I'm sorry to say that Christmas Stories Volume I was not a joy to read. For two reasons: (1) the stories included in that volume were at best okay and at worst quite bad, and (2) I became frustrated by the fact that there were pieces either written or co-written by Dickens which were not included in this book. Oh, third reason: several of the stories were presented in a bowdlerized fashion because Dickens didn't write all of the chapters in these stories. I understand the motivation there, but it made for some very disjointed reading. The least that Heron Books could have done there would be to include a supplemental volume containing the missing material for those who wanted to peruse it. Even as we speak, I am attempting to put together my own online version of such a Supplemental Volume. News as it happens.
ADDENDUM: As it happens...HERE it is.
Now...onward to Christmas Stories Volume II. There are only 6 stories in this one, but it's still 472 pages long, so I think that bodes well; with an average length of almost 79 pages, I'm thinking that this will give Dickens the room to spread his arms out a bit, and I think he is always better when he's not cramped.
We'll see how that theory holds up, won't we? Once more into the breach.
Day 1 (DDRD 1,844) November 18, 2022
Read to page 30.
And you know, almost from the first page...maybe even FROM the first page...this felt like Real Dickens in a way that the stories in Christmas Stories Volume I did not. I think it's because these are longer stories. Because in a short story, plot has got to be the main consideration, doesn't it? You have a limited number of pages to tell a story, so other considerations have to fall into line behind plot. In a novel...or a long story...you have the luxury of developing characters, of having long conversations which do not necessarily advance the plot. And that's the stuff that Dickens is best at, in my humble o. All of which is to say that while today's thirty pages were not enough to get me through this Volume's first story, "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings"--which weighs in at 43 pages--it was enough to give me a taste of the Dickens of The Novels, and that was quite a relief. Here's hoping that that thought holds true through the rest of Christmas Stories Volume II.
Day 2 (DDRD 1,845) November 19, 2022
Read to page 60. Which means I finished "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings," which was pretty good, and got about halfway through "Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy," which is not nearly as good.
Speaking of, here are the contents of Christmas Stories Volume II:
"Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings" (1863) 43 pages
"Mrs. Lirriper's Legacy" (1864) 36 pages
"Doctor Marigold" (1865) 48 pages
"Mugsby Junction" (1866) 79 pages
This one is a collection of stories, some of them by Dickens and some by others. Here's the best information I could find on this:Barbox Brothers by Charles DickensBarbox Brothers & Co by Charles DickensMain Line: The Boy at Mugby by Charles DickensNo. 1 Branch Line: The Signalman by Charles DickensNo. 2 Branch Line: The Engine Driver by Andrew HallidayNo. 3 Branch Line: The Compensation House by Charles CollinsNo. 4 Branch Line: The Travelling Post-Office by Hesba StrettonNo. 5 Branch Line: The Engineer by Amelia B. Edwards
And then there's...
"No Thoroughfare" (1867) written with Wilkie Collins 148 pages
"The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices" written with Wilkie Collins 118 pages, and available here: https://www.google.com/books/edition/Reprinted_Pieces_and_the_Lazy_Tour_of_Tw/luQMAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PR5&printsec=frontcover
Day 3 (DDRD 1,846) November 20, 2022
Read to page 90...which finished off the Mrs. Lirriper stories and took me a few pages into "Doctor Marigold." I enjoyed the two Mrs. Lirriper stories, and as I was finishing up the second one I thought, I wonder if these stories have ever been published in a separate book, like a short novel? Since their combined length was longer than some "novels" I've read (EdgarCOUGHRiceCOUGHBurroughs), I thought that it could perhaps be so, so I went online for a look. And, indeed, found a separate Mrs. Lirriper book available for purchase. For some reason I thought I'd have a look at the Table of Contents, and lo and behold...
So yep, once again we have just a little slice of what Dickens published. At least this time out Heron Books has (presumably) given us everything that Dickens actually had a hand in. Though I wouldn't be surprised if later on I found out that he had co-written some of the other stories / chapters.
At any rate...I'm now on to "Doctor Marigold," and it seems lively enough thus far.
