THE DARK ACADEMICS BOOK CLUB // A Christmas Carol & These Violent Delights live show

welcome to my channel and welcome to the dark academics live show for these villain delights and a christmas carol this is going to be a very interesting live show because uh we have some some thoughts and we're going to share them with you so i think we are going to start with these violent delights i have my cafe here here we go these are wind lights so just for everybody who maybe you're tuning in and you haven't seen or read it this is a oh hello there's a person in the chat hi this is a romeo and juliet retelling set in the 1920s in shanghai and it is about rival gangs and also this uncontrollable virus and a lot of other stuff so i feel like that's a good place to just set you up if you haven't read it yeah but um so if you guys are new to the live show should we just like reintroduce ourselves like we normally do sure so this is obviously my channel so i am carolyn and i'll probably share our ratings as well i i rated these by my delights two stars so um you want to go kira yep hi i'm kira and you can find me over on my channel kiara foster and i gave these valentine's two stars as well yeah uh shall i go yes yes hi i'm emma um my channel is emmy i feel like i should probably change it's like a bookish thing in the future um yeah i also gave it two stars so it should be interesting um i'm lucy i'm from the channel crescent and i gave this 2.5 stars just that additional 0.5 but yes [Laughter] um i'm mary from the channel mary monk stories and surprise surprise i also gave it two stars i love the fact that we all get because i feel like sometimes we have like mixed opinions where some of us read the participated low um so this time i feel like we all kind of agree and have similar feelings so i think it'll be exciting and interesting to see if the people in the chat agree or disagree with us so yeah yes um is there a point in doing in the spoiler section or should we just get right into it i feel like we should get into it i don't know yeah okay so someone gave it to me another two stars you're with us oh let's see someone else gave it three stars yeah so definitely share your rating um in the chat and then we can go through those yeah wow 2.5 oh someone gave it five stars that's great yeah i feel like people either like love it or just like hate it yeah it's definitely a personal preference but yeah so three stars yeah yeah so if you did like this book then that's wonderful uh i wish you broke it let's see four stars i didn't read it let's see i didn't read it but i don't like them juliet so that spice three stars so i feel like there's a nice wide wide range definitely yeah i feel like i do like romeo and juliet and that's kind of why i didn't like this because it felt so different to romeo and juliet so yeah it wasn't a big fan yeah yeah 3.5 yeah i felt like i was saying did this to the girls before like the concept is so great and it's so uh exciting because before you know going into this i love romeo and juliet and i love shakespeare so i was like this will be so exciting because it's this like really incredible time in history and it's a wonderful setting um it just there were things about it but yeah yeah i think it would have been really good if it maybe focus more on the gangs and like their conflicts because i feel like that is the main thing you expect from romeo and juliet retelling and i don't know whether it was because i didn't read the synopsis like i had no idea that it would have a monster in it yeah so when i read like the first bit i was like wait what what is going on i feel like if it was more political and more about the end it would have been a lot better for me personally yeah i agree yeah so who would like to start should we start with positives yeah yeah yeah emily you mentioned you had something yeah okay i feel like like you said i loved the concept at first i actually liked the first like couple chapters i read but then as soon as it started to like focus in not on the gangs and not really on romeo and juliet and just the bug monster thing it like no um but what i loved like i loved the setting i loved the history and like politics because like i've read so much young adult in my life but not very much if it actually focuses on anything i feel of like not really like like there's historical fiction why and stuff like that but this one i feel like really added in those elements and like really focused on them throughout the whole book rather than just having it be like one small section or something which was nice um what else did i love the side characters is um i love them i loved kathleen yeah just the side characters were great the main characters i did not love at all um yeah just like the history the politics the side characters the whole concept i just feel like the execution was really um lackluster yeah yeah what did you guys like about it i liked the discussion around juliet's character the fact that she went to america and it's it affected how people perceived her and her identity there was one quote which was something like um she was talking about belonging to shanghai and to america and she said why can't i have both why do i have to be defined by one or the other and i like that discussion about identity and how it affected how um her gang members saw her and then also like foreigners like americans and all the people coming in i liked that discussion of identity yeah yeah really quickly [Laughter] but um for me i feel like what i liked is how she interweaved the traditional romeo and juliet themes into this completely different setting in this completely different time period um because even though it's historical fiction the 20s are technically historical fiction now um it's it's so far ahead of the future compared to when shakespeare was writing romeo and juliet so i really liked how she kind of adapted that and made it towards a different audience and put them and these like very well-known tropes into a different scenario so i felt like that was really great it was just the way that she went about executing it and writing it just like there were so many scenes like the balcony scene for instance where it was just so anti-climactic like the scene is one of the most prominent well-known beautiful romantic scenes in literature and i thought she could have done so much more with it yeah but it was just like it just felt so corny in a sense like you're just putting it there because it's part of shakespeare and this is romeo and juliet retelling but i felt like it didn't really do anything to the plot and the storyline yeah yeah the romans didn't even feel real to me to be honest i didn't exactly believe it at all um i kind of like the atmosphere as well the setting um especially during the first two chapters i was very intrigued i kept being very interesting in what was going on because the atmosphere sounded very dark and eerie and i was like we have something going on here that might be interesting but then when it comes to it i think it was just so much potential that then just didn't work and which is a shame i think there were a lot of good ideas i like the political commentary as well which can still be applied to our days and that could have been so great but then in the end it's like you were um it just didn't work the execution wasn't the best unfortunately so yeah yeah i feel like one of the biggest things that like i wasn't a fan of the writing but like if i really enjoyed the execution i feel like i could have ignored the writing but like one of the biggest things for me was like just i could not suspend my disbelief for like the a lot of things i