Category Archives: Challenges

Today marks the day of A Christmas Carol read-along for the Dickens in December event that I am hosting with Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat). The questions below were sent to those who signed up for the read-along. If you haven’t signed up but would still like to participate, feel free to answer on your blog (or here if you don’t have one) and leave your link in the comment so that we can add you to the list of participants. I look forward to visiting your blog and reading your answers.
Here’s Caroline’s post on the read-along.

Is this the first time you are reading the story?
Yes. I remember watching various movie adaptations when I was younger but never actually reading the original story.

Did you like it?
Very much. It was sad but also funny. I particularly liked the use of the word humbug, that word expresses Scrooge’s nature so well. It really made my day.

Which was your favorite scene?
It’s quite difficult to pick just one but there are a couple of paragraphs two or three pages into the story which describes the cold weather and as I am a summer loving person, it left a very strong impression. It goes like this:
“It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement-stones to warm them.” Very evocative, I did not envy those people.
And there’s another one:

“The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.”
That small fire that “looked like one coal” really made me shiver.

Which was your least favorite scene?
The scene at Fred’s house, where the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge. It’s not to say that I disliked it, but if I were to make a “top scene” list, this would be the last. I know Scrooge wasn’t a likeable character but to see him made fun of, compared to “a bear” and the like, it grated on my nerves a little. Maybe it’s because I was already beginning to feel sorry for him.

Which spirit and his stories did you find the most interesting?
The first Spirit’s story was pretty moving because it shed light on Scrooge’s past and made him more human. It shows the reader a possible reason why Scrooge turned up the way he did, shunning Christmas and being grumpy all the time. Even though I did not think his attitude was justified, it gave me a glimpse into his life and made me more understanding of his rejection of anything Christmas-related. After all, people can hurt you, money can’t.

Was there a character you wish you knew more about?
I did wonder about Scrooge’s sister, who is just briefly mentioned, and would have liked to know more about his family. Nevertheless, I don’t think the brief details took away anything from the story.

How did you like the end?
Did you think it was believable?
It fits the festive mood of the season, after all it’s a time for celebration and being happy. As for being believable, I’m standing in the middle here, leaning towards a positive answer.

Do you know anyone like Scrooge?
I know of a few people who could be great candidates for the role in time, but definitely not to that extent.

Did he deserve to be saved?
Given the way he turned out to be afterwards, I’d say a definite yes.

Today I decided it was the day to sit down and immerse myself in the wonderful world of Dickens on screen. Encouraged by the success I had with The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, I was looking forward to watching David Copperfield and The Old Curiosity Shop. Perhaps I hoped too much.

David Copperfield (2000) started with an overly dramatic melody that seemed to try too hard to set the mood for the coming story. Having gotten a taste of the wonderful acting in Nicholas Nickleby, I was hoping for more of the same. Sadly, it was not meant to be. The acting seemed too theatrical and stiff, the characters uninspiring and after one hour I just decided to give up watching it. I couldn’t help laughing watching Michael Richards (who will forever be associated in my mind with the role of Kramer he played in Seinfeld) who just seemed odd in the role of Mr. Wilkins Micawber, as did Sally Field who portrayed Aunt Betsey Trotwood. Maybe I just picked the wrong version to watch.

The Old Curiosity Shop (2007) was better. The story of young Nell and her grandfather trying to escape from the hands of the greedy creditor, Mr. Quilp, was a little more interesting. Derek Jacobi (who also played a part in Gladiator) in the role of the grandfather, and Toby Jones (acted in The Hunger Games) in the role of Quilp, were the most interesting characters to watch. Extra points go to the latter for giving an excellent performance of a greedy, disgusting, manipulative character.

After watching two and a half (well, almost half) movies based on Charles Dickens’s novels, to which I can add Great Expectations (even if that was years ago), it all seems like a formula to me: a funeral, a wedding, a chief villain, suffering children, the mysterious benefactor and various kind hearted characters here and there. There is the forever bleak London in which gray seems to be the predominant color, the persistent mud, and the accent which can be a challenge to understand at times.

