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The Box of Delights: Or When the Wolves Were Running (Kay Harker)

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Every chapter in this book is marvelous, but the real delight derives from Masefield's style and the idiosyncratic, colorful speech of his various characters...Lovely stuff. Kay Harker is returning from boarding school when he finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box. It allows the owner to shrink in size, to fly swiftly, to go into the past and to experience the magical wonders contained within the box.

He told the Guardian: “It is absolutely the case that the first words spoken on the stage of the newly rebuilt Shakespeare Memorial theatre were by Masefield rather than Shakespeare as he was poet laureate. He also had an association with Stratford. He had written a book on Shakespeare in 1911 and was forever going to see productions.” When Masefield was 23, he met his future wife, Constance Crommelin, who was 35. Educated in classics and English Literature, and a mathematics teacher, Constance was a perfect match for Masefield despite the difference in age. The couple had two children (Judith, born in 1904, and Lewis, in 1910). And it NEVER happens. Kay doesn't get a dog on Christmas morning, because the book ends at Christmas Eve midnight. What was the point of that whole charade?!? Masefield has a way with a well-turned, memorable sentence: "And now, Master Harker, now that the Wolves are Running, perhaps you could do something to stop their Bite?"I had high expectations for this book, and while I did enjoy it, I was a little disappointed. The plot has many gaping holes in it, the characters act in ways that don't really make sense, and I never did figure out WHY exactly the villains wanted to steal the Box of Delights. Christmas Eve" ( Noch pered Rozhdestvom, 1832) by Nikolai Gogol (from Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka) Dreamy and poetic … those descriptions are rather important in The Box of Delights. The novel was first published in 1935, and the author, John Masefield, was poet laureate from 1930 until he died in 1967. His prose trips along like a hallucinogenic daydream at times, especially when Kay takes advantage of the box's powers – he can use it to go swift, to go small, and to fall into the past, where he meets a succession of characters including Herne the Hunter of English folklore. But I just couldn't get into this book. Perhaps because I haven't read The Midnight Folk, thus coming in mid-story, as it were. But the plot seemed convoluted and disjointed, the characters seemed stilted, and the battle of good vs. evil (the staple of every really good children's books) seemed confused -- I never could sort out why the Wolves wanted to win or what they thought they might gain by winning. Mention is made of a "Boy" who apparently can tell the future. Who is this Boy? Where did he come from? Why is he working for, or in the clutches of, Abner? Is he there against his will? Is he a normal boy with magical abilities, or is he a magical fairy boy, or is he part of a mystical priesthood of fortune tellers? Who is this person? We don't KNOW! We will never know. Because this plot is crap and it doesn't explain anything.

Stephen Boxer is a genial Hawlings, Richard Lynch an increasingly comical Abner and Claire Price relishes the expanded role of witch Sylvia Daisy Pouncer. Tom Kanji as a conman (“ha-ha … what?” languidly ending his sentences) is one of several to capture the feel of the era. It is all deftly done, not so much scrobbling as gently leading us into Masefield-land. The Box of Delights is a children's fantasy novel by John Masefield. It is a sequel to The Midnight Folk, and was first published in 1935. The central character is Kay Harker who, on returning from boarding school, finds himself mixed up in a battle to possess a magical box, which allows the owner to go small (shrink) and go swift (fly), experience magical wonders contained within the box and go into the past. Twas the Night Before Christmas: Edited by Santa Claus for the Benefit of Children of the 21st Century" (2012) being Pamela McColl "smoke-free" edit of Clement Clarke Moore's poem I don’t know how I feel about this one, and it may be too soon to tell, as I literally just finished it. Started this as a Christmas Read-Aloud with my kids - I thought it had so much potential - and they DNF’d it. To them it was confusing, and they couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. It seemed like characters went from A to C without telling how they got there or what happened to B. And because they couldn’t tell where it was going and get that invested in the characters, they just weren’t interested. Plus the chapters were long and it didn’t seem Christmas-y at all.Tis the night before Christmas and little Kay shall become as small and as fast as a bird! and he shall encounter wolves & wizards & witches & thieves! and he shall visit strange places and he shall enter the past and he shall protect his precious Box of Delights and he shall visit a friendly mouse! and he will deal with all of this with a certain nonchalance because it's not like he hasn't done this sort of thing before! This was a funny read, funny as in there is more kinds of magic in this book than any other I've read - Masefield seems to have done a sort of tossed salad of time travel, talking animals, a box that gives special powers to it's bearer(powers that are unplumbed, it might do a lot more than what is mentioned) - which makes for a colorful jumble of a book. At times it seemed totally haphazard, but not in an unpleasant way. I suspect that it gets better and more beloved after a rereading, both for it's quirks and because one knows what to expect and can appreciate the details. Dr Philip W Errington, a senior specialist at Peter Harrington Rare Books, leading antiquarian specialists, and an expert on Masefield, has been working with the RSC as a consultant on The Box of Delights, which will be performed at the RST between 31 October and 7 January. So little Maria gets kidnapped, and for days and days no one minds. No one is out looking for her. The police are informed, but they don't care either. "Oh, she'll turn up somewhere," they say. "Maria always lands on her feet. She'll probably join the gang, and teach them a thing or two." The ending also reframes the prim middle-classness of it all. At first it seems outrageous that Kay Harker is entrusted with the Box of Delights for no other reason than he is a well spoken, privately educated boy and therefore obviously the protagonist. But once you discover that this is all his dream, it makes sense. The way that the great and secret powers of the world rush to his aid, that all animals and supernatural beings adore him, that all of history is his playground, becomes almost satire, almost a sneer at books that do not have the honesty to own themselves as wish-fulfilment.

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