Christmas in Marlow-land

[sheep-noises.livejournal.com]

This time o' year always reminds me of

1) The Christmas Play in Wade Minster, from "End of Term" (which I don't have atm as my copy gave up the ghost and fell to pieces >:( ) ;

2) The unconventional Christmas Dinner in a cave, with poor old Ann staying home in case the phone rings :( , from "Run Away Home"; but mostly

3) "Peter's Room". For me, this is the most magical of all those magical books. I must admit I've always skipped the bits in Italics, so I still don't know what fantasy it was that they acted out that Christmas, even though I've read it dozens of times. Don't care, either. The wonderful descriptions of the day-to-day Marlow (and a bit o' Merrick) winter doings are enough to keep me going :)

Comments

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I did the exact opposite -- I read the part about Jane as a little girl over and over, and couldn't read more than a couple of chapters of the rest for a long time. But that was coming to it as a child and not being interested in all the adults.

I skimmed the Gondal bits in Peter's Room first time through, finding them terribly dull. They've grown on me since.

[coughingbear]

I remember being a bit daunted by the Gondal bits the first time, and wondering if there really had to be so much of it, but then getting into it.

Which is reminding me that there is a Margaret Atwood that includes a Gothic novel in italics that the heroine is writing, and I remember being very disappointed that she didn't finish it, as I was enjoying that part as much as the main text. I think AF handles the end of the Gondal really well, so that for the reader it really does feel like an ending, and that Patrick and Ginty are right that they can't go on with that bit at least.