have a very big insect ranch in this rant it's like a five point um i don't have to go on it now but yeah applause about just like it no i just couldn't but there were so many things i'm like this is not this could not happen ever so i don't know i don't know i feel like some people love the bug thing but i just like i thought it was cool but i just could not buy into it like yeah me neither yeah i think there was a lot missing from like the just like the context to make things make sense yeah i feel like on the whole my main positive was that although i didn't enjoy it it didn't feel like a massive drag even like it's you know decent sized book but it didn't take me too long to get through just like a few days and it didn't feel like super painful whereas sometimes books regardless of their length if you don't like them feel really difficult to get through so i still got through it quite quickly and it wasn't too bad but i do just feel like there's a lot lacking in the dynamics between characters why certain feuds exist what happened in their history why certain characters had left shanghai and then come back and then obviously the whole thing about the monster and the bugs i just feel like there was a lot of things going on that were to the detriment of the story because we didn't really get to understand everything in great depth yeah i agree yeah someone is asking would you say there's a difference between a retelling or reimagining because i think provider can be more loosely inspired but maybe that's just in my head um i'd agree with that yeah yeah like i had expected it to be more romeo and julia-esque and there's actually it was kind of irritating when like there would be a few random like yes varying things thrown in yeah they just felt like they were there just to make it be exactly yeah yeah that's what it felt like yeah it would have just been its own story but i think having sort of like framed it as the shakespeare retelling made it more disappointing but yeah it wasn't really anything definitely yeah let's see it also says the monster is what i like the least the setting of the last club in shanghai in the relationship between my interview i loved i feel like gosh there i don't know there's so much that like i have complaints about like i didn't even really feel a connection between roma and juliet where like there are central you know love interests and romeo and juliet is all about their passion for each other and i just didn't feel it for the characters in these violent debates so that was something that i just like felt unrealistic as well let alone like the bugs and the monster feeling unrealistic it's like even their their emotion and passion for each other yeah i agree yeah i think because they were kind of pegged as enemies as well so it was like that's kind of what they're meant to be like connecting factors between these two opposing families but actually they were in opposition to each other as well so it's like it did yeah it was that i love this type of thing it just seemed like kind of more of an enemies to lovers but like like romeo and juliet yeah exactly yeah i don't know i was so excited when like she introduced that like they had history together and that they had previously known each other like i thought they grew up together i was like i got so confused about juliet's whole timeline but then eventually when it like i worked it out it i don't know i was so disappointed i thought it was really going to be like they were like childhood friends and like in an actual romeo and juliet like landscape i feel like that could make it so much more like devastating and tragic than it already is in shakespeare but then yeah like you guys said i just felt no connection no chemistry it was just so like stale and flat especially the writing did not help it at all but yeah i don't know yeah i feel like in romeo and juliet the original play like they're not the most likable characters because they're so like overdramatic and kind of silly in a sense but i really didn't like juliet like i felt like she was trying to be this like tough girl and showing how how like no one can tell her what to do and how you know oh i don't care the people that i hurt and everything and it's just it seemed so i don't even know what the right word is but i just i feel like when i read a book and there's an unlikable character uh i i sometimes enjoy that because i want to know like why are they unlikable what about their character is making them that way why did they act this way and i feel like juliet merits that behavior but at the same time i felt like i just did not enjoy reading about her no yeah not at all no yeah i don't know i feel like i didn't really believe a lot of her character in the sense that like she said that she was like people feared her and she had this reputation and everything you had like one instance where she like did something like women like strangled her or something but that was the only thing you might be really saw like how ruthless she was and it just felt as if she was just saying that and why we didn't really have any evidence yeah so when she said that she cared for her city and like she wanted to protect all these people i don't really believe that either because i feel like we didn't really see any evidence of that so i felt like when his first character was just all talk and no action yeah no showing yeah yeah yeah like you said i feel like we just missed so much context and like everything was just told to us nothing was ever shown to us we never got any proof and i just feel like julia julia just like she seems to act so unrealistically or so just flippant in every single situation that it's like actually serious and like very weighty and like all these serious bad things are going on but she just it just seems like she doesn't care at all and like parts of her character i really liked like her being just so able to stand up for what she wants but at the same time she just feels so cruel it like went overboard for me it was like too much and i couldn't like sympathize or i didn't i just didn't like her like it was so hard to like her i feel like this comment is you know it's a yeah i feel like i've i've seen that in a lot of way where they're trying to like flip the stereotype of the um like distressed maiden and making her sort of like her own savior and i love that i just i like that um switch but i feel like sometimes it's just overdone and i feel like that's what was bothering me a little bit about juliet is i almost felt like she could be very strong and kind of challenging those um those norms but it just seemed a little like too in your face yeah yeah people were also talking about the writer as well um she is i think she's my age i think she's 22. she it said in her i think in her bio or on instagram or something because i looked her up that she was born in 1998 in soviz um she's 22. um and i think we're saying that she's actually writing the second book now um which i give her so much credit i think that's amazing that she's so young has you know released a novel already and i give her so much credit and people are saying as well like they're excited to to see her grow as an author um yeah yeah i feel like it's obviously really impressive and a lot of people do like this book it just wasn't exactly what i was looking for but obviously that doesn't mean that it's not a good book it just means that it wasn't the kind of book that yeah we wanted but yeah and i i i think i was saying this in one of my videos recently that i feel like it's hard because i read so much adult and classic literature where the writing is like the polar opposite of y and so