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Summary:
A Holiday Classic
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"There's so much music in his voice that it carries the listener along, enchanted by the sound of the words and the rich imagery." -New York TimesFirst recorded in 1952, this recording of Dylan Thomas reading his A Child's Christmas in Wales recalls the sights, smells, and sounds of a long-ago Christmas. Thomas's wonderful recollection of this holiday in the seaside of his youth is captured in this vivid performance. Whether sharing his wistful memory of a holiday spent with people long past, or addressing the perennial problem of our mortality, Thomas gives us great pleasure in our personal and common memories while affirming life with a resounding "Yes!". Also included in this audio are five other selected poems, read by Dylan Thomas: "Fern Hill", "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night", "In the White Giant's Thigh", "Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait", and "Ceremony after a Fire Raid" "An unforgettable experience . . . ranks . . among the great expressions of the language." -Harper's
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Summary: Listen to Dylan Thomas read his classic story - unabridged
Review:
First recorded in 1952, this recording of Dylan Thomas reading his A CHILD'S CHRISTMAS IN WALES recalls the sights, smells, and sounds of a long-ago Christmas. Thomas's wonderful recollection of his holiday in the seaside town of his youth is captured in this vivid performance. Whether sharing his wistful memory of a holiday spent with people long past, or addressing the perennial problem of our mortality, Thomas gives us great pleasure in our personal and common memories while affirming life with a resounding "Yes!".
Also included in this audio are five poems, read by Dylan Thomas Fern Hill; Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night; In The White Giant's Thigh; Ballad Of The Long-Legged Bait; Ceremony After A Fire Raid "There is so much music in his voice that it carries the listener along, enchanted by the sound of the words and the rich imagery." - New York Times "An unforgettable experience . . . ranks . . . among the great expressions of the language." -Harper's
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Summary: A little boy growing up in Wales
Review: A Child's Christmas in Wales is an excellent book. A well made classic. I recieved the book at Christmas time and I read it. It soon became my favorite book. My davorite part is when he pretends he is smoking with candy cigarettes and everyone loks at him disgusted when they walk by. And even though the e-mail says Ralph, thats my dad and I'm Laura Johnson.
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Summary: Recapturing the past we never knew
Review: Christmas so often disappoints us. And why not? How could it ever live up to the sappy and maudlin presentations it suffers so often on TV, in the movies, even in commercials! Along comes Dylan Thomas (well he came along a while ago) and captures elements of the holiday that we can still live today. There is a town shut up against the cold with the occasional hardy soul braving the elements. There are families, rich in generations, sharing a day punctuated more by the telling of tales than the exchange of gifts. There are children overcoming their own fears of the unknown to give "Good King Wenceslaus" to a spectral figure behind a closed door. And there lies, on the final page and in the final line, an ending that captures all of what is best in the holiday and, maybe, what is best in all of us. Granted, until you hear the poet himself read this work, you will never capture the full effect, but you will come close. And you may be more ready for Christmas than you have ever been before.
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Summary: Just great
Review: Dylan Thomas has, well, how can I put it - a way with words. This is a delightful and extremely droll prose poem, without which Christmas just wouldn't be the same for me. And the author's reading voice is nothing short of magnificent.
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Summary: A Christmas classic in homes throughout the world.
Review: Dylan Thomas made hours of recordings of his poems, stories and plays, but none of them is as endearingly personal as this distillation of his childhood Christmases in Swansea. And his performance is unforgettable. Put a log on the fire, and let Thomas's rich, deep voice take you straight to the heart of a child's Christmas.
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Summary: Enchanting Poetic Dylan Thomas Classic
Review: Dylan Thomas' 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' in it's second print for generations has become an enchanting, simple poetic tale captured in the eyes of a child. The language is delightfully entrancing and the poetry shines with a heavenly radiance. Thomas' style captures an adult's warm memory of a holiday-season that reflects presents, good things to eat, and when it was just right, white blanket of new snow with all it's wonder and the mischief of snowball battles and any exaggeration that moves that will spark the imagination of a child.
This second edition of Thomas' magical tale is lavishly illustration with old-fashioned, scratchboard-like engravings by Fritz Eichenberg. Dylan Thomas was born in Swansea, Wales in 1914. He began writing poetry at a very young age and published his first book, '18 Poems' at twenty. From 1943 until his death he broadcasted his own radio talk program on BBC. He read poetry selections, participated in table discussions, and read dramas and essays. His voice became familiar with Americans in the 1950s during his lecture tours at American universities. He had achieved an admirable audience for his poetry. Besides this book and his poetry his other most widely read works are 'Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog,' 'Quite Early One Morning' and his play, 'Under Milk Wood.'
'A Child's Christmas in Wales' is Thomas' most fine work of art-with it's human quality, touching sentiment, easily understood presentation and child-like wisdom that gives Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol' a second glance at holiday tradition. After all we can all find a child in Christmas in all of us.
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Summary: A Simple Treasure; A Singular Triumph
Review: Dylan Thomas' imagery and prose invoke the secular feelings of Christmas like no other book. His floating word-pictures are both vague and precise, inviting the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks. Thomas creates the sensations of memory--blurred, idiosyncratic, and suffused with impression:
"There were church bells, too"
"Inside them?"
"No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice-cream hills, over the crackling sea." Fortunately, the dreamlike imagery never weighs down the book. Instead, Thomas wishes only to convey the warmth, humor, and imagination of his childhood Christmases in Wales. Although this is great modernist literature, it is completely unpretentious and can be enjoyed by all ages. The book seems longer than it is, perhaps because Thomas' depictions linger warmly after one reads about the Christmas fire, the smoking Uncles and drinking aunts, the presents ("...and a celluloid duck that made, when you pressed it, a most unducklike sound, a mewing moo that an ambitious cat might make who wished to be a cow"), the dinner, the caroling at the large strange house where "the wind through the trees made noises as of old and unpleasant and maybe webfooted men in caves," the music, and the soft bedtime. These episodes are generally no longer than a page each, but they graft onto our own memories--or would-be memories--of what Christmas could or should be like. In sum, it's a pleasure for the both the intellect and the senses, an unsentimental yet warm treat for both young and older audiences. It's one of the truest--and therefore most satisfying--Christmas books you'll ever read.
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Summary: Part of a Christmas tradition.
Review: Every Christmas Eve, I set aside a few minutes to listen to my CD of Dylan reading "A Child's Christmas" in Wales, placing the special emphasis only he can on the frustrated Mr. Prothero trying to put out a fire in his house, the neighborhood St. Bernards who bellow "Excelsior!" over the town, and the churchgoers who, with taproom noses, go scooping over the ice. The older I get, the more I need this little piece. As friends and family are, for one reason or another, lost with the passing years, it gets harder and harder to laugh, even at Christmas, but Dylan Thomas gives me a good giggle every time.
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Summary: Part of a Christmas tradition.
Review: Every Christmas Eve, I set aside a few minutes to listen to my CD of Dylan reading "A Child's Christmas" in Wales, placing the special emphasis only he can on the frustrated Mr. Prothero trying to put out a fire in his house, the neighborhood St. Bernards who bellow "Excelsior!" over the town, and the churchgoers who, with taproom noses, go scooping over the ice. The older I get, the more I need this little piece. As friends and family are, for one reason or another, lost with the passing years, it gets harder and harder to laugh, even at Christmas, but Dylan Thomas gives me a good giggle every time.
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