Great Expectations is the only Dickens novel I have read so far. I remember watching the movie (the 1998 version starring Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow), thinking it was great, then reading the book and thinking the movie was awful by comparison, then watching the movie again years later and thinking it wasn’t too bad. Mrs. Havisham (or Ms. Dinsmoor in this version) was by far my favorite character. Apart from her brilliant performance, what I remember most from it was the dusty, desolate house and one of the most beautiful songs I’ve heard in a movie. That song is imprinted in my memory – it still gives me goose bumps when I listen to it.

Perhaps it’s too hard to expect from a movie the same depth of feeling a book can give, the emotions, the carefully placed words that can mean so much in a story. Perhaps it calls for a deeper understanding of Dickens’ fictional world to fully appreciate the movie. Perhaps one day, after reading the books and watching the movies again, I will be able to see them with different eyes. Perhaps. As of today, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby and Great Expectations remain my favorites.

Poverty, destitution, death, physical cruelty but also kindness, a great secret and happiness, this movie has them all. Set in the early Victorian era, the story follows the fate of young Nicholas Nickleby and his family after the death of his father. Left destitute, the Nickleby family turns to Ralph Nickleby, Nicholas’s uncle, for help. The many adventures that follow, as they are aptly called, deal mainly with the efforts young Nicholas, nineteen years old at the time, makes in trying to provide for his mother and his sister, Kate.

Ralph Nickleby is the rich uncle who appears to make some effort in helping the poor family. In him Dickens has created a perfect example of the lonely, cold hearted man whose only goal in life is money, the only power he accepts and understands. His offers to help both Nicholas and Kate end badly.
Through his connections, Nicholas is offered a position as a tutor at a school for boys in Yorkshire, a place he soon comes to see for what it truly was: a sort of prison for small boys whose relatives send them there to be educated and, in the case of young Smike, abandons them. Soon, Nicholas leaves the place, taking Smike with him and the two become good friends. Smike’s mysterious past comes into focus when a strange man comes asking after him at the boy’s school after he has left it. The man makes a few appearances here and there – he reminded me of Magwitch, a similar character in Great Expectations, and in the end it is him who reveals Ralph’s secret and sheds light on Smike’s past.

The whole atmosphere of the movie was very well created. The poverty-stricken population, the wealth of the noblemen, the cruelty of both poor and rich, the kind-hearted people – I was captivated by the story and for a little over three hours I was totally immersed in the lives of the characters. Charles Dance was very convincing in the role of the ruthless uncle, and young Nicholas played by James D’Arcy (who had several roles in Cloud Atlas) brought to the screen a believable fresh-faced innocence combined with the rashness and passion of youth. I haven’t read the book so I can’t make any comparison but if the movie is any indication, it probably is a masterpiece.

Here’s the movie (2 parts), if you want to watch it:

The only way to tell it’s finally December here is by looking at the calendar. The weather doesn’t help. It rained today and the air is humid and a little cooler than usual, which means we’re still in the 30 degrees Celsius range. But no matter if you’re at home, sitting comfortably in your favorite reading spot with a blanket to keep you warm, or just taking advantage of the cool air of the evening after a hot day, it’s time for Dickens!

Like I said in my introductory post, I will start with three short stories which I found in the book I’m currently reading, The Wordsworth Book of Horror Stories (and what amazing stories, I’m so glad it’s such a big book!).
Caroline ((beautyisasleepingcat.com) and I are co-hosting this event, so don’t hesitate to visit and leave comments that include the link to your Dickens-related review so we can add you to the list. Thanks to everyone who decided to join us, I’m looking forward to reading your reviews!

A few months ago, a simple comment on Caroline’s blog sparked an idea. That idea was an event to celebrate Dickens’ work, and also his 200^th birth anniversary. The name of the event was inspired by Roof Beam Reader’s Austen in August.