that's in my brain of like what i compare all books to and it's hard to like leave that behind and be like carolyn this is a different genre why not go in with it with like you know a different mindset of what i expect from the writing so i try to do that i just think it's a bit harder for me because i don't read like a lot of y a true so that was something that i had to like keep in mind and just have like a different genre and merits different writing so yeah um emma do you want to go into your bug branch okay so we have the insects okay we're in spoilers so like paul dexter okay first of all i want to say one thing i loved about the bug thing was like the whole thing with paul yes paul dexter and like bringing the moment from britain i love the symbolism i loved what was like trying to be done there in this way but not like actually when i got down to it on the page so like where do i start the first thing it says that they break through your skull i've never see i've never seen a bug that could go through my bones like and then if okay if i could buy into that like there's some super bug that can like dive into a human skull like my bones how do you not notice that how are you just like going about your life not feeling insects boring into your skin and into your skull and into your brain how do you not how do you not know that you have to know that yeah um okay third point she says they're like the size of your pinky finger or your pinky nail i mean um so they're huge like you would see them you would see thousands of these bugs jumping around in the air like little lice except you can actually see them because the whole thing with lice is like they're so tiny that you can't see them but these ones like you would see this you would know and then even when they know this no one is like let's wear a hat our brain no everyone just goes about like oh we know there's bugs jumping around in the air but like no one actually does anything about it it is so strange to me like you know they're like they're gonna murder you why would you not take steps that you would know to help yourself or your people um and then also without is her name alyssa okay oh my gosh this maybe you can take that okay okay yeah um because emma and i were like sending like snapchat videos back and forth while we were reading and one thing that when i came across was when they're talking about alyssa and how um she you know starts to try to rip her throat out so she has the bugs in her brain and they're talking about how um how like they're taking her to the doctor and they're sedating her so that she doesn't like rip her throat out and i'm my thought process was if these bugs are in her brain isn't she already just like yeah it's like if a person gets bugs in their brain then shouldn't they naturally die yeah you know and they started laughing at this party and then they're talking about like oh you know if you kill the monster then you kill the bugs and alyssa will be fine because the bugs will like die and she'll wake up so yeah okay take it take it back no you nailed it like yeah i feel like if bugs go into your brain into your skull it's over for you like yeah that doesn't make any sense i don't know i just couldn't buy into it and it kind of ruined the whole book because like that's what the whole book centers around this one bug slash monster thing that's like really just tied into everything else which is just a bug thing and i just could not i could not deal with it i was just so repetitive i think what kind of like put me off was the fact that like this is all set in reality and then this very like unrealistic or i guess like it just seems like unbelievable for this to happen because i felt like it if this was like known as like a fantasy like if if we knew that this wasn't supposed to be you know like set in reality then i'd be like okay these bugs you know maybe they could go in your brain and you'd be fine but like this was set in reality so it's like hard to not feel like this is impossible so yeah no i do feel a little bit ill now that we've just talked so much i just so this we have to talk about this because same me too when i was reading this and they were talking about the vaccine and everything i was like okay this is heading a little too close to home yeah there was even a line that said something like stop the madness and get the vaccine and i was like yes absolutely very very relatable and i'm assuming this is written obviously before i guess so maybe we have a psychic among us i love that comment that maybe the bugs would be mechanical yes been so [Music] i feel cool it's a book where timeline feel like um historical setting feels a little bit odd because like it obviously is 1920s but i feel like it doesn't really feel like a 1920s yeah i agree it was like bugs and it was a bit more like black mirror style that could have been really interesting if it was more like futurism yeah it wasn't yeah and i necessarily feel like she doesn't really immerse us in the time period besides like the fact that they're like gangsters and she describes that she's wearing a flapper dress like once in every scene of the beast and i just felt like what i love about historical fiction is like atmosphere and feeling like you're traveling back in time and that's kind of what i was missing in this book okay it says that's not the time i pictured them these little bug that's so funny i don't know but like the monster i don't think so they live on the monster he said he found like the first one in britain like i think that they are just some weird superbug yeah can we talk about the monster i did not underst it was never explained at all yeah no i did not get it and then in the end not to like well we're in spoilers now but like in the end it was it was that old man right yeah yeah and that's what it's like why what the doctor do the man and then he made it into a monster i don't know i don't know that's it's just not properly explained maybe we have to wait for book two for that yes there are so many things that we have to wait for book two see but that that's what frustrates me about book series though and not just this one just in general is the fact that like we i understand you have to raise questions for people to want to figure out and read your next book but at the same time i felt like there are so few like standalone like i don't know if it's just yeah but i feel like i wanted more answers yeah and i know that's a silly complaint because it's like just you know read on but just i wanted there to be a bit more explanation yeah yeah like the spy we never find out who the spy is right scarlett's yeah i don't think so do you guys have any theories i feel like it's rosalind yeah yeah i thought then didn't get this triplets thing either what was that all about oh yeah i was i didn't really understand that either because she was saying like there was something about like not being called syria yeah so there's kathleen rosalind and then celia but celia becomes kathleen in new york when like they're all three still in america because one of the sisters dies like kathleen dies um so celia takes the name kathleen and essentially like takes her identity and comes back hi okay um is there a reason why she couldn't have just stayed estevia see well i don't know i that whole passage i marked and i was like wait because like they say one time um okay maybe i'll just find it and i'll i'll try to someone else is saying that um yes this could have been one book i agree i feel like it didn't really have to be like over 400 pages i felt like you could describe this plot in like 20 pages and it would have been like you know a little