A Christmas Carol

Better late than never!

Christmas festivities and some serial essay writing seemed to cloud my memory, so apologies for the lateness.

December’s read was A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

 

We were all in good spirits…Christmas was fast approaching and the mulled wine and cake was aplenty!

We discussed how A Christmas Carol helped to shape Christmas traditions – when it was first published in 1843, old traditions were waning, and this novella helped to send a message of joy and hope at this time of year. Interestingly, Christmas trees and the first Christmas cards began appearing in the 1840’s.

Poverty is a continuous theme throughout the novel – there are many references to the workhouses, of which Scrooge is an advocate for towards the beginning. Maintaining relevance to the era in which it was written, Scrooge’s assistant, Bob Cratchit and his family represent poverty, and later become a concern of Scrooge when he discovers the more charitable and kinder aspects of himself – only after being visited by three ghosts mind!

For anybody whom may be interested, this website contains A LOT of information about Charles Dickens, and the page about A Christmas Carol is worth a look http://charlesdickenspage.com/christmas.html

The numerous television and film adaptations formed a large part of conversations – favourites including The Muppet’s Christmas Carol, Disney’s Christmas Carol, and of course Ross Kemp’s modern day version concerning a loan shark in central London (definitely better than it sounds).

A couple of people were not a fan of the overly descriptive style, but then would it be Dickens without it?! Overall the general consensus was that it was an enjoyable read, especially a couple of weeks before Christmas, which seems but a distant memory already…

Now to begin 2015’s reading list.

For anybody who would like to read more this year, I recommend joining Goodreads and entering into the 2015 reading challenge. Personally I find it motivating but it’s also useful when looking for new authors/books to try. http://www.goodreads.com/challenges/show/3082-2015-reading-challenge

Happy New Year!

Rachael

The Catcher in the Rye

Tonight there were seven of us present at the meeting to discuss our thoughts of “The Catcher in the Rye”.

With an average rating of 5/10, it wasn’t particularly a novel that anyone would include in their favourite reading lists!

I personally was slightly shocked at this, as I found that I quite liked the story and liked the character of Holden, yet I seemed to be the only person who thought this!

Much of the discussion related to Holden’s thoughts and perceptions that he expressed relating to others (primarily adults) – often referring to them as “phony”. We queried whether this was his genuine opinion of others, or whether it was a reflection of his deteriorating mental state as it became more common as the book progressed. The general thoughts of the group were that he held this view of adults, especially when he was observing the interactions between men and women – perhaps to represent the difficulties that he was experiencing as a teenager coming to terms with adulthood. Dismissing people as being “phony” revoked the need for him to explore or contemplate this further.

Holden seeks to maintain the idea that children are innocent throughout the book, however this begs the question as to why he doesn’t seem to worry as much about his own? We established that this was just one of many contradictions that Salinger has included.

Something that cannot be ignored is the title that Salinger has chosen – taken from Robert Burns’ poem “Comin’ Thro’ the Rye”. It is of great significance that Holden gets the poem wrong, and that around the beginning of the novel, he hears a child singing this poem, which cheers him up. Holden believes the poem is about childhood innocence, even stating that he would like to be the “catcher” – until he is told by his sister Phoebe that it is not about childhood innocence at all – it is quite the contrary. Whilst potentially representing Holden’s innocence, it could also show his ignorance.

The book ends with, “Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”. When I was researching discussion topics, this ending seemed poignant. People seemed undecided as to whether this was meant to be interpreted in a positive or negative light.

The Catcher in the Rye certainly provided the group with many discussion points – there were more than I have included but I thought I would highlight just a few! Unfortunately, this was not loved by many, only averaging 5/10, and the general consensus was that it is an overrated novel. Despite this, people are still glad that they have read it (and in many cases, re-read it since they were a child!).

We also picked out the books that we will be reading for the next few months. I have updated the section on this page which details the books that we will be reading for the next six months.

See you all on 25/11/2014 to discuss “Nights at the Circus”.

Rachael 🙂

It’s almost time!

Here I am, making the final preparations before next week’s first book club meeting at Wagon’s.

Hopefully my blogging skills will increase somewhat before then and I will figure out how I can include everything that I want to on here!

My aim is for this blog to become a fountain of knowledge for all things book club; past and upcoming reads will be here, our reviews/thoughts on the current month’s read, as well as a general round-up of meeting discussions (if relevant – of course!).

Until then….