The Old Curiosity Club discussion

Dear Curiosities,

Before I can properly start doing my recap on the Third Branch of The Holly-Tree Inn, I must own that I stand before you in attrition and humility because I treated you to this fragmentary story, which, to add insult to injury, has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas, at least in the parts that we have been reading. We may be safer with the traditional Dickens Christmas stories in the future, and I hope that you’ll accept my honest apologies for having you led up that garden path.

The Third Branch is only a few pages long and tells you about the narrator’s departure from the Holly-Tree Inn. He is amazed that he has spent a whole week there but he trusts the bill, which states that this is the case when the roads have finally been freed from the snow and travel is possible again. When he is just about to continue on his road, he finds that he has barely time to reach his ship in Liverpool, where his luggage must be waiting, and that his original plan to visit the farmhouse where he first met his beloved Angela can no longer be put into action. But lo! just when he wants to take leave, a coach is arriving, and in it there are two passengers, a man and a woman, the man being no other person but Edwin, his rival and friend, and the woman … no, it’s not Angela, but a woman named Emmeline, who has been Edwin’s heart’s delight all the time. Our narrator has been labouring under the wrong impression that Edwin was in love with Angela because Emmeline’s father would have opposed the marriage of his daughter and Edwin for mundane financial reasons, and Edwin kept mum about his marriage intentions even to his friend lest the narrator should have to lie for him. In the end then, all the love interests are merrily patched up again, and both the narrator and Edwin leave our story as two happily engaged men.

THOUGHTS AND QUESTIONS
Is it a mere coincidence that the narrator’s first name is Charles, or are we allowed to attribute a deeper meaning to this fact? Can we assume that in a collaborative work Dickens would try to hide some autobiographical detail after all?

What do you think of the ending of this story (of which we only have three chapters, of course)? Does it seem plausible to you or do you think it is rather deus ex machina?

In my introduction to this thread I said that the story is not particularly Christmassy but at the beginning of the Third Branch, we come across the following sentence:

”I had taken leave of all my Holly-Tree friends – almost, for the time being, of my bashfulness, too – […]”

and at the end, the narrator goes on like this:

”I began at the Holly-Tree, by idle accident, to associate the Christmas time of year with human interest, and with some inquiry into, and some care for, the lives of those by whom I find myself surrounded. I hope that I am none the worse for it, and that no one near me or afar off is the worse for it. And I say, May the green Holly-Tree flourish, striking its roots deep into the English ground, and having its germinating qualities carried by the birds of Heaven all over the world!”

This gives me a particular idea in connexion with a rather famous Dickens Christmas story, but before I disclose it here, I’d like to know what you are thinking about these reflexions, and hereby open the discussion of the final part of this rather unusual Christmas story.

I thought I remembered it mentioned in the discussion of the first chapter, but I couldn't find it back, so apparently not. I am pretty sure I'm not the only one though, who thought 'told you so!' when the whole love triangle (or love quadruple as it now appears to be) turned out to be a whole messy misunderstanding. It wouldn't have been a Dickens-story when people who are meant to be together don't turn out to be together.

You don't have to apologise Tristram, it's totally fine! I mean, we probably wouldn't have read this short story otherwise, and while it wasn't the Dickens-work I liked best, I must admit it is nice to have read more of him than I did before.

While this book was not as Christmassy as I hoped it would be, I do think there are some links to A Christmas Carol. Some are reverse - Charles' time in the Holly Tree Inn took longer than he thought it did, while Scrooge was surprised it had all taken place in one night. Both protagonists drew back into themselves though, the one because he was bashful, the other one because he was a miser, and both went through something that opened them up to the people around them. Then there were the kids, and the boy being so preoccupied with making plans for their married future that he forgot to look to the now and to see if the girl was still happy ... just like Scrooge did. And in the end, both Charles and Scrooge learned to look to and have interest in the people around them.

I agree with Jantine, Tristram -- apologies aren't necessary. Certainly, any story (especially by Dickens) named "The Holly-Tree" would presumably be a Christmas tale. And this one was, ostensibly. If anything, it's made me want to read the contributions from the others.

I'm interested to see the connections with A Christmas Carol that you all come up with. I acknowledge the points Jantine has made, but admit that I wouldn't have immediately made those comparisons myself.

Interrupted - back soon. :-)

Sorry ... life.

Anyhow, I was just going to say that I was glad that things came back around to the initial story of the love triangle, and that there was a happy (if predictable) ending (Jantine - I did speculate, in the first branch discussion, that perhaps it would have been a big misunderstanding.)

Reading only the Dickens bits made the whole thing a bit disjointed. Has anyone read the whole thing, with all the contributions from Gaskell, Collins, et al? If so, I hope you'll tell us your impressions of the work as a whole.

After finishing both The Holly Tree and A Christmas Carol, I was still in a holiday mood, so I've been reading "Old Christmas" by Washington Irving (originally published in 1820), which, apparently, was a great influence on Dickens. It's kind of a travel narrative, in which the narrator is invited to a country house for Christmas. No plot - just observations. Frankly, it's a bit more what I expected The Holly-Tree to be. Of course, Irving was American, but "Old Christmas" is about keeping the old, English Christmas traditions alive, and Dickens readers will feel right at home, as if they're celebrating the holidays at Dingley Dell.

Ah yes, I must have looked over it when I had a quick 'I swear I saw someone mentioning it!'-glance while writing my reaction xD

Jantine, you delivered a lot more of observations than I had thought of myself - I was mainly struck by the fact that both the Holly-Tree narrator and Ebenezer Scrooge seem to have withdrawn from society - the former out of shyness, the latter out of distrust and for fear of life itself. They no longer communicate with others and live in a world of their own, Ebenezer has got his wealth (whose only function seems to be to provide him with a sense of stability) and the Holly-Tree narrator has the feeling of being wronged by his friend and his love - a feeling that, to a person with a certain temperament, can actually be quite gratifying because it leaves them with the role of the noble and innocent victim.

Then, in the course of some Christmas events, both characters are brought into contact with the outer world, which sets in motion of process of introspection. In fact, I called my review on The Holly-Tree Inn-trospection, because I like silly puns. Of course, no pun is really and truly silly, and I have Alfred Hitchcock as an authority to prove it. There are ten years between both stories, the Carol and the Tree, and it would be interesting to find out whether this pattern is also used in other Dickens Christmas stories.

Mary Lou,

Washington Irving is a wonderful writer indeed. He loomed large in a university course on American literature I took in the prime of my life.

Mary Lou wrote: "Sorry ... life.

Anyhow, I was just going to say that I was glad that things came back around to the initial story of the love triangle, and that there was a happy (if predictable) ending (Jantine ..."

Mary Lou

Ah yes, Dingley Dell as well as the story of Gabriel Grub. There was a spirit of Christmas in PP which one could find with ease. In my case, I found myself grasping to find any firm hold or rendition of Christmas in The Holly-Tree.

It must be, at least in part, because I love A Christmas Carol so much that all other Christmas tales, or alleged Christmas tales, pale in comparison. ACC was a grand novella, conceived and written in haste, yet spot on in its sentiment and vision. Perhaps trying to catch Christmas in a bottle twice was simply not to be.

Peter wrote: "Perhaps trying to catch Christmas in a bottle twice was simply not to be."

Very well said, Peter. And if you consider what an unbreakable and shining bottle it was that Dickens captured the spirit of Christmas in he does not really have a right to complain about any failure to do so again. After all, after the story of the birth of Jesus, it is the story of Ebenezer and the Christmas Ghosts that might spring to mind foremost when we think of Christmas, isn't it?