Source: (consider it)
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Thread: HEAVEN: Dec 2015. Book Group: "The Box Of Delights" by John Masefield
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Sarasa
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# 12271
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Posted
Did I like it? Not a Lot. Why? You ask, No decent plot
I think the trouble for me with Box of Delights is that I read it with my adult head firmly on. Actually I gave up about a third of the way through, when I skipped forward and discovered it was all a dream. It reminded me of Turkish Delight. Nice in small amounts, but sickly if you eat the lot. I think I missed my window of opportunity, in the same way I'm not that keen on WInnie the Poohh. My husband and son love it, but they were introduced at the right age, by the time I read it I thought it all a bit twee. There were things about Box of Delights that I wanted to like, the phrase 'the wolves are running' is great, and some of the decriptions are wonderful. However I found it impossible to get a sense of place and what was happening in my head. I love fantasy, but I have to belive in the world it is set in and this wasn't beliveable for me.
-------------------- 'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
Posts: 2035 | From: London | Registered: Jan 2007
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agingjb
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# 16555
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Posted
I wonder why the last paragraph wasn't simply replaced by the sentence:
"The singing shook the whole world."
-------------------- Refraction Villanelles
Posts: 464 | From: Southern England | Registered: Jul 2011
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Jane R
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# 331
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Posted
If this is your favourite Christmas book ever, look away now - I agree with Sarasa!
Kay seemed to have no discernible personality. Or perhaps I just didn't like him. I rather liked Maria, but she was the only really memorable character in the book.
The Box... meh. I don't object to the occasional appearance of Herne the Hunter and similar, but many other authors have done this sort of thing rather better. I am probably being unfair to John Masefield here, because he did it before Diana Wynne Jones, Catherine Fisher, Susan Cooper, Terry Pratchett et al., but that's how I feel about it.
I thought the ending was a complete cop-out but it did explain why the police were so sanguine about all the mysterious kidnappings and disappearances in their patch.
I also agree with Penny S: having a party and handing out expensive presents to the upper-middle-class children of the neighbourhood is not the best use of the Bishop's spare cash. However, as this is Kay's fantasy Bishop perhaps we should not judge him too harshly. Perhaps the real Bishop has parties for the working-class children instead and the party Kay goes to is just a dream about how he'd like things to be.
No, it's not a Christian book in spite of the preoccupation with carol-singing and disappearing clergy. The author doesn't seem to have much idea about how the Anglican church actually works; a real Bishop wouldn't have time to go wandering off carol-singing a few days before Christmas, even if he wanted to (although having said that, our Archbishop is currently on pilgrimage; I think the Dean is minding the shop). There's never a coherent explanation of why it would be such a great victory for the Forces of Darkness if the Christmas service in the cathedral didn't take place, either.
And I hated the style; I thought it was badly over-written. He should have stuck to poetry.
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Jane R: No, it's not a Christian book in spite of the preoccupation with carol-singing and disappearing clergy. The author doesn't seem to have much idea about how the Anglican church actually works; a real Bishop wouldn't have time to go wandering off carol-singing a few days before Christmas, even if he wanted to.
It's not a "Christian" book, but it's a book that resides in a Christian culture. I don't know what Masefield thought Bishops did, but what's in play here is what Kay thought Bishops did. Sing carols, hold church services and look episcopal is not an unreasonable expectation for a small boy to have of a Bishop.
In Kay's world, the Bishop, senior clergy, and church at Christmas are markers for everything that is right and proper.
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Leorning Cniht
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# 17564
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Garasu: But to pick up on the "are they being written in the 21st century" question, check out the list of Carnegie medal nominees or Costa children's book awards (as proxies for classics) and you'll find a load of them.
As an exercise, I went and looked at the earlier books on the Carnegie list, to get a sense of whether they're really indicators of "classics" (The Costa prize is modern.)
Of the Carnegie medallists written before I became of age to read them, I've read four: The Borrowers, The Last Battle, Tom's Midnight Garden, and Watership Down.
Those aren't great odds.
I've read more of the recent ones, because they tend to be books I've given to siblings, nieces and nephews and the like, but it suggests that something less than 10% will stand the test of time.
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Leorning Cniht: It's not a "Christian" book, but it's a book that resides in a Christian culture.
A book can have definite religious aspect without being Christian. The most powerful account of a mystical experience in a children's book, and indeed in literature, is the chapter "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" in "The Wind in the Willows",which is pantheistic.
I'm not a fan of "The Box of Delights". I'll write later.
-------------------- Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Thro' the world we safely go.
Posts: 3201 | From: An historic market town nestling in the folds of Surrey's rolling North Downs, | Registered: Sep 2011
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
During a convalescence this month, I was looking for easy and comforting reading and I read The Midnight Folk, which I read as a child, and started The Box of Delights.