nice short novella but and then like she tagged on to the end just to allow the sequel second one monster like surprise i was as well okay it says it's because celia is was trans okay yeah i feel like it just wasn't really explained it was very clear that that wasn't fam so i was just like i think that whole bit was kind of confusing so i was just oh yes yes i feel like it could have been a bit more like blatant i can't i don't know i thought like or explored more exactly yeah exactly yeah because there's one scene i found it the one scene at the start where the lady that julia is strangling for anyway um like oh yeah didn't you didn't you and kathleen have a brother and then kathleen's like no like don't don't talk about it like what are you talking about and then later on they're like kathleen was celia and then obviously the father was like no so now she's back in shanghai as kathleen taking the name of her dead sister okay yeah i feel like they should have she should have explored more i loved kathleen i think that could have been so yeah yeah i feel like catherine yeah i feel like kathleen was like the most resilient character yeah very great so yeah you she could have spent a bit more time with her yeah yeah i feel like it was an important piece of narrative to be like so condensed into such a short bit of the text yeah because i think it's such an important topic and you can say so much about it and bring attention to it i just felt like it was kind of thrown in there and then like to the point where some of us miss it so it's just yeah yeah so much with it and make it an important topic i had to like reread the passage like three times to be like oh i just wasn't clear to me at first at all um yeah i don't know yeah what did you guys think of the ending no no no i read that i was like seriously yeah it's just an excuse for a sequel truly yeah yeah yeah is anyone going to read the sequel yeah i mean no i'm good no honestly like i would have dnf'd it if i was reading it by myself i'm saying definitely yeah yeah uh someone else also said um to be honest about so calling it so short because it was four hundred years just getting happy i agree i feel like i agree the plot was just so i don't so something okay this leads into another thing that i wanted to talk about um is that during her dialogue she would put like like huge paragraphs of background and descriptive information in between like really short snippets and it just broke up my reading so much to the point where it made it like very monotonous because like they would say like something like oh you know how are you today and then she would go i'm like oh you know juliette was feeling this way and then back in time this happened and so this is explaining why she's going this way oh i'm good thank you like what it was just like so difficult to read and it made my reading so choppy no i know it happened so much it was like some formula yeah i just did not yeah and sometimes it wasn't even relevant like all those paragraphs with so much information that said nothing i was like why why we don't need this emma also mentioned that they never used contractions and i have i uh didn't notice that until she pointed that out and then i was like oh my god that's so true yeah even in the dialogues i was like yeah cool sorry if i just sounded like the most you know i also feel like maybe she was trying to make it sound historical like yeah but you can still want to shorten their words yeah so but that was that's like my only explanation though is like why would you do that i don't know it is such a small detail but it would have made a lot of difference i feel like it would have been more realistic and what made it flow nicer like i could have said that wow instead of something like a robot but yeah okay someone said this is it underwater i did i was so no i didn't even realize wait because okay he's like holding her underwater and then she's surroundings and she somehow reaches around and like pulls out his gun okay oh i pictured this was like they are above water he's pushing her head under water her arms are out of the water flowing grabs his gun out of the water and shoots him like only her head is in the water is that true i think so i was trying to find it yeah it was like it's just her arms flailing you know i don't know i don't know that's how my brain worked out that scene was anyone surprised that paul was the larkspur no no okay honestly i was just like really okay yeah exactly would a wet gun even work properly i don't think so okay it was it was underwater the whole thing like her arms and everything because she described the bullet under water and then the blood i'm trying to find it because yeah i was too but i gave up so much about this but just like question yeah it was just confusing i guess also the part where juliet shoots um mars and then but he's dead oh yeah he takes the vial and drinks it because he knows to do that and then yeah yeah yeah honestly though when she shot him i was like yeah that checks out like i believed it i was like oh that's yeah but i really didn't like that part because she then proceeded to say that it was all a matter of luck and good timing and i was like really just everything went perfectly well exactly as you planned or rather didn't plan yeah it didn't yeah doesn't make sense um someone else is asking how did you feel about the use of language because there were a lot of different languages i liked it i thought yeah if you were bilingual and you knew the languages it would be a very interesting reading experience for me i had to google a lot of what they were saying because um i think they used a lot of french right yeah so i'm i'm taking french right now because my aunt is a retired french teacher so i knew like some of it um yeah but i do feel like sometimes because i remember this someone said when they were reading jane eyre because there's a lot of french and jane eyre that it kind of broke up their reading of the book because they weren't fluent in french so i feel like it's one of those things where you can go either way whether like you think it breaks up the reading you think it adds to the reading i personally think it adds to the reading because especially when something that i noticed was when they were talking about switching from english to you know the different dialects um that was something that i kind of felt like it would be interesting if she included a bit more of the what did they call it like um i don't want to like picture the pronunciation but like the language that they use in shanghai chinese yeah i don't know but i know what you're talking about okay you know what i'm talking about i think it's a language that you like write in characters yeah like chinese and japanese um i thought that would be really cool if they included more great character based translations i thought it was interesting that obviously there's like mandarin and the shanghai dialect and also russian because obviously like it's quite well noted that like mandarin and also russian are like some of the hardest languages to learn the fact that she was meant to be fluent in birth yeah no someone comment i just agree so much i agree too english french dutch mandarin that's a lot latin he speaks latin what not yeah really similar like if it would have been like you know dutch in german or you know like something that had like some similarities maybe but they were all like very distinct like different things um but yeah i mean it's interesting i feel like it was more just like mentioned rather than actually used except for french like that was the only language that really actually crop up in use rather than