The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Hello Fellow Curiosities,

This week we are going to discuss Dickens’s short story To Be Read at Dusk, which was published in The Keepsake in 1852. I did not know what The Keepsake was and so had a look at Wikipedia, where I learned that it was a literary annual running from 1828 to 1857 containing short fiction, poems, essays and engraved illustrations. Apparently one of the target groups were young ladies, which I would never have guessed from the story we are discussing this week. The Keepsake was sired by the engraver Charles Heath, and though – as to Wikipedia – the literature published is often regarded second-rate, among the contributors there were a lot of well-known and important authors of the Romantic period. Among the contributors of the 1829 edition, you can find Sir Walter Scott, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley and Southey.

One, two, three, four, five. There were five of them.

Thus starts our story, and it is an interesting way of claiming a reader’s attention, mirroring the process of discovery our narrator goes through when he finds himself listening to a group of couriers exchanging lore outside the convent on the summit of the Great St. Bernard in Switzerland. The scenery is ominous, allowing the narrator the view on ”the remote heights stained by the setting sun as if a mighty quantity of red wine had been broached upon the mountain top, and had not yet had time to sink into the snow.”

Our narrator has been lured outside because he has been listening, not entirely to his delight, to the talk of an American gentleman which revolved around another American gentlemen – probably one of the most remarkable men of his country – who has heaped dollar on dollar on dollar. Dickens had apparently not recovered from the anti-Americanism he displayed to the utmost in Martin Chuzzlewit, and he felt compelled to include the jab into the story although it does not bear any importance with regard to the tales that are going to follow.

The couriers are talking about ghosts and supernatural experiences, and they seem to be at odds with regard to what they can regard as supernatural and what is merely trite coincidence. In the course of their conversation two of them are going to tell a longer tale, and the Italian courier is going to start. He says that once he was employed by an English gentleman who was on a honeymoon with his young wife and intended to spend the bulk of their time in an old palazzo near Genoa. The bride finds herself unable to enjoy their holiday, though, because, as her maid tells our courier, she is haunted in her dreams by the sight of the face ”of a dark, remarkable-looking man, in black, with black hair and a grey moustache - a handsome man except for a reserved and secret air.” This face does not do anything but simply regards her from out of a veil of impenetrable darkness. Seeing how perturbed the young lady is, and hearing her say that she is afraid of seeing that very face in one of the paintings in the palazzo, the servants search the whole place, every single room, lest there should really be a portrait bearing any resemblance to that mysterious face, but all their endeavours are to no avail. The house is musky and old, and there are two sinister women looking after it, ”one of them with a spindle, who stood winding and mumbling in the doorway”, but there is no trace of the face haunting the young lady. One day, however, the English master brings a dinner guest, who goes by the name of Dellombra – which means “of the shadow” –, and this man pretty much answers the description the young bride gives of the ominous face that is upsetting her so much. Although the bride faints when she first sets eyes on Dellombra, her husband, probably trying to make her realize that all her apprehensions are but pointless worries, or probably because he is obliged to the laws of society, encourages Dellombra to become a regular guest at their house. One day, the bride has vanished, and it becomes obvious that their new acquaintance must have kidnapped her. The master and the courier at once give them chase, but at the next post-house they have to realize that Dellombra has bespoken all the horses and sent them away into different directions, thus making it impossible to the husband to continue the chase. The people at the post-house can remember ”a frightened English lady crouching in one corner” but from that moment on, the lady has vanished from the face of the earth.

QUESTIONS
What might have happened to the young bride? And why did she experience these forebodings in the first place?
The couriers debate the question whether Dellombra is a ghost or not. What is your assumption?
One of the greatest mysteries in the story to me was why the English husband did not take his wife’s reaction to their guest more seriously? What might his motive have been for pressing the stranger on his wife’s presence?
I included the reference to the old woman with the spindle while I left out many other details, because I’d like to know what associations you connect with that particular old lady.

The second story is told by the German courier, and it focuses on two brothers, James and John. One night, John, the German courier’s employer, has a vision of his brother James coming into his bedroom, all dressed in white, and he is immediately worried about his sickly brother’s health. A little later, James’s footman comes to the house, summoning John to attend his brother, who does not feel very well. They go to the sick man’s house, only to find James at the brink of death, and the dying man’s last words are, ”’JAMES, YOU HAVE SEEN ME BEFORE, TO-NIGHT - AND YOU KNOW IT!’” And here the German courier’s story ends, as does the conversation of the five couriers.

Do you believe in incidents of the kind recorded by the German courier?
Which of the two stories did you find more interesting and more suspenseful? And do you think the ending of the whole piece well-timed?
Are there typical Dickens elements in this story? Did you enjoy it? Did you miss anything?

I wish you all an engaging discussion of this unusual Dickens story.