BTW, 35 days until Christmas...so I'm on track to finish the remaining two Dickens Christmas Books before the bells begin to jingle for real.
Day 4 (DDRD 1,847) November 21, 2022
Read to page 120, which put me pretty close to the end of Part III of "Doctor Marigold." Like 5 1/4 pages close. And I thought about finishing it off, but (1) I've got some other reading that I want to get to, like Lucy By the Sea, which is due in a few days and can't be renewed because there are lots of other people waiting for it and (2) although I like the first part and was okay with the second part, I didn't feel that the third part got off to much of a start, so I'm not all that anxious to push on with it.
Day 5 (DDRD 1,848) November 22, 2022
Read to page 150.
Finished "Doctor Marigold," which was okay with moments of very good, and started "Mugby Junction." This is another "collection of stories" story, and once again there are pieces Not By Dickens in the original, to wit:
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| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugby_Junction |
Looking through that TOC, I realized that I was wrong when I said that I'd never read any of the stories in this volume, as I had previously read "The Signalman." In fact, it was included in one of the anthologies that I taught from back in the day, and I vaguely remember teaching it at least once.
As to this Collection of Stories story thing...Dickens sure likes to go that roure, and seems to delight in inventing framing stories to justify such collections.
It also occurs to me that at east to this point I was right in my suspicion that these longer Dickens stories would be a more pleasing scent in my nostrils that the short ones of Christmas Stories Volume I. They are much better stories, and much more Dickensy.
Day 6 (DDRD 1,849) November 23, 2022
Read to page 180, which finished off the second story (meh) and started the third (not promising).
The second story starts off with this puzzling paragraph:
"With good will and earnest purpose, the gentleman for Nowhere began, on the very next day, his researches at the heads of the seven roads. The results of his researches, as he and PhΕbe afterwards set them down in fair writing, hold their due places in this veracious chronicle, from its seventeenth page, onward. But they occupied a much longer time in the getting together than they ever will in the perusal. And this is probably the case with most reading matter, except when it is of that highly beneficial kind (for Posterity) which is “thrown off in a few moments of leisure” by the superior poetic geniuses who scorn to take prose pains."
Dickens is clearly making fun of something...or someone...but I don't know what (or who).
On page 161, on the other hand, there is a reference to "the supercilious Mayflies of humanity," and I sure nuff do get that.
Day 7 (DDRD 1,850) November 24, 2022
Read to page 210, thus finished "The Boy at Mugby" and have to admit that I have no idea why this story exists. It's just a kid (the boy) watching / listening as a bunch of women yell at one of the women's husbands. Also read "The Signalman," which was a decent story, though I can't for the life of me imagine why it would be worthy of being collected in an anthology to be thrown at defenseless students. And that finished off Mugby Junction, since Dickens had nothing to do with the rest of the book. Speaking of which, it seems interesting to me that two of the writers involved in the other stories--Hesba Stretton and Amelia B. Edwards--were women. Am I wrong in thinking that this was very forward-thinking of Mr. Dickens? I mean, the Brontes were still using pseudonyms around this time, weren't they?
And then it was on to "No Thoroughfare"...or perhaps that should be No Thoroughfare. There's a note on the title page that says, "...the only portions [of this "book"] furnished exclusively by Mr. Dickens being the "Overture" and the "Third Act;" Mr. Collins contributing to acts first and fourth, and writing the whole of the second." I leafed through the (many! almost 150!!) pages of the text and looked for sub-headings; after "The Overture" I found Act I, Act II, Act III, and Act IV. Well, Faith and begorrah, did they actually include not only the parts co-written by Wilkie Collins, but even what he wrote all by himself? It sure looks that way. I poked around a bit to see if I could find confirmation of who wrote what, but it looks like I have to rely on the words of the Heron Press folks for this.
I wonder what made them include the whole shebang this time around, though? It's a first for these Christmas Stories.
