Bump In The Night

MIKE: Clearly, I dropped the ball.  The week before Christmas was exceptionally busy but that shouldn't be an excuse.  Sorry!  I read the whole book way before but I was sloppy in my execution.  I will make a meager attempt at a response.

Regarding the Ghost of Christmas Present, I thought it was interesting how he/she/it grew old in the span of the day.  Actually, it was with this ghost that I found most deviations from the theatrical productions.  For example, Scrooge flies over the sea and views men and women wishing each other a merry Christmas.  I think I understand why this is left out of theater productions.  First, it'd be very difficult to present this on a stage and secondly, it was kind of dull.  It wasn't really about the people we care about in the story.  

The Ghost of Christmas Future was strange and I'm not sure Scrooge really needed him to hit the message home.  He might even say something to that effect.  But I suppose Dickens has to follow through on his plan to show the past, present, and future.  I liked the third Ghost the most also.  He/she/it seemed very ominous.  How much longer does Scrooge have, anyway?  What are the dates on the gravestone!  The world wants to know!!!  

This was a good read in December.  It made me feel Christmasy as well.  I wonder why there aren't more Christmas novels like A Christmas Carol.  Is it because we don't want to read them until December?  Or is it because THE Christmas story is this one and no other can compete? Anyway, good read.

I'll email about our next book.  And I promise to do better at updating! 

Scrooge is, gives, a giant turkey

This is actually my second go at this post - I typed a whole beautiful post yesterday and then forgot to hit save or publish. But allow me to reclaim (most of) my thoughts.

I'd say the third ghost was my favorite of the three. I loved how all along Scrooge was hearing about this horrible guy and trying not to realize that he was that guy, and whenever he would ask the ghost about it, the ghost would stay eerily silent, or just lead him to the next instance of someone not exactly mourning Scrooge's death.

It's a bit hard for me to believe that Scrooge wouldn't have known was was up earlier in the chapter. I kept thinking Scrooge got it, only to hear him ask another question about who this horrible man might be. Then again, it does seem he knows what he's in for when he approaches the gravestone.

I find it interesting how the third ghost is the one that really sends Scrooge over the edge. Sure, he had a rough upbringing and remembering it might have caused Scrooge to reflect. And sure, other people are celebrating and being merry - even in the face of misfortune - and wishing Scrooge was there with them (but not really). But even though Scrooge acts like he's changed before the third ghost even shows up, I think Dickens is right to suggest that the first two ghosts aren't alone.

Instead, it's the singular horror of seeing his death pass with little general notice, or at least with no one really caring, that seems to send Scrooge into a new way of life. It's interesting to think of Scrooge's psychology. It's not as if Scrooge never knew his nephew wanted to spend time with him or that other people celebrate while he happily spends nights alone. That stuff never seemed to bother Scrooge. In fact, he seemed to be annoyed at the idea that it should bother him. But the notion that his death might be unimportant seems to be what sends Scrooge over the edge. 

The fact that people don't like him doesn't bother Scrooge, but the idea that he, with all his wealth, his ability to scare people on the streets and his ruthless treatment of his debtors, is actually not that important, that his death might just be a pleasant footnote soon forgotten, that's what seems to really irk him.

Anyway, that's my psychoanalysis, at least. What say you?

As for the very end: It's a really fun read to see Scrooge loony with joy. Once again, Dickens turns to food for symoblism. It's hard for me to get the image of a giant, fresh (not frozen) turkey being lugged around town and then dropped on the doorstep of Bob Cratchit. I guess the scrawny goose will end up going to waste! But it's a nice metaphor for Scrooge's new oversized joy and kindheartedness.

Which makes it an awfully good Christmas story, I'd say.

Alright. Tell me thoughts.

And what next? Should we break until after the new year?

Ever so sweet

The second ghost brings such heartwarming moments! Almost too much, but for Christmas I suppose it's OK.

The first thing that leapt out at me was simply the seemingly endless, almost gratuitous descriptions of holiday food. Perhaps my favorite one (though not the most verbose description) was of Mrs. Cratchit cutting into the goose: "It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth..."

In addition to the food, the other thing that stuck out, as I suppose it's supposed to, is how Scrooge was both defended and jeered, but always defended and toasted in the end. I'm not sure that's so realistsic, but it is idealistic, it is, after all, the exemplification of human charity, right?

We also got to hear another famous line from the book, "God bless them, one and all!" Which was fun to read after hearing it so much.

One other thing that stuck out to me was just the deftness with which Dickens is able to transition from one scene to the other. All of a sudden he hears his nephew laugh and we're sort of faded into a new scene. That seems a difficult thing to do in text, and yet Dickens does it over and over again without much stress. It also stands in contrast to his sometimes heavy-handed flowery descriptions.

I like your point about how everyone knows this story, how ubiquitous it is. Did that change your experience of reading the book?

And at its core we get in this stave a nice message about Christmas meals meaning more to people who can't afford a feast, and the message that being wealthy isn't an end unto itself. Thus Scrooge might not be happy, even though he's rich.

I'm feeling all Christmasy now.