I enjoy a good ghost story (or, in this case perhaps, not a ghost story but a supernatural story). These two had promise, but both left me wanting. I need resolution or, at the very least, some speculation about possible resolutions. These left me with none. I also tried to think about what the two had in common and why Dickens would include them together in one tale. My brain no longer being what it once was, I ended up doing something I rarely take the trouble to do -- I looked for analysis online.

As always with literary analysis, a lot of it left me wondering what the hell these critics had put in their morning tea. But some of it did help me appreciate a few things.

Re: the bride story - the man's name, Dellombra, means "of the shadow" while the wife's name, Clara, means "bright" or "clear" - so there's some duality there. The article I read goes on to maintain (based on what, I don't know) that Dellombra is actually Clara's darker self. She can't escape him, because he is part of her. Assuming all of this is reasonable, did Dellombra represent guilt from a former misdeed? Was Clara schizophrenic? Dickens didn't give us enough information to satisfy this theory.

Re: the brothers - one analysis I read hearkens back to the brothers in Dombey, also named James and John. As we're getting ready to read this, I won't go into detail here, but keep this little tale in mind as you're reading Dombey. At any rate, like the bride story, it's said to show the split nature of our selves -- our Jeckyll and Hyde, as it were. Since I wasn't smart enough to recognize that in the Bride story, I obviously didn't make that connection between the two tales.

So, then, how did these two stories tie together with the couriers? Okay, I admit that the analyses I read made no sense to me as far as that was concerned. BUT, it was interesting to have pointed out that Dickens made a point of literally counting the couriers and specifying that there were five. And yet as the stories are told, only four are mentioned according to the critic (I didn't go back and count). Where is the fifth? Of course there's all that blood/wine imagery (reminded me of A Tale of Two Cities) and the mention of the deaths on the mountain. And then, of course, at the end of the second story, our narrator turns to see why they've all stopped talking, and the couriers have vanished. Were they ever really there? Were they, in fact, ghosts? Was our narrator the fifth courier? Were the others some darker part of his personality? I don't have a clue.

There was great emphasis made of simile. Right up front our narrator says,

This is not my simile.

The analysts say the whole story is simile. I can kind of see that, but I'm thick enough that I'd need some more in depth discussion and clarification to really see what they're getting at.

For me, the bottom line is this. Literature with lots of layers can be fun to peel, but if the surface layer isn't enjoyable on its own, then maybe it's not really that well written. I don't like to have to work so hard at finding deeper meaning. And when I DO go to the trouble of peeling back some of the layers, I want the payoff to be obvious. To Be Read at Dusk had great promise, and I appreciated the analysis explaining some of the things I'd been missing. But I had to work too hard for it, and it still left me wanting. Dickens could have taken some time with all of this and turned it into something much more remarkable.

Tristram - I, too, wondered why the husband foisted Dellombra on his wife. Assumptions were made, but a few sentences from Dickens could have removed this distraction for the readers.

As to the spindle, I gave no thought to it as I read it, but your question caused me to do so. Not sure what you had in mind, but it reminded me a bit of Sleeping Beauty, and the old witch with the spinning wheel. Maybe Clara pricked her finger, fell into a coma, and is dreaming all of this while waiting for her insensitive husband to kiss her and wake her up. I really need to pay more attention to these little comments Dickens throws in to the narrative!

The brothers story - despite all I've read, I'm still looking for an explanation as to how the dying brother "visited" his twin before he'd actually died. Can anyone explain this to a skeptic's satisfaction?

My goodness! For a very short story, To Be Read at Dusk certainly packs a punch and gives us lots to chew on!

You two think too much. There are only two things I want to know, the most important one is, where is Clara? It matters not at all to me why her annoying husband kept bringing the one man she is terrified of to the house, I hope the servant has fun with her spindle, why she is afraid doesn't matter. The only thing I want to know is where she is. We don't have to let her husband know, but he could have let me know. It made me feel the way I do when I read Drood, I want to know what happened to him.

And secondly, why did the dying brother bother sending a servant to drag his brother to his bedside if the only thing he was going to say was you have seen me before tonight? No kidding, that's what I was thinking. Couldn't he have told him he was the greatest brother ever, or he has hundreds of dollars hidden under the bed, something like that? But to say you saw me tonight seemed a dumb thing to say. Oh, and I can't find any illustrations for the story, not yet anyway.

Kim wrote: "You two think too much...."

This is what happens when authors are too cryptic. I no longer enjoy having to put so much thought into things I read. Another few years and I'll be subsisting on Hallmark channel movies.

**I'm less elusive while typing than on other occasions. I had my shoulder dislocated and broken last Friday, and typing is way more difficult when one isn't allowed to move one's arm ;-)

I was thinking, what if the narrator was the fifth courier? Perhaps he was a ghost himself?