just saying oh because i didn't think that they were actually using it it was just there just to say rather than yeah just like it does happen underwater it says she put both her hands around the gun pointed to his forehead and nearly inches away as she pulled the trigger underwater so i guess because it's like really close to his head yeah it works i don't know so i don't think so actually oh well google's can you fire a gun underwater um all right um do we have any final things positive negative i feel like we've just been bashing it this whole time i'm so sorry [Music] i don't know i don't know i don't know i just wanted more of mars and benedict in the story yeah um yeah yeah a 19 yeah 20s gun okay okay great thank you um this was an interesting book this was um okay should we switch yes okay um so okay that will be the end of our these fine delights portion of the live show um how did you choose the book someone was asking i don't even remember i don't remember um maybe because it was romeo and juliet maybe that was what interested us about it yeah probably as well yeah yeah yeah yeah oh but also i just wanted to mention that in the description there is our next month's books that i put so if you're wondering what we're going to be reading in january february and march they're in the descriptions exciting very okay so these land lights oh i just have like i just wanted to say since this is a series i don't think i will be continuing on just wanted to check will you ladies be continuing on i will not i don't know i just wanted i just wanted to ask all right now the wonderful book a christmas carol that'll be disgusting we all have different company oh my gosh that's so cool amazing the second time we all have different editions i love that yeah that's what i love about classics is you have like like so many options of what edition you can have um okay and i just wanted to mention so everybody is aware of his presence if you see him here this is dickens he's on my christmas tree i will i will show a special guest he will be witnessing the live show he's here he's gonna make a few points if we if we need so this was my second time rereading it because i read it for the first time last year for christmas and i loved it oh my god five stars for me do we want to go around saying what we read oh okay should i go okay um this is my either fifth or sixth time reading this book i'm not sure um yeah it is one of my favorites i gave it 4.5 stars um but i love it it is one of my favorite stories of all time by one of my favorite authors so there you go and it was my third time reading it i think i read it like quite a few years ago i read it last year and then i read it just now obviously and i gave it four stars i really really enjoyed it it's not quite my favorite dickens i think it is so seasonal but still really really great can i ask you what your favorite dickens is oh about great expectations lucy do you want to go yeah um i think this is maybe my third time reading i studied it at university and i feel like i read it before that as well um me um i don't know my rating maybe like three stars i have trouble really connecting with short stories but i like the sentiment of the story so yeah oh it was my first time reading it i've never read it before um i loved it i loved it i don't think is my second dickens book so great expectation still i think holds my heart over this one but i loved it i gave it four stars um yeah it was a good time i'm so glad i finally read it so exciting and people are already sharing their ratings we have five stars four stars five stars four stars so oops same as lucy so i think this is a bit better rating than our first person yes so i'm so excited to talk about it i feel like what i love about a christmas carol is over here we go three stars uh you don't celebrate christmas so you have a hard time getting into the story i completely understand that five students five stars um i feel like it's what i love about it is like it's history and how it changed christmas and how um like the fact that i said this as well like i always say this because i just love it but um like scrooge wasn't even uh part of anybody's vocabulary before this was written like the words food and i think like now you describe people as a scrooge and scrooge is such a um like a household name even so many years from you know publication so it's just like the story behind the book dickens as a person i just love everything yes [Music] i will point out i struggle to not imagine bob cratchit as kermit the frog it's amazing i've never seen the muppets christmas carols so i feel like i have to watch it yeah one of them right it's one of the only annotations i haven't seen so good please watch it yes yes oh my god yes i watched it this year oh my god amazing oh my god oh my gosh that movie is amazing yeah oh the name invented christmas is all about um young charles dickens writing a christmas towel and i actually after reading it i watched this amazing um i wouldn't say it's a lecture but it's like a talk that john mullin did he's a really great scholar um and he talks about jane austen a lot and charles dickens and he actually just came out with a book called the artful dickens all about dickens writing style yeah and so i watched um i'll link it actually in the description box after this goes up because it's a great discussion and he talks about um the man who invented christmas too and he said that he actually didn't like it that much oh my god why because it wasn't like completely honest and realistic and true okay which you know like i i can understand i guess the adaptations you do take artistic liberties so yeah but as a movie in in itself it's gorgeous it's nice and beautiful and the crafting i mean yes spot on um this is a great comment yeah i think it's interesting because i recently read from this edition it has the chimes and the haunted man i read the chimes and i think it's interesting to compare them because a christmas carol it focuses on scrooge and obviously he's very wealthy he has that privileged perspective when he's looking at the crotchet family so it is kind of like it's not from the perspective of the people who are actually impacted by like poverty and things like that but with the chimes it's a very similar like character arc it is about a man who is from a lower social class so i feel like it'd be interesting to compare them and to see how dickens like explores their position or their role in kind of tackling class injustice and things like that yeah because scrooge is is kind of like it's not exactly maybe reductive in the way that he portrays the kratchet family but it is very much showing scrooge he has the power to influence their kind of place in society they're not really seen as being able to do much themselves um it's interesting to look at the chimes because it is about a man who is in that position he doesn't have the privilege so i think it would be interesting to compare yeah maybe we should have read a christmas carol maybe it maybe in a month and then something that uh that i love is the way that this kind of trope of you know like the the um the miser or like the uh kind of the protagonist is the antagonist where like i really love and seeing the character development and his arc in such a short story is so wonderful um because i feel like it's it doesn't need more pages than it has like i know dickens is known for like really really long words and kind of dedicating so many pages to really big stories but i feel like this is such a big story in such a small amount of pages and it's like so well done but i feel like you don't even need more you know because