story)
+This was a strange story about a futuristic Nativity from the Wise Men's' perspective. This was not a favorite, despite it being a story.
-Snow in Bethlehem (favorite)
-The Heart of Bethlehem
-The Spirit of Christmas (favorite)
-The Three Gifts (favorite)
There were three things prefigured and promised by the gifts in the cave of Bethlehem concerning the Child who received them; that He should be crowned like a King (gold); that He should be worshipped like a God (frankincense); and that He should die like a man (myrrh). And these things would sound like Eastern flattery, were it not for the third.
VII. Gloria in Profundis (A Last Poem)
-Gloria in Profundis
Glory to God in the Lowest
The spout of the stars in spate -
Where the thunderbolt thinks to be slowest
And the lightning fears to be late:
As men dive for a sunken gem
Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,
The fallen star that has found it
In the cavern of Bethlehem.
(stanza 4 out of 4)
Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let GK Chesterton have the last words:
Our ignorance about fairy tales refers back to that ultimate ignorance about life which makes life itself a fairy tale. Some complain that parents will not tell their children whether Santa Claus exists or not. The parents do not tell them for the excellent reason that the parents do not know.
-'Some Fallacies and Santa Claus' from Section IV.
The child who doubts about Stanta Claus has insomnia.
The child who beleieves has a good night's rest.
-'A Further Thought' from Section IV, in it's entirety.
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