Also, what Kim said.

also why? Why did it sound like Clara eloped with the guy like Heatcliffe and Isabella, only Clara was too scared to be near him voluntarily? So why did she appear to sneak away with him and didn't she cause a scene? What if she hadn't been honest herself, and the guy was her husband - or perhaps the memory of someone? Perhaps he's the symbol of having sex, and she lost her virginity to what can be seen as her husband's darker side (perhaps he was mean af in the bedroom)? Or it was a type of alcoholic beverage and contemporary readers would know? The last two could also be the reason her husband kept inviting who/whatever it was, he enjoyed it. And either Clara was corrupted and her innocense lost forever, or it scared/hurt her so much she took her own life somehow?

I notice that my ideas get a bit grim with the first part. The second part might have as much symbolism and darkness, but it seemed more like a kind of 'he saw a ghost and then someone died, the end'.

Oh, and what happened to what read as trusted and important servants that they were now couriers in the alps? Were they really innocent, and loyal, as they made themselves appear, or did they have a hand in things? Perhaps they were all sides of one narrator and one person after all.

Jantine wrote: "**I'm less elusive while typing than on other occasions. I had my shoulder dislocated and broken last Friday, and typing is way more difficult when one isn't allowed to move one's arm ;-)..."

Sorry about your arm, Jantine! Hope it heals well and quickly.

Jantine wrote: "**I'm less elusive while typing than on other occasions. I had my shoulder dislocated and broken last Friday, and typing is way more difficult when one isn't allowed to move one's arm ;-)

I was th..."

Jantine

Oh my. I too am sorry to hear about your dislocated and broken shoulder. I hope you find it soon. :-)

You did a fine job of typing, but perhaps it is best not to ask how long it took. I hope you heal quickly and experience as little discomfort and pain as possible.

Mary Lou wrote: "Kim wrote: "You two think too much...."

This is what happens when authors are too cryptic. I no longer enjoy having to put so much thought into things I read. Another few years and I'll be subsist..."

Mary Lou

I confess to laughing out loud when you commented on how the intricacies of analysis often jumble up a good story and how you might end up subsisting on Hallmark channel movies in the future. So true. I also struggle at times to understand critics’ analysis. Heck, too often I confess that I confuse myself as to what to think or how to phrase what I do think.

The major problem I have in doing my summaries is how much detail to provide, how much interpretation to provide, how one-sided a position I should take in order to create discussion within our group.

I am really excited that Kim is joining Tristram and I once again. Her summaries are delightful and truly iconic. With the three of us I hope the Curiosities will enjoy our different approaches.

Jantine wrote: "**I'm less elusive while typing than on other occasions. I had my shoulder dislocated and broken last Friday, and typing is way more difficult when one isn't allowed to move one's arm ;-)

I was th..."

Jantine, So sorry about your shoulder. I hope you have a speedy and full recovery and hope you are not in too much discomfort. I have some shoulder issues as well and I feel for you.

Peter wrote: "The major problem I have in doing my summaries is how much detail to provide, how much interpretation to provid..."

You do a fine job, Peter. Your observations are almost always illuminating, "ah ha!" moments for me, and always add to my enjoyment. I hope you'll be able to make sense of this story for me, too. (No pressure :-) )

First things first: Jantine, I hope that your shoulder is not causing too much trouble and that you'll get better soon! Kudos to you for typing so much despite your bad shoulder.


Your ideas and Mary Lou's about the story really got me hooked because the idea of the wife meeting her darker side, like in Jekyll and Hyde, is fascinating and apparently implied in the Clara-Dellombra dichotomy. She might be on the run from an addiction to alcohol, or to laudanum, or that Dellombra shadow stands for another dark desire of hers. The fact that Dellombra bears her off in a coach might mean that she is driven in her actions by her desires and her addictions, no longer the rider, but the hostage of the coach drawn by those dark horses.

Where does Clara end up? - In obscurity, in the strongest sense of the word.

The old woman with the spindle reminded me of a passage in Heart of Darkness, where Marlow steps into a room with three old women spinning or knitting or ... woolgathering. In that context, I saw the spindle as a reference to the Three Fates (they were three women in Conrad) who weave the threads of what is going to happen to whom. One of the Fates is often represented with a spindle. Could this imply here that it is Clara's fate to be eventually overpowered by her darker side?

It is getting more and more interesting.

Kim wrote: "And secondly, why did the dying brother bother sending a servant to drag his brother to his bedside if the only thing he was going to say was you have seen me before tonight? No kidding, that's what I was thinking. Couldn't he have told him he was the greatest brother ever, or he has hundreds of dollars hidden under the bed, something like that?"

Hmmm, maybe the dying brother has always stood in the shadow of the other brother, and this was his last and only chance to get one up on his sibling - by telling him that he knows that the other must have seen his doppelgänger? ;-)

But you are right: If I were called to the deathbed of a relative I would expect something more interesting to be told me. A family mystery or something like that. As to telling the brother that there are hundreds of dollars hidden under the bed ... well, if I were drawing my last breath I would certainly tell my sister last of all people - on second thoughts, I wouldn't tell her at all - that there was money hidden under my bed: If I couldn't spend it, why should she???