Caroline and I will co-host this event which includes book and movie reviews, a read-along, and two give-aways. We decided to post about it in advance in order to give people some time to arrange their reading schedule.

About the event:

1 December – end of the month: book reviews. You can choose any novel or short story by Charles Dickens, also books by other authors that are connected in some way to Dickens or his work. An excellent book is Drood, by Dan Simmons. If I hadn’t read that last year, it would have been a great choice for this event.

9-15 December: watch-along. This week is dedicated to watching movies based on Dickens’ books.

16-21 December: give-away. There will be two give-aways, one on Caroline’s blog, the other one here.

21^st December: a read-along of A Christmas Carol

End of the month: wrap up post. This will be a post containing all the links of the participants. You can join Caroline and I at any time during December. Choose a badge and tell us about your plans in a comment. Your level of involvement is entirely up to you. It can be only a movie, or a short story, or five books if you like. Just make sure you come and tell us about it so we can add your link.

I will start with three short stories by Charles Dickens:

To Be Taken with a Grain of Salt

The Signalman

The Story of the Bagman’s Uncle

They are part of a short story collection, The Wordsworth Book of Horror Stories, which I bought today.

Many thanks to Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat) for co-hosting this event. You can find her introductory post here. I’m already looking forward to next month!

The Caleigh family has had a rough year. After their son, five year old Cameron, disappeared, his mother Eve had taken a turn for the worse. Still holding on to the hope that he will come back one day, she tried to put on a brave face for the sake of the family, while her husband and their two daughters found their own way of dealing with the loss. Thinking that a change of scenery would be welcome for everybody, and especially being so close to the one year anniversary of Cameron’s disappearance, Gabe decided to rent a house for his family for a few months so he could be closer to work and they could relax in a new environment. That house was Crickley Hall.

It’s pouring down when they arrive, and the gloom of the huge house matches the weather. Even Chester, the family dog, can sense it, and he howls and tries to run outside at every opportunity. Strange sounds come from a cupboard, lights go on and off and a strong smell of soap is felt every now and then. There’s also a cellar door that won’t stay closed, dancing lights that appear out of nowhere, puddles of water on the floor in the middle of the night and the horrible sound of a stick hitting flesh.
As the story unfolds, the terrible history of the house is revealed. There was a group of children who lived there during the war, sent to the house by the authorities who thought the place would provide the perfect shelter against the bombing. Two guardians went with them, Augustus and Magda Cribben, and one night during a great flood, the children were found dead, Augustus disappeared and Magda never spoke again and was put in an asylum. What happened that night, how did the children die and what became of Augustus are questions that find their answers as the story goes on.

I have nothing but praise for this book. The story feels real, the characters are sympathetic and the whole atmosphere of the place is brilliantly conveyed. The story follows the main characters and we get to see their thoughts and actions while the omniscient narrator gives us insights into the mystery of Crickley Hall. What I particularly liked was how the author managed to give clues about what really happened on the night of the flood, while at the same time keeping the biggest surprise for the end. The dramatic past takes turns with the present events as the reader is also told how Cameron disappeared and what became of him, but without going into a lot of detail.
Eve really stood out for me as the strongest character in the book. Not only did she have to deal with the terrible burden of her son’s disappearance, but she also managed not to go crazy when all the dubious things started happening at Crickley Hall, and decided to stay and find out more about what happened to the children and possibly her missing son. There’s also Percy Judd, the house’s ancient caretaker who’s bound to the place by his own personal history, Gordon Pyke who has his own agenda, and Lili Peel, the young psychic who is drawn to Crickley Hall first out of curiosity, then out of a desire to help what she calls “the trapped souls of the children”.
At a little over 600 hundred pages, this was one of the best scary stories I have read. The story is straightforward and easy to follow, a small cast of characters and a dog (I am partial to dogs, I admit), the scary elements were all there and they made sense, and while there was an explanation for all at the end of the story, it still felt satisfyingly creepy and very well told. A modern day ghost story that proved to be a great nighttime read.

