Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Ngaio Marsh’s Tied Up in Tinsel, which is actually a reread, which I realized fairly early on when the foppish country house owner explains that he’s staffed the place with murderers who have served their time. Just oncers, no more dangerous than the average man on the street, and anyway how else is he supposed to staff a country house given the servant problem in 1970s Britain? But I kept going, because Ngaio Marsh is always a good time, and also this book prominently features Troy who just happens to be at the country house to paint said foppish owner when the murder occurs… A Troy book is always especially a good time.

Maud Hart Lovelace’s The Trees Kneel at Christmas is set in Park Slope, where one of my friends lives, so every few pages I was shrieking “I know that place! I’ve crossed that street!” So naturally I loved the book, haha. Our heroine Afifi hears a story from her grandmother about how the trees kneel at Christmas back home in Lebanon, and becomes determined to walk to Prospect Park at midnight on Christmas Eve to see if the trees kneel in America, too.

I checked out Ruth Crawford Seeger’s 1953 American Folksongs for Christmas purely because it was illustrated by Barbara Cooney, but found it unexpectedly fascinating. Seeger (stepmother of Pete Seeger) was, among other things, a collector of folk music, and this book is full of songs I’ve never even heard of, from the tradition of all-night Christmas Eve church singalongs, often in the South, where people would gather and sing till dawn.

What I’m Reading Now

I’ve started Tasha Tudor’s Take Joy, which is a compilation of Christmas stories/poems/carols etc illustrated by Tudor. The second story is Hans Christian Andersen’s tale of the world’s saddest pine tree. In the woods, the pine is too entirely focused on growing bigger (big enough to be a Christmas tree!) to ever feel happy. Then it’s cut down to be a Christmas tree, and it’s taken to a house and covered with ornaments and candles, and it’s all very strange and confusing, but the pine tree thinks that it will be able to enjoy these celebrations once it gets used to them… except of course its life as a Christmas tree lasts for just one night, and then it’s tossed in the attic and dried out for firewood.

What I Plan to Read Next

As I feared, I’m already running low on Christmas chapter books. However, Christie has a Poirot Christmas book and a Miss Marple that’s set at Christmas (although not perhaps a Christmas Book), and I have been meaning to to a Miss Marple, so…

If you have any other classic mystery Christmas recs, let me know!

Comments

[asakiyume]

OMG HCA, such a monster! Like, who was the audience for that story?! He wants to make children cry at Christmas? What the heck.

I love the idea of singing from night until dawn ... love the things people got up to before everything became so atomized.

I want spoilers about the murder in the house staffed with murderers. Was it one of the murderers who committed the murder? Was it the owner, a staff member, or an extraneous person who got murdered? You can tell me offline if you don't want to spoil it for others...

[osprey_archer]

All his fairy tales are sad, I think. Maybe 19th century children just liked being sad.

Yes, the idea of singing all night is so appealing! One of those things from the days when people had to create their own entertainment.

Have emailed you spoilers re: Tied up in Tinsel!

[asakiyume]

Maybe 19th century children just liked being sad. mmmmmaybe? But I also recall hearing/reading (maybe here!) that HCA suffered from depression, so maybe he just couldn't help himself.

[osprey_archer]

Well, I was thinking more in terms of the fact that HCA was apparently hugely popular at the time. I mean, maybe it was parents who loved the tragic tales and foisted them on their children, but they sold like hotcakes... and many of them have been told and retold (and Tudor picked this one for her book of her favorite Christmas things!) so clearly there's an enthusiastic audience.

[asakiyume]

*Nodding*

Okay, that makes sense, yeah.

I mean, I like HCA a lot! Even the little match girl, etc. So I can see it. But it's the ending-up-in-the-fire thing, maaaan! Like with the tin soldier only worse, because at least he gets the paper dancer as they DIE IN THE FLAMES.

... maybe it was 19th cent. kids' version of hurt-comfort, glorious suffering. --eta, okay, I'm using hurt-comfort wrong, but glorious suffering, anyway!

[osprey_archer]

ALL HURT NO COMFORT.

We did have a picture book version of The Little Match Girl when I was a kid, and although it wasn't a top fave I did reread it sometimes because it had great illustrations... and The Ugly Duckling at least has a happy ending. But I think you may be right actually that children often have a higher tolerance for glorious suffering than adult readers.

[troisoiseaux]

Ngaio Marsh’s Tied Up in Tinsel, which is actually a reread, which I realized fairly early on when the foppish country house owner explains that he’s staffed the place with murderers who have served their time

This made me realize I've never actually read this one! I do love a Troy-centric Ngaio Marsh mystery, though, so I just borrowed it on Libby!

[osprey_archer]

Yessss I hope you like it. And I find it surprisingly hard to keep track of which Marshes I've read.

[snickfic]

How incredibly Hans Christian Andersen of him.

[kore]

Ha!

[osprey_archer]

The man had a vision and that vision was sadness.

[kore]

it’s all very strange and confusing, but the pine tree thinks that it will be able to enjoy these celebrations once it gets used to them… except of course its life as a Christmas tree lasts for just one night, and then it’s tossed in the attic and dried out for firewood.