Kim wrote: "You two think too much."

Ach, if I had had a cent every time somebody said this to me in my life, I'd probably have a nickel by now.

Mary Lou wrote: "For me, the bottom line is this. Literature with lots of layers can be fun to peel, but if the surface layer isn't enjoyable on its own, then maybe it's not really that well written. I don't like to have to work so hard at finding deeper meaning. And when I DO go to the trouble of peeling back some of the layers, I want the payoff to be obvious."

I can fully understand your view, Mary Lou. If I don't enjoy reading a book, its literary merit can be made of as much by others as they want to - it still isn't worth a candle for me. One example: Ulysses, I cannot understand why people go through a book like that - can they enjoy it? Or is it just because they want to say they have read it? I mean I can say I have read it without actually having read it. And if I say it often enough, I'll end up believing it.

If the language intrigues me, than there is little to stand in the way between me and enjoyment. As to making sense of what I read, I don't often read literary critics but I think that the fun is peeling off the layers on your own or, even better, by discussing a text like we do in this group. I have learnt so many things here discussing with you - in many ways, it was more useful than school although I had a brilliant English teacher. I must say that he was probably the best teacher that ever taught English as a second language.

I have just finished reading this story now and benefited greatly by the earlier comments. Much of what I will say is reflecting the earlier comments.

The first part of the story I think centres on the names Clara and Dellombra. Light and darkness are opposites. I think Dickens would have intended the names as a way to understand and interpret the central characters. We are told that the palazzo seemed devoted to ruin and that it smells “like a tomb” and has a smell “grown faint with confinement.” The palazzo is a place of repressed confinement and inhibition.

The publication date of the story is 1852, which predates Freud, Jung, and Campbell but it does not predate Dickens own love and fascination with mesmerism. Indeed, while in Italy he practised it on a woman with some success. Dickens understood that the mind can both restrain and release its innermost thoughts and fears. So what does that mean, and how does it fit with our story?

Dellombra’s image appears in Clara’s mind by way of a dream before she travels with her new husband. While no pictures of her sleeping mind’s face are found on the Palazzo’s walls, the face in her mind appears to her in the flesh. Was it the exact same face? We know that Clara faints at the sight of the face. Over time, her husband gradually encourages Clara to accept the reality of the man who was first seen in her dream. The motivation for this seeming insensitive action could well be her husband wanting his wife to see and feel the sensual desires of our dark side.

To me, I believe that the presence of Dellombra is sexual in meaning. His presence is so intense that Clara faints (like a good Victorian woman would). Ultimately Clara is spirited away. Pursuit by her husband is futile. Her passion overrides his Victorian sensibility. The horses that could have assisted Clara’s husband in further pursuit are sent away by Dellombra. The horses can also be seen as sexually suggestive. They are unleashed; thus her husband has lost all power over her. Now, as to why Clara is curled in a corner of the fleeing coach, well, she has experienced an intense emotional response, and perhaps even a physical relationship with Dellombra. She is a fallen women, she is in the tomb, she has taken on the smell of confinement with her own passions that cannot be accepted in proper Victorian society.

I think you're probably right, Peter, but I may need my smelling salts after that....

The key to this story seems to be in the names. Like the meaning of flowers or the symbols of various anniversaries, perhaps name meanings were more commonly known in Victorian times. Or, in the case of Dellombra, maybe Italian and other European languages were better known by people in England then than by today's Americans. Without knowing what those names represent, it's much harder to come up with these interpretations.

Peter, I'm glad I'm not the only one who found that story to be very sexually loaded. It somehow just was.

Peter, I just love the detail of your interpretation of the story. Thanks so much. I would never have thought of any of your interpretation.

I've read less than half the story so far, as I want to mull over the first courier's story.

This type of story was popular in the 19th century; a story within a story, where we feel we are invited to sit around a fire (though not in this case!) and each share our own ghost story. I'm sure Dickens has written others like this. And he often has characters in his novels tell stories like the "Five Sisters of York" in Nicholas Nickleby, (I remember you talking about these Peter when we needed a surname beginning with Y :) )and there are quite a few in The Pickwick Papers. It gives us a cosy, "included" sort of feeling, as well as a comradeship with the author.

