Wednesday, December 13, 2017

A Christmas Story

A Christmas Story by Jean ShepherdGoodreads Synopsis:    A beloved, bestselling classic of humorous and nostalgic Americana—the book that inspired the equally classic Yuletide film.

The holiday film A Christmas Story, first released in 1983, has become a bona fide Christmas perennial, gaining in stature and fame with each succeeding year. Its affectionate, wacky, and wryly realistic portrayal of an American family’s typical Christmas joys and travails in small-town Depression-era Indiana has entered our imagination and our hearts with a force equal to It’s a Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

This edition of A Christmas Story gathers together in one hilarious volume the gems of autobiographical humor that Jean Shepherd drew upon to create this enduring film. Here is young Ralphie Parker’s shocking discovery that his decoder ring is really a device to promote Ovaltine; his mother and father’s pitched battle over the fate of a lascivious leg lamp; the unleashed and unnerving savagery of Ralphie’s duel in the show with the odious bullies Scut Farkas and Grover Dill; and, most crucially, Ralphie’s unstoppable campaign to get Santa—or anyone else—to give him a Red Ryder carbine action 200-shot range model air rifle. Who cares that the whole adult world is telling him, “You’ll shoot your eye out, kid”?

The pieces that comprise A Christmas Story, previously published in the larger collections In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, coalesce in a magical fashion to become an irresistible piece of Americana, quite the equal of the film in its ability to warm the heart and tickle the funny bone.


My Thoughts:

-    A Christmas Story has always been one of my favorite Christmas movies. I have a lot of fond memories of watching it with my brothers every year. My family loves to quote the movie a lot.

-    The book was hilarious! The feel and the characters were spot on, and I love that the movie and book compliment each other. 

-    There is something so fun about seeing the world from Ralphie's perspective. I love his innocence, but I also love everything he observes.

2 comments:

  1. I actually hate the movie. Hate it. I don't know why, but I think I got sick of watching it every year. I guess I'm just not much of a Christmas movie/book fan. I'm glad you like it, though, and I'm glad you liked the book as much as you seem to like the movie. :)

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  2. I don't love the movie, but I would read the book. It sounds fun!

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