Status Check-Up: 787 pages to go in The Christmas Project (which means I've now read 666, so heading for the mid-point), so at 30 pages per day I have 26.23 days' worth of reading ahead of me. That means I should finish on the 20th (or 21st for that .23) of December, several days Ahead of Schedule. Although I kind of wanted to finish on Christmas morning, actually. Let's see...I could back it off to 25 pages per day and that would almost even it out. (There's be 12 leftover pages to sort out somewhere along the line.) Hmmm. OCD is a terrible thing.
Day 8 (DDRD 1,851) November 25, 2022
Read to page 240. A pretty entertaining Adopted Orphan story, but already I can see a Huge Coincidence rumbling down the tracks. The set up is that an infant is sent to an orphanage and given a name, a dozen years later is adopted and his name given to a new child at the old orphanage (why? Is there such a shortage of names?), then the first child's mother returns to the orphanage and mistakenly adopts the child she thinks is the one she left there...because it has the name that she was told her infant was given. When the first child, now a man, finds this story out (through an Amazing Coincidence, of course), he determines to give his business to the Real Son of the woman, and goes in search of him. It is amazing that Dickens is able to make stories which hinge on impossible coincidences enjoyable, but he does manage it. At least so far. I've often found that Coincidence is the fulcrum which destroys my enjoyment in stories. Like the movie I saw recently, The Secret Scripture (2016). It would have been a beautiful and touching movie, but it was absolutely destroyed for me by absurdly impossible coincidences. (Although it is still worth seeing, I think. And if we were supposed to see the story through the eyes of a woman who was mentally ill, that would definitely restore the story's integrity completely. Unfortunately, there's no reason to think that's true so far as the movie goes, but I'm hoping to read the book one day and find that that is precisely what the writer had in mind. Time will tell...and so will I.
Day 9 (DDRD 1,852) November 26, 2022
Read to page 282. Had a long wait for an oil change, so squeezed in a few extra pages. Have to admit that I'm ready for this story to be over, though...and there are still 70 pages to go.
BTW...there are five references to "bodice" in this story, and while none of them are ripped (π₯π₯), here's a bit of Extra for you:
"George Vendale took his seat by the embroidery-frame (having first taken the fair right hand that his entrance had checked), and glanced at the gold cross that dipped into the bodice, with something of the devotion of a pilgrim who had reached his shrine at last."
Talk about tit worship!
Day 10 (DDRD 1,853) November 27, 2022
Read to page 310. Funny, as I rounded the clubhouse turn on Act II I found myself thinking, "You know, this story is actually getting pretty interesting." And then I finished II and started Act III, and immediately felt the wheels sink into thick mud. My first thought was, "I'll bet Dickens wrote Act II by himself, and I'm now trying to make headway in Wilkie Collins' prose. So I went back to the note which preceded this story / book:
"...the only portions [of this "book"] furnished exclusively by Mr. Dickens being the "Overture" and the "Third Act;" Mr. Collins contributing to acts first and fourth, and writing the whole of the second."
Hmmm. Perhaps I should have a look at one of Wilkie Collins' books, hmmm?
At any rate, the good news is that I should be finishing up this story / book tomorrow.
Day 11 (DDRD 1,854) November 28, 2022
Read to page 352. A little extra because I really wanted to get to the end of that damned "No Thoroughfare" story. Though I have to admit that it was pretty compelling, actually. Also that it reminded me that Dickens' Christmas Stories have very little or nothing to do with Christmas. Which is kind of a relief, as I wasn't sure that I could take 1,400+ pages of jingling bells...but ironic, too, in that the reason I embarked upon this Christmas Project was to coincide with Christmas this year. Ce'set la vie.
So now I've a mere117 pages to go in Christmas Stories Volume II, all of them ensconced in "The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices."
Day 12 (DDRD 1,855) November 29, 2022
Read to page 380. "The Lazy Tour etc." is an "amusing" story of a fictionalized Dickens and Wilkie Collins as they wander about England. So far I'm not amused, I'm sorry to say.
Three days to go.