Another thing I find interesting is that Dickens has included himself, hiding from the five couriers, but observing everything they are doing, ready to include it in his next bit of writing. I can just see him in my mind's eye; eyes bright, demeanour a bit furtive, but trying to blend into the background. (That must have been hard! He was such a dandy ... but perhaps he has given himself a new persona: An Author.) And notice he attributes the "poetic" bit of description about the setting sun, which you quoted, Tristram, to one of the couriers, not himself! Clearly he didn't think it quite up to scratch :D

It's clear this inclusion of the author is for verisimilitude, as the story he is to recount is such well-trodden ground. A dastardly villain, a pert and pretty young newly-wed. It reminded me a little of those by Wilkie Collins, his great friend, and this story was written just a year after they had first met. Perhaps they had already been starting to share ideas, even though Dickens was 12 years older.

Another idea we often have with a popular theme like this, is that the husband is secretly in league with the villain. There's no hint of this, but then it is not inconsistent with anything either. Or is it the young wife who is dissembling, and has she had an earlier liaison with the "stranger"? Our minds can fly free ... This story stops at the perfect point, because as Kim says, what we all want to know is, what has happened to the young wife? And as we are on edge and trying to work it out, we move straight onto the next story, ratcheting up the tension nicely.

I do like his portmanteau stories, and this one seems so well structured (so far). We had a few ghost stories in the previous short story we read by him A Christmas Tree if you remember, though those were mere snippets - almost suggestions of future stories - near the end.

But the open-endedness is key, I think. It wouldn't be nearly as effective if the wife's disappearance were to be explained!

Bionic Jean wrote: "Thank for your lengthy recap., Tristram, but I stopped at the end of the first included story ......"

I appreciate a bit of a recap, particularly with the novels. Often I'm reading other books simultaneously, and it's nice to be reminded of where we are in the story. Sometimes I miss things that you, the moderators, picked up on. My guess is that the recaps help you remember your impressions and formulate your thoughts. Quite often, your opinions and musings are woven throughout the summaries, even if it's not always intentional.

In the end, I'm grateful for your willingness to guide us through the discussions and hope you'll handle it in whatever way works best for each of you.

Bionic Jean wrote: "Thank for your lengthy recap., Tristram, but I stopped at the end of the first included story ...

I may be a lone voice here, in which case I apologise to the mods, and will just skip these intros..."

Hang in there Jean, I need you here with me. You and I have often talked about it, and Tristram and I have talked about it so often I think he knows what I'll say before I say it. He knows I hate the questions in recaps because of my deep, deep hatred of school, which hasn't lessened even though I've been out of the place for forty years, and I know how he feels about it. If he had the hatred of school that I do he probably wouldn't work there. :-) And I suppose we have agreed to disagree, because we still get along wonderfully, and I simply stop reading anything that looks like I could be sitting at a desk at that moment. That means I don't always read an entire recap, but if Tristram and Peter decide to skip mine to get even with me, that's fine with me. :-) I suppose it helps that I've read Dickens so often, most of them at least twice before we ever get to them, I don't need a recap.

I want to make it clear to everyone though, that Tristram and Peter are two of the people I love most in the world. I think the grumpy one is even grumpy enough to be in my family, as I often say, they're all nuts too.

And my deep hatred of being in school doesn't go away. I've been out of school since 1979 and I still hate the place. I've worked hard to not hate the teachers that were there, or any of the students, but being there was horrible. Year after year horrible. I started having seizures when I was in second grade, and it took me a long time to get used to seizure medication. So, I had the lovely experiences of having a seizure in front of the other kids, then disappearing from school for weeks and weeks, or I had the pleasure of being dizzy and lightheaded from the medications, I would often fall over, especially if I stood up too fast. That doesn't happen anymore, I've learned all the tricks, like stand up slowly, always be near something you can touch, a wall, a chair, so if you get dizzy, you can hold on to something. Then I didn't know that. None of this made me any friends, all it did was get me laughed at day after day. My first medication made my gums swell and come down over my teeth which looked horrible and bled constantly. Whenever I ate there would be blood all over my food and kids were grossed out by it. So was I. And being away from school for long periods of time lost me any friends I did happen to make.

But enough of that, I'm getting a migraine just thinking of it. Anyway, because of all that I go out of my way to skip the school feeling whenever or wherever I happen to get it, but other people actually liked the place. I wonder how that happens. :-)

Tristram wrote: " Ulysses, I cannot understand why people go through a book like that - can they enjoy it? "

That is by far the worst book I've ever actually made it to the end of.

Tristram wrote: " I must say that he was probably the best teacher that ever taught English as a second language."

I thought that was you.

Jantine wrote: "**I'm less elusive while typing than on other occasions. I had my shoulder dislocated and broken last Friday, and typing is way more difficult when one isn't allowed to move one's arm ;-)

I was th..."

I'm sorry about your shoulder Jantine. Whatever you did to have that happen, don't do it again. Typing must be horrible.

Tristram wrote: "on second thoughts, I wouldn't tell her at all - that there was money hidden under my bed:"

My dad played trombone in a marching band for years, over fifty of them. He was treasurer of the band and used to keep their money under the cushions of our living room sofa. That was to keep it separate from the money for our vacations which he kept under my bedroom rug, and that was to keep that separate from the money for every day expenses which was kept on top of the refrigerator.