Staving Alive! Staving Alive! Ah ah ah ah Staving aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

MIKE:  Snow day!  But also Vomit in the Toilet Day!

Both of the above statements describe today.  As per usual, I had every intention of writing my post yesterday but, well, you know.  I should add, though, that I enjoyed reading A Christmas Carol so much that I finished it on Sunday.  

I think it's incredibly interesting that everyone, EVERYONE, knows of A Christmas Carol.  Even if someone hasn't seen a movie or theater production or read the book, everyone knows Dickens' Scrooge, the term Bah!  Humbug!, the concept of Ghosts of Christmas Past/Present/Future, etc.  I would argue that this is a story as well known as Adam and Eve.  It has broad popularity because it's a good story but more so because it makes people feel warm and fuzzy or something along those lines.  

I read this on the IPad and the version I have includes pictures.  Although the pictures aren't in any sensible order, they're pretty cool.  Here are the two I liked the best:




My experience with Dickens is limited.  I've read part of A Tale of Two Cities but that's it.  When I read Tale, I enjoyed Dickens' writing but there were times when I felt he went on a little to long.  For the most part, Dickens doesn't do that in A Christmas Carol.  Actually, the only part that I felt went on too much was in the next Stave and I'll go into detail then.  

I also really enjoyed Dickens' humor.  I thought it was funny that, "even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

Also, when trying to explain away Marley, "A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats.  You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.  There's more of gravy than of grave about you..."

And while there are plenty of humorous parts, there are also some very poignant portions.  Marley said, "I wear the chain I forged in life...I made it link by link, and yard by yard, I girded it on my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."  Poor Marley!  What he really needed was for a ghost to visit him and warn him of his future.  I guess he doesn't luck out in that respect.  Using this same passage, I recently saw a teacher have his students make rings out of construction paper and write on their links the vises they have. 

We are supposed to write about the Second Stave, right?  I found Scrooge looking at himself in the school and sitting alone to be quite touching.  After the ghost points out the "solitary child, neglected by his friends", Dickens writes, "Scrooge said he knew it.  And he sobbed."  Poor little lonely Scrooge.  Here he sits, all these years later, still alone and friendless.  

Regarding fog, of course I know what it means!  Fog is symbolic of uncertainty and/or confusion.  Duh!  I hadn't really payed attention to the fog until you mentioned it.  I went back to the text and performed a search on fog.  It's only used on Scrooge's walk home.  I suppose this was a time of uncertainty for him. 

Finally, I looked humbug.  According to Google,  Noun:  1 - deceptive or false talk or behavior  2 - a hard candy, esp. one flavored with peppermint,  Verb: deceive or trick.

Does this alter your view of the word and it's use?  It does mine.  Interesting.  

Go team!  Go Scrooge!   

Uncle Scrooge's rough night

One flaw in my plan is that we're already halfway through the book even though we're only at the first of three response points. But oh well.

Now as we begin "A Christmas Carol" we go from a book that neither of us had read or heard much about, to a book whose story is ubiquitous. My reading experience, at least, was illustrated in my mind with scenes from a movie version I must have seen years ago. In particular Scrooge's office appears in my mind as it did in the movie.

Also, I'd say the story line, even some of the lines of dialogue, seems to follow closely my expectations. I don't think I've really come across a moment yet where I've felt like the book is substantially different than the movie(s) and/or the narrative I have in my head.

That said, it was funny to read "Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!" It struck me as funny because the two exclamations are inextricably fused in my mind. It's a phrase "Bah humbug!" Seeing it broken up as two words, with dialogue attribution in the middle was funny and also gave me a better understanding of what he's saying and how he's saying it. (Although I still haven't been able to fully grasp what the word "Humbug" means.

This one's pretty funny, too. Such as when Scrooge opines that "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his hears. He should!"

Or when the clerk accidentally applauds the nephew's defense of Christmas: "The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark for ever."

Another bit that stuck out has to do with the class/charity themes in the book. Such as when the charity solicitor comes by in hopes of using the warm feelings of Christmas to raise money to feed the homeless. To which Scrooge responds, "Are there no prisons?"

Question for you, Mr. Symbolism: What does the fog represent? Is it just a means of creating a setting in which a ghost might appear out of nowhere? Or does it have a deeper meaning. I'm not quite sure yet, myself.

Another first impression is that I like Dickens' writing style. I started the book a bit leery, because in my mind I think of Dickens as a lyrical writer, in the sense that his writing is playful, which sometimes I don't like. Or more precisely, I don't like it if it's done in a heavy handed way.

But I just finished Stephen King's book, "On Writing," which I highly recommend. And he lists Dickens as a great, natural writer, and after reading the first half of this book I can see why. Reading the King book has me thinking about mechanics and language. I'm also reading at the moment a book by an ex cult member about his departure from the cult. It's rather clunkily written, which is to say, it is written rather well, except that the adjectives, verbs and metaphors he uses stick out like a sore thumb. Which is to say, it would be better if the writer stuck to cliches rather than the bizarre metaphors he comes up with as a result of apparently trying to avoid cliches. 

