The Old Curiosity Club discussion
The Pickwick Papers
>
PP chapters 27 - 29
date
newest »
newest »
First I have heard of Pickwick tea. It is available via Amazon, but I could not find the particular tea I wanted, which would be black tea preferably decaffeinated. I'll have to look around. There are a number of fruit-flavored teas made by Pickwick. I'm not big on the fruit based teas, save perhaps peach.
There’s a lot of tea drinking here. I want to join the party. :)Even though I’m lagging behind, I want to write a comment about
THE STORY OF THE GOBLINS WHO STOLE A SEXTON.
And since the The Pickwick Papers has the power to put me in a good mood, I’m likely to be a bit facetious.
I expected a horror story. But it wasn’t quite so. In my opinion, if one is taken away by the Goblins, he cannot come back anymore. That’s what is scary about the Goblins. But these Goblins here actually take Gabriel to the cinema to watch an educational film about the importance of love and Nature, and they don’t even ask him to pay the ticket. It’s not so scary. On the contrary, it could be a good idea if one doesn’t have the money to pay the ticket. It could be even a good resource for teachers:
- Prof, what’s the Christmas homework?
- Go to sleep on a tombstone with a wicker bottle of Hollands.
The other interpretation is that Gabriel might have dreamt it all. At the end of the story, Dickens mentions some spirits that could be either the Goblins or other kind of spirits that could have elicited such a dream. And the acute pain in the shoulders might depend on the fact that Gabriel has slept on the tombstone. But this interpretation sounds a little unreal too. I mean: if one decides to go to sleep on a tombstone on the 24th December in south Italy, he might wake up the next morning with a sever pain in his shoulder. But if one decides to go to sleep on a tombstone on the same night in England, he is more likely to be found in the morning like that:
Mod
About the Goblin story, I did not notice the sly reference to the spirits, but in a way, it does make sense, of course. If you are very lucky, you may even fall asleep in a cold winter's night and wake up the next morning, but it would be a matter of how many hours you sleep. In our village, when I was a boy, there was an habitual drunkard, and sometimes he would simply fall asleep on his way home because he was so drunk, and this might happen both in summer and in winter. He actually survived all those experiences, even the wintry ones, but only because he was found in time and taken into a warm house. He also came unscathed through several other predicaments he got himself into when he was totally intoxicated. The really ironic thing was - sad as well as ironic - that one day he was riding his bike on his way back into our village after working on a nearby farm. That day, he was sober (as they later found out in the autopsy), but he and his bike were run over by a truck just as he was about to arrive at the village. That makes one shudder.
If Gabriel Grub just had a dream - under the influence of spirits -, the content of his dream, and the moral it transported, show that, after all, in his heart of hearts he must have known that his life was not really going the right way and that he should change. But you are right, Milena, normally the Goblins act upon the principle "Finders, Keepers" and they never bring back what or whom they got.
Tristram wrote: "Ah, Milena, what a wonderful film! It's not exactly Pickwickian, but I love it all the same, and it reminds me of how I watched it the first time (being 13 and alone at home) and was absolutely sca..."I love that film too, Tristram. And you’re right: it’s not exactly Pickwickian. :) But when I was thinking about frozen Gabriel, that image of Jack Torrance popped into my mind. Kubrick was a master at creating powerful (and in this case, rather scary) images.
Tristram wrote: "If Gabriel Grub just had a dream - under the influence of spirits -, the content of his dream, and the moral it transported, show that, after all, in his heart of hearts he must have known that his life was not really going the right way and that he should change. "I agree with you. In spite of my “criticism”, I like the story of Gabriel Grub, although The Christmas Carol is much better.
I feel a little like this picture of Jack Torrence today. Thank God for kind neighbors with snow blowers!
Mary Lou wrote: "I feel a little like this picture of Jack Torrence today. Thank God for kind neighbors with snow blowers!"Ha ha ha Mary Lou. I saw the snow in the US at the news, and I can understand your feeling like Jack Torrance and John’s dreaming of the dancing squirrels. Here it’s cold too, compared to season standards, but it’s not snowing.
Mod
It's an unforgettable film although, as far as I know, King himself was anything but pleased with it. I, on the other hand, liked Kubrick for not allowing those moving hedges into the film, and I also enjoy reading about the various interpretations this film got. Some of which are scarier than the film itself. Nevertheless, my favourite Kubrick will always be 2001.
Mod
Mod
Oh, 15 inches is 38.1 centimeters if that's any help to you, it's not for me.
Mod
Mod
Never heard of it.
Mod
Mod
It's another kind of math, it looks like it anyway. Having to learn one kind of math was almost more than I could stand, having to learn another would kill me. I'm also not sure I'd trust using the same math as people who can't seem to keep the numbers in dates in the right order. :-)
Mod
That's exactly why I am advising you to leave yards and inches behind and start working with the metric system ;-)
Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "I'm also not sure I'd trust using the same math as people who can't seem to keep the numbers in dates in the right order. :-) "That's exactly why I am advising you to leave yards and ..."
Back in the 70s there was an attempt to change the US to metric. Being young, and "math challenged" the last thing I wanted to do was learn something new after feeling like I'd just gotten a handle on the inches/yards thing. I was relieved it fell through. Fast forward 45 years, and I really wish they'd pulled it off, and am surprised it hasn't been changed yet. I do think it would make life easier, once the old farts like me adjust.
Y..."
Mary Lou
Hopefully there would be so many items to choose from we would both leave with countless treasures. Perhaps, however, you would buy more after I converted my Canadian dollars to American dollars.
No doubt, if the sale was in Europe or the UK we would both be at a disadvantage.
:-))