sometimes like lucy you said that you do have a hard time connecting to short stories and i i have the same thing but i feel like with this one i almost feel like it's like the perfect amount you know yeah it doesn't feel rushed you do feel like exactly and i also feel like it does um it feels like that it did happen in one night because this is all supposed to happen like oh you know they did it all in one night of course they found it like um so i feel like having that short sniff it really made it feel like the the time that it took to read it was the time that it took for all of the events to actually happen in reality yeah yeah i didn't really know what to like expect um i've never like i never read it before but then i've only seen i think when i was little like 10 minutes i think it was like a black and white it's like a black and white oh yeah i don't know what it was so were you kind of going in like blind-ish well like i know the story but yeah no i haven't really had any like direct exposure so like it was really interesting but the writing was so nice and like so cozy and like his sentences i just like sat there and i was like thank you right um yeah it was so nice but then i didn't know like i just didn't know how emotional it was gonna make me like i like i didn't cry but like just i think specifically the ghost of christmas past and like that whole part i was like oh my gosh like i am the saddest human being on the planet right now thank you um yeah i just had no idea like how sad it was gonna make how much it actually impacted me um so yeah that was really good yeah i feel like kind of gives you the explanations of why he is the way he is and i think it's so satisfying and heartbreaking to see the character kind of be explained because i know i'm gonna talk about harry potter this is kind of random but one of my favorite parts about the harry potter series is learning about voldemort's childhood and so i feel like with villains especially or like the villainous characters it's so interesting to see kind of how they came to be that way to them yeah to make them to make them kind of into the person that they become so i agree i think that the yeah christmas past is like so hard to read about yeah because you see his saddest moments but also his happiest ones so it's a very interesting and emotional mixture it is definitely one of my favorite parts like all that chapter it's so good yeah i do agree like i agree with lucy though on that one point and also i think someone said it i remember i remembered him protesting a bit more yeah like i was like oh like he's like this awful person mean and dispirited but then like he gets one visit and he's like well that's it for me it's time to turn my whole life down yeah like that one first change i feel like came about too quickly more time because already by the time we get to the second ghost he's like all right teach me your teachings i'm ready to a good person so i was kind of like you know yeah i also feel like is he really bad enough like to to you know because i feel like he really is he has a hard shell because yeah with the things that have happened to him but i think he like obviously the whole point is like he is good on inside once he sees how much uh other people are suffering and kind of looking beyond his his pockets you know so i feel like he just needs to be like cracked a little bit you know um someone has a question for mary oh your favorite included is why you only get 4.5 oh yeah i mean it is kind of linked to what you just said actually the reason is i feel like during a few scenes it is almost as if the book is saying that being wealthy and having money immediately means that you are a bad person and selfish and you know self-centered and everything when that's obviously not true money is just a thing that sure it can give you more power and more influence but being rich doesn't necessarily mean being bad and superficial you know and sometimes i feel like the book says that um not exactly like that but it implies it a little bit so that's the only reason why i didn't give it five stars i actually prefer that approach in the movie which is interesting um so that's the only reason really um i still love it but i feel like sometimes it can be a bit too two-dimensional i feel like yeah in that sense i like how like the i don't know it wasn't too much for me because i enjoyed dickens writing but like the second ghost like there's like 20 pages of food oh yeah um and i was like okay this could be a bit much for some people and it was a little bit like like scrooge just kind of stepped outside the picture and it was just the ghost describing like food okay i remember discussing that in a lecture i can't remember the exact point that i think it was talking about how charles dickens was creating this idea of christmas as a consumerist kind of event and that's very much prevalent especially at the ends when i think like he's walking down the streets and like he's looking at like all the food that's displayed everywhere and again maybe that's kind of fitting into this privileged yeah depiction of christmas like he has the he can afford to buy that obviously and he does share his money with some of the people who can't afford it but it's still kind of building up this picture of christmases and dependent on spending money and things yeah yeah someone else is saying can we talk about how funny dickens is oh my gosh yes jacob is hilarious what am i good one of my favorite lines is on the first page yeah and i'll read it because it's just brilliant um let's see okay um old marley was dead as a doornail mind i don't mean to say that i know of my own knowledge but there is particularly dead about a doornail i might have been inclined to myself to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of iron monkey in the trade but the wisdom of our ancestors is in the similar and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it where the country's done for you will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically that marley was as dead as a doornail yes oh my gosh because he kind of like something that i love is dickens is acting as the narrator like there isn't really a narrator he he talks about himself in the first person and he's he says um i might have inclined myself to regard a coffin male as the deadest piece of iron laundry so i like how he kind of puts himself as the storyteller because dickens loved giving readings of his books so it almost felt like like an entertaining experience and like dickens is like over your shoulder kind of like whispering the story in your ear while you're reading it and i love how his presence as a writer is so um is so much of a part of this book yeah thank you welcome yeah oh my gosh i also um during the john mullen discussion i think he was actually at the dickens museum in london which lucy has so jealous he was talking about dickens's use of similes and um what is the word cliches where he always talks about like um dead as a doornail or he talks i don't have any of them tapped in this edition but he he uses a lot of like um as a in in his sentences to describe something else and something in i'll mention great expectations one of my favorite lines in great expectations in the beginning when he describes the the foggy window as a goblin like a goblin breathing on it or something ears yeah oh goblins tears yes oh i just love it i feel like he gives he gives like imagination and magic to everyday things yeah yeah so true he's just so great yeah yeah do you guys have a favorite hat oh okay ask that wow the character or a favorite ghost or yeah like a favorite like a your favorite