Tristram wrote: " I don't often read literary critics but I think that the fun is peeling off the layers on your own."

Does everything have deeper layers? Can't something be written just for the fun of writing? I like to think that sometimes the author just was having fun, with the story meaning nothing but what it said. For example, when I wrote my famous poem; Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, I meant nothing but what it said:

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
except for the mouse.

The turkey was stuffed
In the oven with care
In hopes that the mouse
Couldn't get it in there.

There was a mouse running around that I couldn't catch, I was annoyed and it was Thanksgiving, that was it. The poem is longer but I'll spare you. :-)

Kim wrote: "I think the grumpy one is even grumpy enough to be in my family, as I often say, they're all nuts too."

Which of the two of us is the grumpy one? I couldn't tell for the life of me.

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: " Ulysses, I cannot understand why people go through a book like that - can they enjoy it? "

That is by far the worst book I've ever actually made it to the end of."

It's one of the worst books I haven't made it to the end of :-)

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "on second thoughts, I wouldn't tell her at all - that there was money hidden under my bed:"

My dad played trombone in a marching band for years, over fifty of them. He was treasur..."

Don't we all have our little hoards somewhere in our house? My grandmother used to keep her money in the sugar bowl, and the sugar in her purse.

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: " I don't often read literary critics but I think that the fun is peeling off the layers on your own."

Does everything have deeper layers? Can't something be written just for the f..."

I'd love to read the poem in its entirety, Kim. And, of course, it means more than what you intended it to mean. I'd say it is about how good things are sometimes threatened by coincidences. The mouse is a small animal, which can find its way into our houses without us noticing - just like a coincidence can find its way into our lives. In the first stanza, the word "mouse" appears as the very last word in the last line - to make it contrast with "the turkey", which starts the first line of the second stanza. The mouse will have the turkey, but we want it, too. Which one of us will get it - we or the mouse? The answer seems to be hidden in the second stanza, where the word "mouse" has made its way deeper into the fabric of the verse: Now, it is already in the third line, which means it has crept deeper into our lives but also our thoughts: We might not be able to locate it, but it starts worrying us.

This proves two things: One, but you may know that already, it is a brilliant poem. Two, if you really want to analyse something, you can analyze it.

On a more serious note, I think that the beauty of literature lies in the fact that once an author has authored a text, it is no longer entirely the author's but also the reader's, and the reader has received an invitation to play with the text, to make it resonate within him. Literature outlasts the ages, and it may take on different meanings depending on who is reading it and when they are reading it. My little interpretation of your poem may say more about me, or about my thoughts at this very moment in time, than it says about you. I cannot know what you intended with the text, and in a way, there is no way of being sure about this, and that's why I never use the "What does the author want to say" approach with my students but rather the "What do you find interesting / agreeable / disagreeable about the text" approach.

A great artist like Dickens, or Conrad, or Melville also makes artists of his readers, and there are as many texts within a text as there are readers :-)

Oh I had nearly finished this when I commented before! I think my percentage was incorrect on the kindle.

So not 4 or 5 stories as I'd thought, and the second was far shorter - and again it was a well-worn theme. A visit from someone in spirit just before - or just as - they die. I think Dickens uses this idea elsewhere, but can't remember an example off hand.

This story is pure Dickens :) I love that the couriers were shades in the end. I have in mind the painting we use as our banner "Dickens's Dream". Are they inventions in his mind, or not? He invites us to muse ourselves, and boy, do some of us do that!

Jantine - before I forget again - I do hope you heal quickly. Your shoulder sounds a nasty injury :( I also hope you have good painkillers for the duration.

Kim - Thank you so much for replying to me, and agreeing :) Perhaps there will be a middle way from now on.

Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: " I don't often read literary critics but I think that the fun is peeling off the layers on your own."

Does everything have deeper layers? Can't something be written ju..."

Be quiet. You are not allowed to use my poem in school without knowing the deep meaning behind it. It means there was a mouse in the house the night before Thanksgiving. There, see what your poor students can make out of that, hopefully nothing. And they aren't allowed to use big words I wouldn't use if I did know what they meant. When you stop here on your way to Argentina I'm going to smack you.

When out in the kitchen there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter
Out of the dark bedroom I flew like a flash
Ran into the door and fell with a crash

Are you sure you want me to go on?

Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "Which of the two of us is the grumpy one? I couldn't tell for the life of me."

I'm not telling grump.

Tristram wrote: "I think that the beauty of literature lies in the fact that once an author has authored a text, it is no longer entirely the author's but also the reader's, and the reader has received an invitation to play with the text, ."