Early on in this story there was a reference to Sir Richard Whittington and his cat which puzzled me, so I looked it up. Turns out there was a story (probably not true) of Sir RW beginning the making of his fortune by selling a cat to a woman in a town overrun with rats. There was a (public domain) picturing accompanying the story on Wikipedia, however, which I thought was pretty darned cute, so here it is:
Day 13 (DDRD 1,856) November 30, 2022
Read to page 410. 24 of today's pages were occupied by a side story which added nothing to the main story. (In brief, the Idlers visit a doctor, see a strange, pale fellow who is the doctor's assistant, and when that fellow leaves to attend to something the doctor tells a story about him.) Why does Dickens constantly resort to these pointless side stories? I don't know, but it's been a part of his style since The Pickwick Papers, and I wish that he would stop.
BTW, I've been reading Ben Guterson's Winterhouse on the side, and a few minutes ago I read this:
Feel the POWuh of The Dickens Side.
Day 14 (DDRD 1,857) December 1, 2022
Read to page 440. How's this for a Christmas story: a guy woos a woman so he can steal her money, but she dies before he can get it, and her will leaves everything to her young daughter. So he puts her in a private school until she's 21, then marries her (!), takes her back to their hime, has her write a will leaving everything to him, then spends weeks telling "Die!" at her until she does. Merry fuckin' Christmas indeed.
One more day with this bullshit. Have to admit that it's not boring bullshit, though.
Day 15 (DDRD 1,858) December 2, 2022
Read to page 471 = The End. This hotel's last story ("Idle Travelers etc." was bullshit. It wasn't remotely funny, the main story was very thin, it was interrupted by two long ghost stories, and it wasn't even close to having a proper ending. I'm very glad to be finished with it.
Onward to Christmas Books now.
DDR Day 1 to 1,000: 13,449 pages read
+
DDR Day 1001 to Day 2000:
(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages
(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(15) Jazz: Its Evolution and Essence 13 days, 304 pages(1) Leviathan 63 days, 729 pages
(2) Stalingrad 27 days, 982 pages
(3) Life and Fate 26 days, 880 pages
(4) The Second World War 34 + 32 + 40 + 43 + 31 + 32 days = 212 days, 4,379 pages
(5) Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming 10 days, 572 pages
(6) The Great Bridge 25 days, 636 pages
(7) The Path Between the Seas 29 days, 698 pages
(8) Blake: Prophet Against Empire, 23 days, 523 pages
(9) Jerusalem 61 days, 1,266 pages
(10) Voice of the Fire 9 days, 320 pages
(11) The Fountainhead 15 days, 720 pages
(12) The Pacific Trilogy: Pacific Crucible 23 days, 640 pages
(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages
(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages
(13) The Pacific Trilogy: The Conquering Tide 28 days, 656 pages
(14) The Pacific Trilogy: Twilight of the Gods 31 days, 944 pages
(16) Toward Jazz 18 days, 224 pages
(17) The Worlds of Jazz 13 days, 279 pages
(18) To Be or Not...to Bop 14 days, 571 pages
(19) Kind of Blue 4 days, 224 pages
(20) Kind of Blue: Miles Davis and his Masterpiece: 5 days, 256 pages
(21) Miles: The Autobiography 16 days, 445 pages
(21) A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Album: 8 days, 287 pages
(22) Ascension: John Coltrane and His Quest 8 days, 304 pages
(23) Living With Music: Ralph Ellison's Jazz Writings 11 days 325 pages
(24) The Pickwick Papers 28 days, 983 pages
(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages
(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages
(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages
(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages
(25) Oliver Twist 16 days, 542 pages
(26) Nicholas Nickleby 27 days, 1,045 pages
(27) The Old Curiosity Shop 22 days, 753 pages
(28) Barnaby Rudge 24 days, 866 pages
2nd 1K Total: 21,353 (to BR) Average Pages Per Day: 27.38
Grand Total: 34,802. Average Pages Per Day: 19.55
(30) Martin Chuzzlewit 32 days, 1,045 pages
(31) American Notes 10 days, 324 pages
(32) Pictures From Italy 7 days, 211 pages
(33) Christmas Stories Volume I 10 days, 456 pages
(34) Christmas Stories Volume II 15 days, 472 pages
2nd 1K Total: 24,006 pages (to CSII) = 27.98 average pages per day
Grand Total: 37,455 pages, 20.16 Average Pages Per Day
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