Dickens, on the other hand, seems to be able to lob adjective after adjective in his playful writing, but he picks the right words, and so it works rather well. He's gifted.

What say you?

A classic case of Freud

Let's get down to brass tacks...F. Scott Fitzgerald clearly meant every mention of social class to represent sex and, more specifically, vaginas.    Amiright?!?!

Okay, maybe not.  I think I like your analysis a lot.  What's best about it is that since you posted first I didn't have to do the hard thinking.   I'm also really glad you mentioned the two uses of paradise.  I think I marked the one with Rosalind but forgot that since reading it.  I would guess that's one of the reasons for the title.  Because ultimately , Rosalind and Amory do drop from paradise when money becomes the reason for their failed relationship.

Fitzgerald wrote this before he ever married Zelda but he'd dabbled with the upper crust of society for a few years.  If he intended to write this book as autobiography and to predict the future, he only accomplished half the job.  After Roseland, almost nothing else follows his actual life.  I wonder these were predictions or just storytelling.

Even though I didn't like Amory when he was at Princeton, I did enjoy the story.  I thought most of the writing was well crafted and Amory was, despite his shallowness, quiet complex.  I really hope he makes/made something of himself and even if he retained a foothold in upper society, I hope he could do something worthwhile rather than just exist.

I think I struggled with reading the book in so many small segments.  Granted, we read it over a two or three week period, but I might have been able to stay with the story better if I'd have read it in half the time.  FOr our next book, I might try that instead.

Alright, this is all I have time for right now.  Willa has been sick and throwing up and I'm home with her trying to get her better and keep myself healthy . Thus, this is a terribly rushed and underdeveloped entry.  I'll try to to do better next time.

Look for an email about the next book.  I'll send it later tonight.  

Parting Thoughts.

So. Overall. It's a very interesting book, isn't it?

I guess the overall thing that strikes me most about the book is the arc it took. It's a bit like the economic recession, actually. Things started out really high, then they began to get bad pretty quickly, then get even worse. And then when he finally hit rock bottom, darn near the end of the book, we got only a hint of recovery, but less of a recovery and much slower of a recovery than one might have wanted.

Let me tackle the arc another way. In the beginning, we both enjoyed the humor, much of which was poking fun at high society -- at the rich. So we, the readers, know, and deep down Amory knows, that all of this is pretty frivolous and not worth much in the end. But as the book goes on, the lesson gets ingrained in Amory more and more, and in an exceedingly un-funny way. So that by the end, whatever plans he had for himself, whatever family (or even friends) he expected to have, have more or less faded away. In their wake, we have a man who knows himself better than ever before, but can count that knowledge as perhaps the only thing to his name. Oh, and he might become a priest even though he doesn't believe in God. I also think you're right to pinpoint the rain/baptism moment as the beginning of the end, of a sort.

I'm harping on this stuff not because I didn't enjoy the book. I really did. It was great writing, and the better chapters were quick, fun, lively reading. And the ending satisfied, even if it was melancholy. But to answer your "most important" question, that's where the title comes in. In a large sense the book is about the futility of seeking true fulfillment or true happiness "this side of Paradise." Heaven may wait on the other side of this life, while we are living on earth we've got to settle, either for vapid materialism or for destitute self-knowledge (or something in between). I think Fitzgerald chooses the latter. Consider the quote from Rupert Brooke at the beginning of the book, "This side or paradise, there's no comfort in the wise." That seems to sum up Amory's experience fairly well.

You also raise an interesting question when you ask "What is 'Paradise'?" I was using the example of Heaven above, but I suppose it doesn't have to be Heaven. But I do think in the broader sense, Fitzgerald is using the term to mean a place that isn't accessible here on earth, a level of unachievable satisfaction.

That said, if we think of it in a more narrow sense, in terms of the book and its characters, it's interesting to note how Fitzgerald uses the term in the book. Searching through the book on my e-reader, I find just two examples of the word (other than the title page and other references to the title). The first example is the Brooke quote referenced above. The second example is in the chapter about Rosalind:

"They were together constantly, for lunch, for dinner and nearly every evening -- always in a sort of breathless hush, as if they feared that any minute the spell would break and drop them out of this paradise of rose and flame."

That which they feared, is of course what happened, in terms of their relationship and Amory's life in general. Perhaps this is confirmation from Fitzgerald that Rosalind was the great love of Amory's life, and thus, in at least a small sense "This Side of Paradise" might refer to Amory's life now that he can't have Rosalind.

All of this makes it difficult for me to see the book outside of the lens of Fitzgerald's own life. And perhaps the knowledge that things worked out for Fitzgerald, at least professionally, makes me not too depressed over how the book ended for Amory. But it is worth wondering how Amory fares in the long run. I definitely think he's wiser, and thus, in a large sense, better. But I also am not sure he ever finds normalcy or success. I'm not really sure he ever succeeds in being needed.

Yes, let's read another book. Out of the list you gave before, perhaps The Old Man and the Sea would be my choice. But you could convince me to read one of the others. Perhaps Dickens?