*

I bought this book about a year ago from a second hand bookstore and kept it on my shelf since then meaning to read it one day. That day arrived when I was reminded of Carl’s R.I.P. reading event , and it proved to be the perfect choice.

*Read in September, 2012

After my recent book shopping, I thought I’d have no trouble picking up my next book to read. Well, I didn’t, but after all, Angel Time by Anne Rice proved to be too slow paced for my taste and I wanted something more. More creepy, more alert, more gripping, lots and lots of more. So when I came upon Carl@stainlesssteeldroppings and read about his R.I.P. reading event I jumped at the chance to find a book (or more) and join in. After all, what could be more enjoyable than curling up with a book in the dead of night with the monotone sound of the air-conditioning keeping me company, for even though this is an autumn event (images of brightly colored leaves swirling in the wind come to mind), here it’s as hot as one could wish for a day at the beach. No matter. I’m up for a good creepy story anytime, so with this purpose in mind I scanned my bookshelf and found just the perfect book: The Secret of Crickley Hall, by James Herbert.

From Carl’s website:
The purpose of R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril VII is to enjoy books and movies/television that could be classified (by you) as:
Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.
Or anything sufficiently moody that shares a kinship with the above.

There are different levels of participation but right now I don’t think I can make definite plans as to what I’m going to read/watch. I may decide to read a few novels, watch some movies and add a couple of short stories in the mix, who knows…so I’ll leave my options open. The event runs from the 1st of September to the 31st of October so there should be plenty of time for some horrifically fantastic scary stories. Many thanks to Carl for hosting this event. For more details, head over to his site. Maybe you’ll want to join in the fun.

I found out about Carl’s “Once Upon a Time” Challenge from Caroline@ Beauty is a Sleeping Cat and being a great fan of short stories and fairy tales, I decided to join. The challenge runs from March 21st to June 19th. More details on Carl’s website.
I wasn’t sure which one of the levels I should participate in, so I’ll start with short stories for now and see what comes up next. Being relatively new to the world of books based on legends or fairy tales, I thought it would be a better idea to start small. This short story collection caught my attention because of the name and also because Neil Gaiman was on it. Two strong reasons to give it a try. So I did.

The second anthology I’ve read this year is about love stories, some with a tragic end and some with their happily ever after. This collection is comprised of 17 stories, many of them using fairy tale elements, demons and all kinds of spirits, their setting varying from ancient castles where kings and queens hold court, to traveling spaceships.
Before each story there’s a short introduction of the author, works they have published and a brief description of the story.
I liked most of the stories but these are special:

The Marrying Maid, by Jo Beverly, is set in London in 1758. A young man must find his bride before his twenty-fifth birthday or everyone related to him by blood will die. Caught between a battle of wits between Titania, the Faery queen, and her husband, king Oberon, Rob has no choice but to find the girl who will marry him before the set date. The story brings back memories of Shakespeare’s famous “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”; there’s a mention of leprechauns and gold buried at the end of a rainbow, and also of Robin Hood.

Demon Lover, by Cecelia Holland, is the story of a girl, Fioretta, who is abducted by a wizard and brought to his castle. There she reigns as his queen during the day and tormented by the wizard-demon during the night. Magic can have terrible power but true love conquers. A story that incorporated elements of another famous fairy tale in which remembering a name is all that stands between destruction and happily-ever-after.

Rooftops, by Carrie Vaughn, starts in a modern day theater, where Charlotte is supervising the rehearsal of her first important play, the one that’s supposed to make her famous. It’s a Gothic story, modernized, but something seems to be lacking. Just like there’s something lacking in her life as well, until one night a masked man saves her life and gives her what she wanted: a bit of adventure.