ghost or like section like yeah i like the ghost of the present yeah why can you i do i do food and and i also feel like that's kind of like the most impactful because that's like scrooge exactly as he is and he kind of recognizes that as like the thing that he has the power to change i don't know if it's just like the inner yoga teacher in me that's like the only thing you can change is the present though yeah with that and also again the muppets christmas carol i do like the way that the guests like portrayed as this like big jolly giant yeah it's not so much in the book but i just have that vision so let's see what about you mary oh i don't know i love everything for different reasons i completely agree with kira the only thing you can change is the present absolutely um the entire scene with bob cratchit which is one of my favorite characters by the way and tiny tim like that whole scene i'm just like oh god don't do this to me um i don't know it's just the entire book the entire message is my favorite thing by far so it's hard to pinpoint a specific scene because it is such a short book and i think it is very effective in what it is trying to say so i don't know i just i just love it yeah lucy do you have a favorite section or a favorite character um not really sure i always find the ghost of the christmas yet to come i always find that really creepy because you know there's him that's died and he's like completely oblivious yeah i'm just waiting for him to find out i'm just like it's just i don't know i find it really creepy yeah but yeah i don't know i do like the kind of like the development in the sense that like we were talking about before he does have a pass in a reason i guess even though it's not really like a valid excuse but it's nice to look back on his childhood and see that he has been through something and it's like nice to have that kind of development i guess so i did like that yeah yeah something that i also love about um the ghost of christmas yet to come is he doesn't even have to say anything yeah yeah you know it's all scrooge's like internal and external dialogue with himself and really like evaluating and and thinking about you know what is to come and is he the one that is dead and sort of seeing how people respond to his to his death especially the way that like the maid steals his bed curtains and yeah how you know when uh no one is sorry for his death i feel like really proves to him that uh that he needs to change so i like the whole fact that he doesn't really need explanations for yeah um i i love tiny tim i want to check it i actually named it my little christmas tree tiny tin because i love naming things and so i named my tree um but i love how in the in the end tiny tim um charles dickens describes scrooge kind of becoming a second father to him and yeah i feel like seeing tiny tim's innocence and the fact that he is just the essence of kindness and sweetness and innocence um really brings scrooge's affections forward and his his kindness as well because he sees this this child that's never done anything to anybody um suffering and that conflicts his eyes to um what he says about the are there no workhouses are there no um or you know orphanages right he talks about like yeah decreasing the surplus population yeah yeah wow yeah that was a good quote i can't remember it exactly but let me see if i can find it oh yeah so man if man you be in heart not adamant for bear that we could count until you've discovered what the surplus is and where it is will you decide what men shall live what men shall die yeah it's like because he has more money or he doesn't have to worry about it then he kind of gets like a free pass and just existing yeah exactly um do you guys lucy um do you want to talk about maybe the things that you didn't particularly like about it um um i can't really like pinpoint anything i just think maybe it's because i've become desensitized to the story like i've heard it so many times maybe that's why it's not like i could find any critiques about it i think just like i said short stories because they are so quick and it's more of like the message that means something rather than the actual characters and things maybe that's why um yeah it's not like i didn't like it it's just i didn't really feel like overly connected to it what about you emma why did you not give it the five stars carol i was just serious i'm just asking yourself [Laughter] why didn't i give it the full posters i think i think there was like a lot of expectation it was my first time like reading it you had great expectations i did i did have the great expectation um like i loved it i loved the writing the writing was like five stars i think and maybe it is five stars i don't know maybe like 4.5 yeah maybe like it did seem not like simple because there's so much you can take away from it and like from scrooge himself even i like really love that like he does seem a little bit i don't know some parts felt not unrealistic because like it's a ghost story but maybe the parts were at the end and stuff where everyone like everyone compared to scrooge in this book seems so kind and so nice and i love all of them but like at the ending i'm not sure like scrooge has spent his whole life like treating them terribly treating them like they're nothing and then at the end it he just fits in to their family and into their home with like no nothing like i know he i'm assuming he apologizes and of course he provides for tiny tim and gives them food and everything like that but it just felt a little bit like it's such a drastic change yeah i was like i would be quite like i would be a little bit in disbelief and also i would just be like what what happened to you yeah why are you not treating me so badly anymore and like are you really gonna trust that he's going to stay that way forever now um yeah which i know the story maybe doesn't really invite you to really i don't know i don't know no i think some of that yeah i really loved it i really loved it though but i think there was one bit where scrooge's nephew was talking to his wife i think or some sort of like this woman and the woman was really angry with him and she was like why don't like why aren't you angry as well and he said like if he doesn't want to be happy then that's his problem like we don't need to worry about that um i find that quite interesting like it's scrooge's own like it's his misery and they're not going to let it impact their christmas maybe that was what i yeah think talking about um like the line where uh bob cratchit and his family are having their christmas feast and they describe um scrooge as the founder of the feast uh i think says a lot about i don't know maybe about capitalism but about just money and how the only way for them to provide for their family and to have food on the table is to work for this very uh cruel man um yeah so even though his wife is very angry and doesn't want to say you know i think they try to uh they they toast to scrooge and she doesn't really want to chose scrooge but she'd do it on her husband's behalf and uh so i feel like there's so much to just talk about yeah have a question oh yes let's see do you think bell did the right thing leaving him um that's a very good question no i mean obviously yeah because it was her decision so yeah i also feel like if like clearly scrooge didn't stop her you know like he he could have stopped her and said i love you like that's uh let let's like go through that let's get married let's work on our issues so yeah i feel like it is the right thing for her at least um someone said it needs like a fair yeah i agree with the fairy tale yeah that's how i