I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: PRESERVATION HALL JAZZ BAND-Tiny Desk Concert #328 (December 21, 2013).

This show is tangentially Christmassy.  I mean, it does feature a tuba player in a Santa Claus outfit, after all.  But the music isn’t Christmassy per se (except for one song).

Rather, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band does what it does best–play fun dancey jazz songs.  There’s trumpet (and trumpet solos) and trombone, there’s saxophone and piano and most importantly, there are two, count em, two tubas!

“Sugar Plum” is their instrumental version of a holiday song (about the sugar plum fairy).  It’s a fun bouncy swinging song.  “I Think I Love You” has vocals, and they are fine, but it makes the band swing a little less.

“Happy Holiday” is indeed a Christmas song, and a nice one with sweet lyrics.  It’s also got a lengthy some trade off trombone and saxophone solos.

The final song, “Dear Lord,” sees the Santa tuba player removing his instrument and taking over as lead singer (and commenting that he’s from the South Pole which is why he is so hot).  This final song seems to be a familiar one with people singing and clapping along as he blesses everyone from South Pole to North.

[READ: December 23, 2015] The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain

This is the final book in the Christmas Books collection. And it does return to the Spirit of Christmas more than the previous stories did.

As I learned from the previous story, the plot is quite simple but its length comes primarily from Dickens’ intense amount of detail (and lots of humor).

The story focuses on Mr. Redlaw.  Redlaw is a chemist and a kind man.  But he is beset upon by sadness at all of the things that have happened to him in his past.  One night he is visited by a spirit (who seems to be something of a version of himself, maybe?).  The spirit tells him that he can help to “forget the sorrow, wrong, and trouble you have known.”  Basically he proposes that he will remove all of the bad memories Redlaw has ever had.  And if he accepts this proposal, he will also be able to do this to everyone else that he meets.

This seems like a good deal–no bad memories!  So he accepts.Meanwhile, the story jumps back and forth (somewhat randomly, I felt) between Redlaw and a comic relief family, the Tetterbys.  The Tetterbys are a pretty funny family.  They had several children, all boys, all skinny and tiny.  Until finally they had a girl, Sally.  Sally is a huge baby (just as her mother is huge–and there are some amusing jokes about her size).  And it has fallen one of the boys, Johnny, to mind Sally.  There is even an illustration which really brings home just how massive Sally is, especially compared to Johnny.  He has to carry the girl around (it’s pretty funny).

Sally is also a prone to lots of crying and so they call her Moloch.  But poor Johnny, whenever Moloch acts up, they just seem to blame him for all their troubles.  Poor kid.

One day Mrs Tetterby comes home and confesses to her husband that she spent the day thinking about how happy her life could have been if she hadn’t married him and had all these kids–she would be wealthy and happy.  He forgives her and then they proceed to yell at Johnny.

There’s another family mentioned as well.  The Swidgers.  Milly Swidger is a kind-hearted person, intent on helping out a student, Denham, who has taken ill (thanks to Redlaw).  Milly does all kinds of nice things for him but he is never open to it.

Finally, a boy, beaten down and afraid, is the only person immune to Redlaw’s “gift.”  He asks the boy to take him to a house where people are sad. The boy takes him to the Swidger household, where things are bleak indeed. for the father and son.

But Redlaw learns that removing sorrowful memories is not really a good thing.  Milly even pronounces “It is important to remember past sorrows and wrongs so that you can then forgive those responsible and, in doing so, unburden your soul and mature as a human being.”

But how can Redlaw undo the terrible things he has done?  And, ultimately will Milly convince him that he should?

I admit I found this a little confusing  at times.  Which is a shame because I thought the story itself was very good.  The way Dickens uses humor I think might work a lot better hearing it aloud–there were especially some jokes about the Tetterby family that a careful reading reveals to be very funny.  I think a dramatic recitation would really bring out the humor.  (It would be easily missed if the reader really wanted to try to finish it before Christmas–which I did and I confess that I finished it after the 23rd but since I had planned to write about it before Christmas, it fits in nicely here.  See forgiving myself has lifted my spirit.