The Thing About Cassandra, by Neil Gaiman, is one story that confused me. Two friends, Stuart and Scallie, start reminiscing about the past one hot summer night. When Scallie says he has met Stuart’s former girlfriend, Cassandra, things start to get complicated. The fact is, she does not exist – Stuart made her up a long time ago to impress his friends. What’s true and what is imagination, where is the line that stands between them? I couldn’t find it in this story but I liked it nevertheless.

The Wayfarer’s Advice, by Melinda M. Snodgrass and Courting Trouble, by Linnea Sinclair, are the stories I liked the least. The fault is all mine, I admit. The science fiction setting does nothing for me, especially when it’s right at the beginning of the story and I gave up before the end. I could have overlooked it if this was secondary to the story, but I just couldn’t get through to the “mechanical part”. That being said, I did like The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Blue Boots, by Robin Hobb, is the story of Timbal, a young, orphan girl working at Timberrock Keep, and Azen, the handsome wandering minstrel whom she falls in love with. He calls her Blue Boots because that’s what she wears on her days off, a present from her father who died a tragic death. After a magical night spent together, intrigues and misunderstandings force them apart but the blue boots bring them together again.

His Wolf, by Lisa Tuttle, is one of the best stories in the book. It explores the connection between a man and a wolf and the fact that not only humans can repay an act of kindness. I liked it so much that I’m afraid saying more about it will only spoil the magic of the whole story.

You, and You Alone, by Jacqueline Carey, is a story that spans generations. When Anafiel is sent to the court of Rolande de la Courcel to mediate a marriage between his near-sister Edmee, and the famous prince, he never expected to fall in love with the handsome youth himself. But love does not ask, and the attraction between the young poet and the warrior prince blooms into a beautiful love story with a tragic end. My only regret was that the story ended so soon. The writing was beautiful, flowing easily, the world it created drew me in and never let me go until the end. I could have read a whole book based on it.

Man in the Mirror, by Jasmine Galenorn, is the story of a spirit caught between two worlds and yearning to be a man of flesh and bone again. Imprisoned in an old house, he lies and waits for his chance and when Laurel, a young woman with a terrible past is drawn to the same house, he can see his way out. But then love ruins his plans and he must make a decision. Can he switch places with Laurel and leave her a prisoner in his stead so he can escape and live a normal life again? Ah, who said love was easy…

I will probably never grow tired of fairy tales. To create an entirely different world, to bring back legends and myths from various cultures and use them again to create something new which has its roots in the stories we heard as children, that is a relatively new concept I’ve started to explore, and I’m beginning to like it more and more. Snow, Glass, Apples, by Neil Gaiman, was the first such story that captured my heart and made me remember Snow White again. Mermaid, by Carolyn Turgeon, was another, and I expect there will be more to come in the near future. I look forward to reading similar stories.

You can find Caroline’s review here.

*Read in March, 2012

Ever since I read Phantastes: A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald which was described as a “fairy tale for adults”, and then later on, Snow, Glass, Apples, a short story by Neil Gaiman, I’ve wanted to read more of this “literary genre”, if it can be called that. Just like Gaiman takes the “Snow White” fairy tale and rewrites it into an amazing new story, I was hoping that Mermaid would go through a similar transformation.

This version of “The Little Mermaid” is actually not that far from the original – Lenia, the beautiful young mermaid, goes to the surface as part of her eighteenth birthday ritual, which all merpeople could follow if they so wished. There’s a terrible storm and she saves a young man from a sinking ship. She takes him to the shore, where Margrethe, the daughter of a king, finds him and saves his life.
The story goes back and forth between Lenia and Margrethe, with the prince in the middle – a love triangle which seems to stay pretty solid until the end. The drama comes not from the two girls trying to push each other out of the prince’s way but from the capacity of one of them to sacrifice herself so the other can have a chance at happiness as well. Lenia dreams of a marriage with the prince, a way to fulfill her love and gain a soul, something that merpeople did not have. Margrethe hopes that through a marriage with the prince, she can bring peace to a land torn by war between two kings, which seems a little too good of an excuse for her to marry the man she wants. In the end, only one of them gets her happily ever after.