I think the beauty of literature is it is beautiful, and fun to read. If it is no longer the author's but ours to make of what we want, isn't there a chance we are making it what the author didn't want? Am I allowed to make something of a Dickens story he didn't make of it? Can't I just believe it says exactly what he wrote on the paper? Do I have to come up with a reason the people are going where they are, why they are going there, why at that time, why are they named what they are? Can't they be going to Millersburg in my non- existent story for no reason other than it is a few miles down the road from me and it just popped into my head? Nothing tragic or magical or deep has happened there, I haven't had sex there, or wanted to, it's just down the road from where I live.

And as for your interpretation of my poem saying more about you than me, I would love to know your thoughts on my poems or any other topic, not just asked mine. I'm sitting here trying to think of anything important about Millersburg but I can't. It's just down the road.

I agree with Kim, it's often good to remember to enjoy literature. Like, my husband doesn't like poetry and is utterly amazed by my love for poems. In secondary school the poems were peeled so much, his enjoyment died in the process. And when I review a collection of poems for Netgalley (since I love poems!) my first and foremost trope is 'did I enjoy the poems, and did they come across on an emotional level?' With bonus points for playing with words, orifinality etc. but enjoyment is most important always.

Tristram wrote: "Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "on second thoughts, I wouldn't tell her at all - that there was money hidden under my bed:"

My dad played trombone in a marching band for years, over fifty of them. He..."

Here we'd say something like 'bless her heart, she lived through the war' when someone older has strange hoarding habits. That probably also (and even more) goes for the elderly there. But yes, we all have our thing when it comes to hoarding. Mine is books, and toilet paper. Don't ask please xD

Hmmm, I must confess that I hoard books, films on DVD and BR and also buttermilk. With regard to the last commodity, however, it's necessary to keep one's stocks up to date.

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "I think that the beauty of literature lies in the fact that once an author has authored a text, it is no longer entirely the author's but also the reader's, and the reader has rece..."

There is, indeed, the danger of readers interpreting a text in a way the author would never have wanted it to be interpreted, but all in all, I think that while a good literary text offers several ways of interpreting it - if there is only one single and very obvious interpretation possible, it's probably not literature but ideology threadbarely disguised as a story -, there are also limits. Sometimes an interpretation does not hold water because it is not borne out by the text.

This is where the fun in reading comes in: You enjoy the words and the story and at the same time you start making sense of it and connecting it with yourself. I am not at all a fan of deconstructionism because those people seem to regard themselves as standing in judgment of the author, turning his text as a witness against him and simultaneously dissecting it without respect and without love. When I think of peeling a story or a poem layer for layer, I would not want to have it understood in the way of ruthlessly tearing the layers off and presenting the bare bones as a trophy of my superiority but rather as a way of making myself at home in the text. It's by asking my students what strikes them about a text, what they like and what they dislike that I lead many of them to looking closer at the language in order to find out how the impressions they receive are achieved by the author. I'd never go line by line through a poem with them but first ask them to read it on their own, then to read it aloud, to write an essay on what they think about the poem and so on.

As to your poem, I'd say that the change of the rhyme scheme in the third stanza underlines the havoc a little coincidence can create, and that the rhyme underlines words like "clatter", "flash" and "crash" for the very same reason. ;-)

The moon on the breast of the new fallen me
Showed nothing at all,
I still couldn't see.

But what to my wondering ears did I hear
The running of the mouse
And getting quite near.

The poem by Clement C. Moore was quite long, we could be at this quite a while unless you give in and admit I'm right, there is no layer to my poem.

Tristram wrote: "Hmmm, I must confess that I hoard books, films on DVD and BR and also buttermilk. With regard to the last commodity, however, it's necessary to keep one's stocks up to date."

Books and Christmas decorations.

Jantine wrote: "'did I enjoy the poems, and did they come across on an emotional level?' With bonus points for playing with words, orifinality etc. but enjoyment is most important always...."

Yes! I never read Dickens at school, except once as a "home reader", which was just to inculcate us into good habits, and not studied or tested. When I "discovered" him all by myself in my twenties or so, I remember saying to Chris in delight, "I never knew he was so funny!" Yet people so often say Dickens was spoilt for them as the books were rammed down their throats at school. It's so sad about your husband having a bad reaction to poetry for the same reason.

Kim - "If it is no longer the author's but ours to make of what we want, isn't there a chance we are making it what the author didn't want?

Yes, and there's a lot of this around, both on GR and in real life :( My first realisation of this basic truth was when a friend grabbed a loose check-pattern tea-towel, and did a marvellous parody of a critic eulogising over a work of modern Art. (Though I love modern Art!)

Tristram - "I am not at all a fan of deconstructionism because those people seem to regard themselves as standing in judgment of the author, turning his text as a witness against him and simultaneously dissecting it without respect and without love. When I think of peeling a story or a poem layer for layer ... [it is] a way of making myself at home in the text.

