A Child's Christmas in Wales in Retro Reads

May 22, 2015 Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: the-shorts, oldies-but-goodies

My artistic, flighty mother, who's in her 70's, flits in and out of my life, leaving quirky gifts behind. Sometimes they go straight to Goodwill (used clothing, cheap knickknacks); sometimes they're useful (a type of mop she particularly loves); sometimes they're delightful (my grandmother's sterling silver set, books that have moved her, beautiful impressionistic landscapes that she paints in oils or watercolor).

description

This illustrated book version of Dylan Thomas's reminiscing about his boyhood Chri My artistic, flighty mother, who's in her 70's, flits in and out of my life, leaving quirky gifts behind. Sometimes they go straight to Goodwill (used clothing, cheap knickknacks); sometimes they're useful (a type of mop she particularly loves); sometimes they're delightful (my grandmother's sterling silver set, books that have moved her, beautiful impressionistic landscapes that she paints in oils or watercolor).

description

This illustrated book version of Dylan Thomas's reminiscing about his boyhood Christmases was one of my mother's more recent gifts; she dropped it on me one day when she was visiting, with very little explanation. But it's nostalgic and old-timey and European-flavored, which are sure-fire appeals to her sensibilities (and often mine). It also has Thomas's lovely, poetic writing:

Years and years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the colour of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlours . . .

Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet who lived a short, intense life (he died of his excesses when he was only 39). He disliked being regarded as a "Welsh" writer and had no use for Welsh nationalism. And yet he came up with this beautiful, lyrical tribute to his childhood Christmases in the coastal town of Swansea, Wales, in the early 1900's, "before the motor-car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and snowed."

There's no real structure to this short book; it's more a grab bag of random childhood Christmastime stories, filled with boys' mischief, Useful Presents ("mittens made for giant sloths; ... pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles's pond and did and drowned; and books that told me everything about the wasp, except why") and Useless Presents (the best! "a painting book in which I could make the grass, the trees, the sea and the animals any color I please, and still the dazzling sky-blue sheep are grazing in the red field under the rainbow-billed and pea-green birds. Hardboileds, toffee, fudge and allsorts, crunches, cracknel, humbugs, glaciers, marzipan, and butterwelsh" ... I wish I knew what half of those things are), and relatives who indulge in a little too much parsnip wine.

Short, affectionate and poetic, this is a sweet tribute to bygone days and those Christmas memories that linger through the years.

Bumping up to 5 stars on reread.

Free online here at Gutenberg Australia: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks07/0701...
Or if you'd like to listen to Dylan Thomas reading his own story, here's a recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hoxy... ...more

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Dec 23, 2017 Carol She's So Novel꧁꧂ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: keeping-it-short, christmassy, modern-classics

I read this over at https://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems... and also treated myself to a listen over on You Tube of Thomas reading this himself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Hoxy... I normally hate being read to but it is impossible to hate this beautifully vibrating voice breathing even more life into this work.

I've never read nostalgia so well realised & I loved the gentle humour.

Here is a quote dear to a Goodreader's heart.

And when the firemen turned off the hose and were standing in

...more

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Dec 06, 2017 Julie Durnell rated it really liked it

Shelves: christmas, england-uk

A poetic novella of Christmas reminiscences as a young boy, beautifully written and exquisitely illustrated. The illustrations really lift this above the ordinary cute holiday tale.

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Nov 02, 2021 Bobbie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: christmas, classics, poetry

I found this on my "grandchildren's book shelf" at home when straightening it. I didn't realize that it was there and since I had never read it knew that I needed to immediately. It is a lovely book and now I realize why it is such a classic. The illustrations are so beautiful as well as the beautiful prose. ...more

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