Village Christmas: And Other Notes on the English Year by Laurie Lee #BookOfTheMonth #OneRuleOfBookClub
When suggested last month we snapped up this 150 page or so collection of Lee's descriptions, memoirs and musings. Consisting of Chapters of no more than a few pages, topics included the river Severn, a pub and the landscaping of a garden! Winter, including Christmas, was the opening section so more than met the one rule of book club requirement (we review a Christmas book at Christmas).
Spring, Summer and Autumn sections followed and one of the group chose to stop reading after the Winter section in order to read each section in its correct season. I love this idea but would either forget and end up reading them all in Autumn or would get frustrated that I still hadn't finished such a slim book that I had started in 2018.
"Children trapped in new concrete estates will be denied the freedom we knew. They'll become prisoners of television, as most children are today, and as they grow up they'll start hanging about the streets in gangs and stealing cars."
As the above quote illustrates Village Christmas is unashamedly opinionated and quite often politically incorrect. There was certainly more than a trace of grumpy old man within its lines yet it was refreshing to read such honesty. Lee was clearly comfortable in himself and his ideals and wasn't afraid to express them.
For all it was only 150 pages it wasn't necessarily a quick read due to the detailed descriptive writing Lee provided. Some of the group didn't like this however at times the prose was just beautiful.
When describing the Lake District:
"It resembles from the air a kind of rough-cut jewel hanging from the narrow throat of Scotland, a jagged cameo of crumpled green and blue slivers of lake"
A lot of the group loved the book for the way it reminded them of how life was during their childhoods. It certainly harked back to yester year and evoked a time when life was more simple. Lee's Chapter about London shortly after the War (Chelsea Bun) describe a scene unrecognisable to me - no traffic, large houses just abandoned, writers and poets shooting each other with airguns in the street....well that might have just been Lee! Yet in an instant Lee brings the book right up to date with a last Chapter sentence:
"Chelsea..... has largely become a parody of what it imagined itself to be, a place to which people travel great distances to find themselves taking photographs of each other, an arena almost entirely filled with spectators."
When reading the book I found myself folding down corners of various pages that had lovely little quotes, or spot on observations but had to stop half way through as realised I was turning down nearly every page. I just loved the writing! It is a very English book, I'm not sure what you would get out of it if you had no interest in England. But at a time of year when life is most reflective, I found it the perfect way to end my 2018 reading.
We awarded it 7.1 (to be precise). The link to the book takes you to The Minster Gate Book Shop in York, surprisingly it's close to York Minster!
Our first book of 2019 is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
Merry Christmas everybody.
P.S. Thank you Book Clubbers for my presents and flowers. I can't wait to open them. They've got to be books right? I mean, they are book shaped and everything. To not be would be just cruel!!!
Spring, Summer and Autumn sections followed and one of the group chose to stop reading after the Winter section in order to read each section in its correct season. I love this idea but would either forget and end up reading them all in Autumn or would get frustrated that I still hadn't finished such a slim book that I had started in 2018.
"Children trapped in new concrete estates will be denied the freedom we knew. They'll become prisoners of television, as most children are today, and as they grow up they'll start hanging about the streets in gangs and stealing cars."
As the above quote illustrates Village Christmas is unashamedly opinionated and quite often politically incorrect. There was certainly more than a trace of grumpy old man within its lines yet it was refreshing to read such honesty. Lee was clearly comfortable in himself and his ideals and wasn't afraid to express them.
For all it was only 150 pages it wasn't necessarily a quick read due to the detailed descriptive writing Lee provided. Some of the group didn't like this however at times the prose was just beautiful.
When describing the Lake District:
"It resembles from the air a kind of rough-cut jewel hanging from the narrow throat of Scotland, a jagged cameo of crumpled green and blue slivers of lake"
A lot of the group loved the book for the way it reminded them of how life was during their childhoods. It certainly harked back to yester year and evoked a time when life was more simple. Lee's Chapter about London shortly after the War (Chelsea Bun) describe a scene unrecognisable to me - no traffic, large houses just abandoned, writers and poets shooting each other with airguns in the street....well that might have just been Lee! Yet in an instant Lee brings the book right up to date with a last Chapter sentence:
"Chelsea..... has largely become a parody of what it imagined itself to be, a place to which people travel great distances to find themselves taking photographs of each other, an arena almost entirely filled with spectators."
When reading the book I found myself folding down corners of various pages that had lovely little quotes, or spot on observations but had to stop half way through as realised I was turning down nearly every page. I just loved the writing! It is a very English book, I'm not sure what you would get out of it if you had no interest in England. But at a time of year when life is most reflective, I found it the perfect way to end my 2018 reading.
We awarded it 7.1 (to be precise). The link to the book takes you to The Minster Gate Book Shop in York, surprisingly it's close to York Minster!
Our first book of 2019 is The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.
Merry Christmas everybody.
P.S. Thank you Book Clubbers for my presents and flowers. I can't wait to open them. They've got to be books right? I mean, they are book shaped and everything. To not be would be just cruel!!!
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