I like this :)

Hoarding? My grandmother used to hoard tinned peas. She kept them upstairs in a bedroom, but couldn't get there herself, so every so often one of us would be asked to go and see if there were any left. I'd regularly go and count them and come downstairs again to report, "You've got 44 tins of peas grandma!"

Tinned goods were a new thing in her day, and food was precious. It's very like what you say, Jantine.

"Buttermilk," Tristram? Er ... why? I wouldn't know what to use it for.

As for toilet paper ... I do have a funny story from a few weeks ago. Chris was putting in our supermarket delivery order, and thought he was ordering single rolls. He ordered a dozen - only to find when they were delivered that there were 9 in a pack! We just watched helplessly as the delivery man kept coming up our path with more and more toilet paper ...

Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Hmmm, I must confess that I hoard books, films on DVD and BR and also buttermilk. With regard to the last commodity, however, it's necessary to keep one's stocks up to date."

Book..."

Books and fabric (I'm a quilter) but things have gotten out of hand and I am trying to thin down on both.

Drink it (it's quite usual to just drink buttermilk here in Europe). Make pancakes with it. My gran, when she could still cook, made the yummiest sause for over meat ever with butter milk, with a recipe so old that it probably is from the middle ages somewhere, back when the area where she comes from was more foreign to parts of The Netherlands than to parts of Germany.

Tristram, if you can lay your hands on an old recipe for Buttermilch Sause, try it!

Thank Jantine, although I am actually in Europe (whatever the politicians say ...). I'm one of those rare things, an English Old Curiosity ;)

I am English, and my father's family were Dutch :) Now I want to try buttermilk!

Jantine wrote: "Drink it (it's quite usual to just drink buttermilk here in Europe). Make pancakes with it. My gran, when she could still cook, made the yummiest sause for over meat ever with butter milk, with a r..."

Yes, buttermilk is a delicious drink, and I also think it does you a world of good in case you have a sore stomach or tend to suffer from heartburn. My wife sometimes uses buttermilk for baking, although I have no idea what exactly she uses it for. It's just that I notice she has raided my stocks now and then. - As to the Buttermilch Sause, I will start a websearch :-)

Bobbie wrote: "Kim wrote: "Tristram wrote: "Hmmm, I must confess that I hoard books, films on DVD and BR and also buttermilk. With regard to the last commodity, however, it's necessary to keep one's stocks up to ..."

I'm afraid I will have to thin out my bookshelves in the Easter holidays because books are already piling up in front of them. We have a pub near our house where people take books they have read and can take others home with them. I find it impossible to just throw a book into the bin, unless it is a very, very bad one.

Bionic Jean wrote: "Thank Jantine, although I am actually in Europe (whatever the politicians say ...). I'm one of those rare things, an English Old Curiosity ;)

I am English, and my father's family were Dutch :) Now..."

Whatever they say, we still love you ;-)

I have never, that I remember, had buttermilk, not drinking it, not cooking with it, nothing at all. All this talk about it reminds me of buttercream icing, something I've often had. It seems to be something very few people have no opinion on, you either love it and eat piece after piece of cake because of it, or you absolutely hate it and after the first bite refuse to take another. I'm one of the few who doesn't care one way or the other.

Tristram wrote: "Hmmm, I must confess that I hoard books, films on DVD and BR and also buttermilk. With regard to the last commodity, however, it's necessary to keep one's stocks up to date."

My ex-mother-in-law hoarded egg cartons, she had stacks of them in her basement. I asked her once if we could throw at least some of them away and she said no, you never know when someone might need them. As far as I know there never was any big egg carton shortage that came along before she died so they probably all were thrown out in the end. I'm not sure, we were divorced by then.

Tristram wrote: "Jantine wrote: "Drink it (it's quite usual to just drink buttermilk here in Europe). Make pancakes with it. My gran, when she could still cook, made the yummiest sause for over meat ever with butte..."

Aw, buttermilk, I like it only in recipes but my mother loved it. I also can't stand anything soured, like yogurt, sour cream, etc. except in recipes, never straight.

Kim wrote: "I asked her once if we could throw at least some of them away and she said no, you never know when someone might need them. ..."

My great aunt and uncle, and Jimmy's grandmother all might be considered organized, clean hoarders today. I still have a children's book of my mother's titled "The Treasure Twins" which we jokingly call the family Bible, published in 1924. The subtitle is, "A Merry Book of Thrift". This is one its moralistic poems:

From packages fold paper neatly;
It can wrap others again completely.
We'll save our string and make a big string ball,
It will then be ready for use by all.

Every paper bag in this house, we learn
will always be used again in turn.
We'll save today and save tomorrow;
we'll have things to lend, and need not borrow.

Yes -- my mother opened her gifts very carefully, and folded and reused the bigger pieces of gift wrap. I'd blame it on the Depression (which certainly reinforced these lessons), but I'm afraid my family was also just, um... the polite word is frugal. :-)