feel so just reading sometimes do we all have a favorite um adaptation i know that kira loves the muppets right i grew up watching the easiest george c skye right yeah yeah i grew up watching that one and then i also really love the the newer um jim carrey and carrie yeah that's my favorite by far it is so faithful to the book um and just the actors they're all amazing and actually the end sequence i prefer it in that movie rather than the book yeah oh wow yeah scrooge is good as well i've never seen scrooged funny i watched it ago there's also a mickey version which is very cute yeah it's so cute i've never seen one all the way through really um because i just i don't watch a lot of tv or films but i know as well that was last year or a few years ago there was some sort of tv adaptation i think it was only like three or four episodes really um and that i kind of like half watch day was on in the background that it looked very like dark and not really like fairy taleistic or um it was more like gritty and yeah had a dark tone to it so maybe that would be interesting if it took more of like a it really delved into the social themes and um and i think the man who invented christmas was on like tv please watch if you ever are in the mood you should definitely i will it's dan stevens what else do you want i never danced come on like yeah wait there's a barbie one i didn't know that oh my gosh what oh my gosh i always loved like that barbie nutcracker yeah yeah that's one of my favorites oh it's so good i was just saying to my sister that we should watch it this christmas and we haven't yet on christmas day it's so beautiful [Music] yeah oh my gosh my childhood yeah do you guys have any questions or anything you want to talk about with the christmas carol in the like it's so funny because they're like barbie movies but but there's gorgeous like especially the first ones they're all perfect i swear um are you guys going to read more dickens next year obviously yeah definitely no dickens for me oh my god absolutely this is a great question i guess because it is about christmas i don't know like well it's just i feel like maybe because i know like some poets especially like one of my favorite parts about whitman he he calls poems songs i know some poets call them songs so like there's a poem called song of myself by walt whitman and then i always thought why isn't it like poem of myself so maybe dickens is kind of seeing this as a performance you know because he would do like meetings of christmas carol so maybe he kind of sees this this story and his performance as sort of like a story like the carols are so yeah exactly yeah that's how i perceive it yeah just sounds nice all right so i don't know if there are any other questions okay the title and story is actually based on a problem called the christmas carol i didn't know that wow yeah that makes sense okay oh it's beautiful it's beautiful someone asked uh are we going to save the five yes it will be saved on my channel so you guys can watch it after we are done yeah um yeah so maybe we should mention uh i know i talked about how our next book picks are in the description um let me go and mention them here let's see oh here we go apparently you felt it yes you wanted the story to be shared yes yeah that's so beautiful i love it oh someone said i have been looking forward to looking at the theories and people and he just mentioned a good reason it's not me quite heavily inspired not to say ripped off another book meaning the furious greek mythology yeah yeah a thousand chips interesting oh that's so beautiful oh yes but yes so in january we will be reading the furies by katie lowe right and then for february um we are going to be reading julius caesar by shakespeare which is going to be our first actual shakespeare play because we've uh read a lot of retellings but we haven't read a play so i'm excited for that and then um for march this is the january someone is asking if they have read cersei i have yeah yeah yeah yes we all have read two brothers wonderful one of my favorites and song of achilles so good well i'm excited for the next three me yeah and that will be um i also included in the description whose channel each live show will be on so and everyone's links and everything is down below and we'll give you guys updates for everything on our instagram and twitter yeah discord and everything so yeah oh my god well i hope you guys have enjoyed this yeah yeah oh good question what is your guys favorite book of friends oh god do we disclose this information do you have one like one book i do really oh my gosh yes i can guess but it's not a surprise no it's not um oh wow do you guys want to share or are you going to mention in the video do you want to keep it a surprise i mean i'm going to do a video but i don't mind sharing okay okay do you want to go first me yes okay okay my favorite book surprise surprise is anna karenina i have no idea i know i'm surprising everyone yeah okay who wants to marry do you have one i don't have one do you want to give like top three i mean i got any names also on my list definitely i loved the housing the cerulean sea by tj cloon oh carolyn you're gonna love it it's a lovely yes um oh my gosh i don't know i don't i don't know um so many great books i don't even know i swear um i will film a video eventually about that i have too many my favorite was conversations with friends by sally rooney really yeah as well i thought it was going to be emma by jane austen no that is probably that's my like second or third favorite i think normal people are second and then ever closing conversations with friends or reread for you see yeah but i've read it for the first time in march and then for the second time we read it together okay i liked it enough to want to reread it and they looked differently the lord of the rings obviously sorry like yeah obviously of course it's just oh my gosh i'm forgetting everything but yeah the lord [Music] i don't have a favorite yeah if if rereads counted then obviously i'd say little things but we're gonna try and like come up with the original one i would say if i was going with the writer real quick if i was going for a book i really enjoyed cassandra by crystal that's a really good one [Music] oh my gosh emma okay well um oh it was uh 100 years of solitude yeah really oh my gosh so good so good that's amazing yeah i loved it but you know he's not he's nothing new oh someone else the biggest longest treat ever amazing oh my gosh what a wonderful year this has been i know that everything has been so crazy in the world but this book club and our friendships have really bloomed and i love all of you guys so much oh my gosh next time we have a live show it's going to be 2021 i'm crazy yes oh my gosh yeah yeah so as much as this year has been very unexpected and very hard um i really appreciate all of you guys yeah oh my gosh this flip club has been such a such a wonderful place to spend our time you know getting the craziness of 2012 yeah okay yeah yeah yeah thank you oh oh my gosh that's so cute oh that was so good that's wonderful you guys are all so sweet and supportive so thank you all right well all right i guess that's a wrap yes yeah this is the last live show of 2020 we will see you all in 2021 [Music] yes all right thank you everybody for watching and for real we hope you have a very happy new year oh yeah happy new year and let's hope 2021 is is a good year [Laughter] yeah all right see you next year bye thank you bye everyone

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Id: PI0fWIOEv5I

Length: 86min 48sec (5208 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 28 2020