As a fan of mythological creatures, legends and fairytales, I can say I have enjoyed this story, even though it brought too fewer new elements to the already known story of “The Little Mermaid”. I liked it because it managed to captivate my attention and to make me a part of that world – a nice diversion from my reading pattern. The writing is basic and unpretentious with romantic insertions but without being cloying.
Some of the paragraphs I liked:

“He was so beautiful. She had never seen anything so beautiful. But she could feel the life leaving him, and knew that she had done all she could do, that it was time to let other humans take care of him so that he could live. She looked up at the girl on the cliff, standing there watching them, transfixed. Her black hair blowing around her, her pale skin and brown eyes, her furs.
You, she thought again. Come now.”

“How can any of us tell when that thing comes that will make everything different? As she stood in the frozen convent garden at the end of the world, all those centuries before now, Margrethe had no idea that she was about to witness a miracle – the last mermaid to come to land, at the very end of the days when mermaids still longed to return to it.”

“Now, many centuries after those days when the mermaid came to earth and left it, after so many daughters and sons have been born, there are people all over the world who carry the mermaid inside them, that otherworldly beauty and longing and desire that made her reach for heaven when she lived in the darkness of the sea.”
*
I would recommend this book to someone who wants something easy and delightful to read, a reminder of a classic fairytale and an uncomplicated story that takes you away from the ordinary world. It may not be much in the way of surprises, but it is enjoyable nevertheless.

P.S. I wonder why the mermaid’s hair color on the cover of the book is not blonde like it was supposed to be in the story. Just a silly little detail that stood out for me. That, and the author’s name.

*Read in February 2012

A couple of things kept me away from this book. One was the political theme – I’m not a fan of this kind of novels, and the other, the size of it. But then I don’t know why I complain about this last aspect, I always do and in the end I always read chunksters anyway. And enjoy them, too.

If you had the chance to change history, would you?

Starting from this question, a story is built. A man named Jake Epping is given the chance to go back in time to prevent the assassination of J. F. Kennedy. Is it possible? Will he succeed? Stepping back into the past, trying to familiarize himself with those times, from a simple thing as the right haircut to the spoken language characteristic of the 60’s, to the food and the people. He even manages to build a new life in the small town of Jodie, where he meets a woman, Sadie Dunhill, who makes his decision even harder to go through with. Racing against time, having to deal with some very unpleasant characters and make some big decisions, Jack is determined to stop the man who was supposed to kill Kennedy.

Having grown up in a very different culture (and quite a few years later), it was interesting to read about America in the 60’s. I especially liked the part where King described life in Jodie. There were many things I didn’t know about, like certain expressions, movies and songs, but I was pleasantly surprised when I read about the staged play of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men”, a book I loved, then “The Catcher in the Rye”, a book I couldn’t finish, and “Jude the Obscure”, a book I now want to read.

Before I started to read the book, I remember someone saying there’s no horror element to this story, one of the key ingredients that made me a fan of King’s work in the first place. There is however a touch of the unusual in the conversation Jake has with the Green Card Man – the “guardian” to the place where the present and the past converge – about strings and versions of the future and the damage that was done by repeated trips back and forth in time. That brought back memories of reading The Dark Tower books and even if I can’t recall exactly what made me think of it, other than beams (there has to be something about the beams supporting the Tower), I felt like the connection with the surreal has been accomplished.

I know if I’m enjoying a book by how connected I feel with the characters. Jake and Miz Mimi were the ones I liked the most – Jake, for his determination and courage to go through with his decision, and Miz Mimi for being a straight-forward person.
Oh, and I had to go to youtube and find Glenn Miller with a song called “In The Mood” – a song that is mentioned a few times in the book – it turned out I knew the song, just didn’t know its name or who the singer was.
The story felt complicated at times but like with most of King’s novels, once you’re in for the ride, you enjoy it to the end and this was no exception.

*Started in December, 2011 – finished in January, 2012