Half way through I found I was reading less and less each day and not enjoying it so, very unusually for me, I gave up. I preferred The Midnight Folk, although I thought the plot about the Harker treasure was weak. It was the image of a lonely little boy finding comfort in his fantasies that was so endearing. In The Box of Delights, Kay is no longer so unhappy so that doesn’t work. The fantasies and plot didn’t seem to be going anywhere.
But I didn’t finish it, so I may be unfair.
Incidentally, what happened to Kay’s parents? He is clearly unhappy in the earlier book, but he never seems to miss them. The absence of parents is a standard feature of children’s books, but it is odd not to be traumatised by being an orphan.
-------------------- Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Thro' the world we safely go.
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Ariel
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# 58
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Posted
Of the Carnegie ones I've read, Philip Pullman's "Northern Lights" has Lyra who's another one who has an unusual amount of freedom and no parental restrictions, until Mrs Coulter tries to put some in place.
"The Owl Service" by Alan Garner features teenagers who go off and do their own thing. "A Stranger at Green Knowe" by Lucy Boston is the story of an orphaned Chinese boy. "The Last Battle" by C S Lewis features children who are separated from their parents and go off and have adventures. Then there's the Arthur Ransome story, where, um, there's a bit of a theme going on...
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
Arthur Ransome...
I'm reading Winter Holiday at the moment and dragging it out to enjoy it. One of my favourite books.
The parents in Ransome have the right idea, however shocking some here may find it.
Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers won't drown.
-------------------- Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Thro' the world we safely go.
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Jane R
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# 331
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Posted
Leorning Cniht: quote: Of the Carnegie medallists written before I became of age to read them, I've read four: The Borrowers, The Last Battle, Tom's Midnight Garden, and Watership Down.
Those aren't great odds.
I don't think 'the classics' are restricted to 'books everyone must have read' (though I'm surprised you never read any Arthur Ransome...) D H Lawrence is widely acknowledged (and studied) as one of the greats of 20th century literature, but I've never read any of his books (except for the first two paragraphs of 'Women in Love') and have no intention of doing so. And you couldn't pay me enough to read 'Ulysses', even though many people whose judgement I otherwise respect rave about it.
I think some of the best contemporary British writers are writing YA/children's books. Maybe some of their books will stand the test of time. 10% sounds about right, but it may not be the 10% that you've read. It's very difficult to tell who will still be popular a hundred years from now; Edward Bulwer-Lytton was so popular in the 19th century that he has his own classmark in the Dewey Decimal System (in earlier editions of it, anyway) but nowadays he is famous mainly for beginning one of his books with the immortal line "It was a dark and stormy night".
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Jane R
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# 331
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Posted
Oh, and quote: I don't know what Masefield thought Bishops did, but what's in play here is what Kay thought Bishops did. Sing carols, hold church services and look episcopal is not an unreasonable expectation for a small boy to have of a Bishop.
That's true (and essentially the same point I made about the Christmas parties). Perhaps I was being unfair, but that was one of the things that struck me as odd when I was reading the book (and I still think the end is a cop-out).
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Eirenist
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# 13343
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Posted
Children's book authors are often more than a little vague about matters ecclesiastical. In 'The Swish of the Curtain' the youngsters get permission from 'the Bishop' to start their theatre in the disused 'Brethren Chapel' IIRC.
-------------------- 'I think I think, therefore I think I am'
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Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
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Posted
My little sister's name is Maria: she didn't like it either!
-------------------- If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Another one who didn't love this book, and having got two thirds of the way through, not enjoying it, came on here to find the questions. I now don't want to make the effort of finishing it for a damp squib of an ending.
When this book was chosen the eulogising over the descriptions engaged me, but I'm with Jane on:
quote: Originally posted by Jane R: The Box... meh. I don't object to the occasional appearance of Herne the Hunter and similar, but many other authors have done this sort of thing rather better. I am probably being unfair to John Masefield here, because he did it before Diana Wynne Jones, Catherine Fisher, Susan Cooper, Terry Pratchett et al., but that's how I feel about it.
<snip>
And I hated the style; I thought it was badly over-written. He should have stuck to poetry.
Kipling wrote better descriptions showing children going back into the past in Puck of Pook's Hill and Rewards and Fairies, published in 1906 and 1910. His fairies had an edge and bite. E E Nesbit had some brilliant descriptions of the past in The House of Arden published in 1910 and some of her Five Children and It and other Psammead stories visited different times and places. Those books were published from 1899 to 1904.
This book gave me faint echoes of Kay from T H White's The Sword in the Stone, published in 1938, where the descriptions of Wart becoming an ant, bird and fish had a point.
I quoted the writing style comment from JaneR as I like John Masefield's poetry. Kipling's books have poems interwoven which are little gems; the verses in The Box of Delights are not.
