There's no real structure to this short book it's more a grab bag of random childhood Christmastime stories, filled with boys' mischief, Useful Presents ("mittens made for giant sloths. And yet he came up with this beautiful, lyrical tribute to his childhood Christmases in the coastal town of Swansea, Wales, in the early 1900's, "before the motor-car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and snowed." He disliked being regarded as a "Welsh" writer and had no use for Welsh nationalism. Dylan Thomas was a Welsh poet who lived a short, intense life (he died of his excesses when he was only 39). It also has Thomas's lovely, poetic writing: Years and years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the colour of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlours. But it's nostalgic and old-timey and European-flavored, which are sure-fire appeals to her sensibilities (and often mine).
This illustrated book version of Dylan Thomas's reminiscing about his boyhood Christmases was one of my mother's more recent gifts she dropped it on me one day when she was visiting, with very little explanation. Sometimes they go straight to Goodwill (used clothing, cheap knickknacks) sometimes they're useful (a type of mop she particularly loves) sometimes they're delightful (my grandmother's sterling silver set, books that have moved her, beautiful impressionistic landscapes that she paints in oils or watercolor).
My artistic, flighty mother, who's in her 70's, flits in and out of my life, leaving quirky gifts behind.
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