GACK

[osprey_archer]

"Have you ever thought how sad it would be to be a Christmas tree?" asks Hans Christian Andersen, probably at a Christmas party while children dance joyfully around the Christmas tree. "Have you? Have you?"

[kore]

There was something SO WRONG with him.

[thisbluespirit]

Ha, I vaguely remember that Alleyn, too, but I haven;t reread the later ones so much.

I think there are two Poirot Christmas stories - a short story and a novel, but I might be confused.

I read a snowbound Brit Lib reprint murder, which had a fun set up of strangers on a train snowed in together. I can't remember at this point what I liked/did not or how much Mid Twentieth Century Nope it provided/did not provide, but it was entertaining enough that I would have kept it if I hadn't been trying to get rid of books at the time. But it did have this poor guy who had the flu, whose dream was for a brave lady aviator to crash into his garden, and while (sadly) the flu put him out of most of the action, I'm pretty sure you'd enjoy that bit too, however the rest went (poor memory disclaimer). I looked it up to find out what it was called and it was set on Christmas Eve, so not just snow.

Mystery in White

[osprey_archer]

Yes, there's a short story too, but I'll have to put a bit more work into figuring out which collection its in. However I have tracked down a few more Christmas stories, so that may or may not be necessary.

Mystery in White looks fun though! Nothing like a snowbound train. I'll put a hold on it and give it a whirl. Who among us does not want to watch a man deliriously dream about a brave lady aviator crashing in his garden?

[thisbluespirit]

Who among us does not want to watch a man deliriously dream about a brave lady aviator crashing in his garden?

Indeed. Book needed more deliriously dreaming about brave lady aviators, alas. XD

[genarti]

I had forgotten all about that Anderson story until this moment! Perhaps for good reason, oh my god.

The Trees Kneel at Christmas sounds so fun, though! And so does American Folksongs for Christmas. I'm so curious now!

I need to read more Ngaio Marsh. Maybe when I'm at my parents' place this Christmas... She's very much a "pick a random mystery off the shelf when you're in the mood for it" author for me, which is great except that I'm only occasionally in a place with a selection of Marshes to be picked at random when the whim strikes. I ought to remember to pick a random one out of the library catalog every now and then instead.

[osprey_archer]

Yes, she's so good as an author just to snag a mystery off the shelf. Pick a mystery any mystery!

[cyphomandra]

Robin Stevens’ Murder Most Unladylike series has Mistletoe and Murder, which is a Christmas mystery at Cambridge - it’s set in the 1930s although written much more recently.

(I will always be fond of Hercule Poroit’s Christmas though and you’ve just reminded me of it!)

[osprey_archer]

I think I've got enough books lined up now (assuming Hercule Poirot's Christmas arrives in a timely manner...), but I'll keep Mistletoe and Murder in mind for next year!

[regshoe]

I like the sound of the Christmas folk songs book! Traditional carols/Christmas folk songs are some of my favourites, but I wonder how much overlap there would be between that tradition and the stuff I know.

A shop near me is selling potted spruce trees with the idea that they can be kept for use at Christmas for many years. Clearly this is the solution we need in order to keep innocent trees from turning into Hans Christian Andersen characters.

[osprey_archer]

I would be super curious how much overlap there is between American and English Christmas folk songs before Silent Night/God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen/We Wish You a Merry Christmas/etc rose to international ascendance. In the book there were very few songs I knew, but possibly Seeger was focusing on the lesser known ones on purpose?

I like the idea of a spruce tree in a pot that can be a Christmas tree year after year.

[duskpeterson]

"the world’s saddest pine tree"

My fix-it fic from age ten (with capitals and punctuation added by my mother):

o--o--o

I was a seed
in the ground.
And dirt was all
I could see around.

Then I grew
up to be,
In the ground,
an old pine tree.

One day some men
came with a hatchet,
And I knew then
I was going to catch it.

And sure enough,
as it started to snow,
I felt on my trunk
the sharp hatchet blow.

The animals,
standing by,
Scurried off
to let me die.

In their house,
they took me to a room,
And I stood there waiting
for my doom.

Suddenly,
a child called, "Whee!
Look at our new Christmas tree!"

They covered me
with lights and a star.
The ending was, well,
there you are.

I was not to be sent
to a wood company.
I was to be set up
as a Christmas tree!

[osprey_archer]

I love the hatchet/catch it rhyme. And clever of your younger self to end the Christmas tree's story at Christmas rather than going on in the grim aftermath!

[duskpeterson]

"I love the hatchet/catch it rhyme."

My father once taught a class in which he said that "orange" was one of the words that had no rhyme. A student promptly submitted a poem rhyming orange with door-hinge.

[osprey_archer]

"Orange/door hinge" has to be accent-dependent, because it definitely doesn't rhyme for me, but I gotta give the student props for effort.

[duskpeterson]

(*Looks up the pronunciation of orange.) Hmm, maybe a regional accent difference? I can see how the East Coast pronunciation of *orange might be a bit off from door-hinge. (Wikidictionary does not, alas, offer pronunciations for door-hinge.)