I found the book started well enough. The descriptions of Cole Hawlings puppet show promised a Box of Delights, but I didn't engage with Kay enough to want to finish it. I also found the occasional references to The Midnight Folk frustrating and wondered if I'd read the wrong book and that I would have liked Kay better if I'd read that book first.
-------------------- Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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venbede
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# 16669
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Posted
I love Puck of Pook's Hill
-------------------- Man was made for joy and woe; And when this we rightly know, Thro' the world we safely go.
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Nenya
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# 16427
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...: I also found the occasional references to The Midnight Folk frustrating and wondered if I'd read the wrong book and that I would have liked Kay better if I'd read that book first.
In my opinion The Midnight Folk is far and away the superior book, which is why I have not engaged with this thread - though have been watching it with interest. Do read it.
-------------------- They told me I was delusional. I nearly fell off my unicorn.
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Sarasa
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# 12271
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Posted
I might have a go at The Midnight Folk . I kept on getting the feeling The Box of Delights would have been more engaging if I'd read it first.
-------------------- 'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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Penny S
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# 14768
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Posted
The major difference is that the Midnight Folk is not set in a dream. It also has better verse in it, deriving from folk song idiom. It is not clear (I think) why Kay is in the hands of a guardian and a governess rather than parents. I know there is a connection between it and another of Masefield's books, "Sard Harker", but I'm not sure what. I couldn't get into it. And I tried at a time when I was prepared to get into Apuleius' "Golden Ass", so it must be tricky!
I'm going to read another couple of books I have from childhood which use time travel to examine history - "The Children's Chronicle" by Dorothy Margaret Stuart, and "The Fearless Treasure" by Noel Streatfield, where the journeys start at a hotel on the Hythe seafront in Kent. (I think the Stuart may not involve time travel, but rather the history of a house.)
I can't remember whether someone has mentioned Lucy Boston or not.
Back when Folkestone Junior library was a regular bookhoard of treasures, it had, not only the book I have mentioned above, but also a number of Irish fantasies in which children went back to engage with the Tuatha de Danaan in their battles with the Firbolg and the Fomorians. (The island had problems with immigrants oppressing the indigenes even then!) They were of the period between the wars, like the Masefield, romantic, but less involved in philosophy than James Stephens. The books one reads as a child do shape one's imagination quite a bit.
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ArachnidinElmet
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# 17346
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Posted
The Hero is our little Kay Do you like him? Is he OK?
Yes, kind of. He seems friendly and generous at the beginning. He's adventurous and doesn't panic. OTOH, I don't think he's heroic. He doesn't push the action forward other than to observe what others are doing (such as the fight at the Roman Camp). Despite knowing how dangerous the 'Wolves' are supposed to be, he doesn't do anything about Maria or Peter's disappearances, instead swanning off to explore the box and getting into scrapes that other people have to rescue him from.
The Box with all that magic stuff in How does it score as a MacGuffin?
Those flights of fancy, Herne and such Fantastic? Or are they Too Much?
I quite enjoyed them as a separate thing from the events in Tatchester. Masefield can definitely set a scene, if only someone else had done his plotting. They're like two different books.
Mysterious Timey-Wimey Things Tell me your thoughts on what they bring
“Dreamlike” Say Some – As we Find Out! Is the Last Page a Big Cop-Out?
Yes, but it's the only way the book makes sense. Travelling hundreds of miles in a minute, quick changes of scene, improbable escapes etc.
I don't know how much reading the abridged version affected my enjoyment of the book, but it certainly didn't help. In some cases the illustrations gave away plot points a chapter ahead.
Is anyone familiar with the tv series and whether it was better/worse/a faithful representation of the book? I remember enjoying it, but haven't watched it since the 1980s.
-------------------- 'If a pleasant, straight-forward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle manoeuvres' - Kafka
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Ariel
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# 58
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Sarasa: I might have a go at The Midnight Folk . I kept on getting the feeling The Box of Delights would have been more engaging if I'd read it first.
I wasn't keen on the Midnight Folk as a child and re-reading some sample pages a few weeks ago, had no desire to continue any further. It's aimed at a much younger audience and Kay is quite a small boy in that one and comes across as almost a different character.
This could be an unfair criticism, but I think the Box of Delights is possibly one of those books probably best read uncritically as a child and enjoyed for its own sake, with that glow of nostalgia carried through into adulthood. Some books are like that. I think if I came to it for the first time now I'd find it uneven, patchy, dated, surprisingly dark, but would probably still enjoy the cameo pieces.
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I was avoiding this thread until I’d finished the book. Having now finished it, I wish to share my feeling that the ending is rubbish and I was very cross with it indeed. “It was all a dream” always seems like such a lazy way to end a book to me.
I don’t agree that a dream is the only way for it to make sense. I would have been much happier with some hand waving and calling it “magic”.
-------------------- Rent my holiday home in the South of France
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