Customer Reviews

A Christmas Memory: One Christmas, and The Thanksgiving Visitor (Modern Library)

5 star:		(82)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Truman Capote does an amazing job of telling us three delightful stories of a young boy's favorite Christmas & Thanksgiving memories. Told with the candor and innocence that only a child can hold, you'll fall in love with Buddy and his favorite Aunt Sook. Buddy's love and affection for his dear Aunt Sook are evidenced in how he refers to her throughtout the stories...always calling her "my friend." Buddy & Sook will feel like your friends too! Plagued by a painful childhood and seemingly drawn on Capote's own life, Buddy is the victim of his parent's bitter divorce and custody battle and ends up living with his spinster aunts & hermit like uncle. It is during his time living here, that he recalls some of his most cherished memories. You'll remember the troubles of your youth as well as be amazed at this young boy's insightfulness. A great holiday tradition would be to re-read this book once a year.

"A Christmas Memory" is truly one of the most enduring and heartwarming holiday tales ever to grace the pages of American literature. This soothing bit of classic Americana written by Truman Capote is as warming on a cold winter night as a steaming cup of hot, mulled cider in front of a crackling fire under my grandmother's afghan. The touching and refreshing friendship between Buddy and his "friend" is not only delightful but something to cherish as one teaches the other of the old timeless traditions of the past and the new wonders of the future. Buddy's total acceptance of his "friend" and her somewhat offbeat perspective on life and the changing world around them is what drives this story throughout it's moments of childlike magic to it's ultimate bittersweet conclusion. The belief in love and the bond that can exist between two people of completely different generations and the hope that wherever we go and however many miles may come between us, that bond can never be broken is the foremost message of this precious tale. Given the events of resent months, a story like this helps to heal as well as entertain and is more then just another book to be put away on the shelf. "A Christmas Memory" is a blessed gift to be read again and again, year after year and to be welcomed into home and hearth as a dear, old friend unexpectedly visiting on a chilly Christmas morning.

The three stories in this little book--it's a hardback only slightly bigger than a paperback, and barely 100 pages--are skilfully told and charming; all are based on Capote's southern childhood. "A Christmas Memory" is the most straightforwardly nostalgic, told in the present tense, and covering the Christmas rituals the narrator, a little boy, shares with Miss Sook Faulk, an eccentric little old lady who appears in all three of these tales. The narrator of "One Christmas" is six years old and the child of divorced parents. He travels to New Orleans by bus to spend Christmas with his father, and the story is about his coming to terms with reality, as much as he can. The third story, "The Thanksgiving Visitor", is the tale of how Miss Sook invited the school bully to Thanksgiving dinner one year, and what happened.

All three are perfectly formed short stories. The first two are sad, or at least nostalgic; the third, the longest of them, is surprisingly upbeat. Capote was witty, precise and talented, and these three stories are a wonderful showcase for his talents. Recommended.

Before I read the text of Capote's masterpiece, I saw the 1967 television production with Geraldine Page and literally fell in love with it. Long before the short story was adapted by many literature anthologies, I read it aloud to my students between Thanksgiving and Christmas. In fact, I had my freshmen students write letters to Mr. Capote in 1977. We were very surprised to receive a postcard of thanks from him in his distinctive, delicate script. The card is a treasure of mine to this day. Now that I have left the classroom, I take out the story and read it aloud to myself at this time of year. It is a gem. I have yet to read it without tears in my eyes when I finish. No piece of literature has ever affected me quite the way "A Christmas Memory" has. I can't imagine any Southerner reading it and not nderstanding the era and locale and the mystique of "fruitcake weather."

These wonderful stories touch my heart and stir my spirit like no other holiday stories ever have. If you can read these, and NOT recall people in your past who the stories remind you of, laugh or get a tear in your eye, you may need your pulse checked. Not only are they loaded with sentiment, humor, and emotion but Capote's incredible talent and style paint a picture that make these treasures even more precious

While as other reviewers have stated, these three stories unfailingly and unflinchingly touch the heart and celebrate the spirit in ways far too many holiday tales only aspire to, Capote's stories, like his longer finished works like IN COLD BLOOD, are also pure literary delights. The characters of Buddy, Miss Sook, Odd Henderson, and Buddy's New Orleans father are richly individual and fully realized, yet resonant of some of the most colorful characters in the vast and lovely muddy swamp of Southern literature. Capote has often been reviled as a dissipate, degenerate, and decadent social butterfly, but these tales show him to hold the highest moral standards, of such degree that his defamers could never mete. The appeal of his work is wide and varied. There is a bit of the Dickensian in his characters as well as echoes of Faulkner, Tenessee Williams, Flannery O'Connoer and his chum, Carson McCullers. Stylistically, if one listens carefully, Poe and Melville, even Hawthorne and Cooper, and especially Capote's beloved Proust ring through and true. Truly, a holiday treat. Read it annually.

I love this book! Plain and simple. I always save it for the holiday season though and never read it at any other time. It's become a holiday tradition.

The three short stories all take place in holiday seasons during the depression and feature the same setting and characters, so they form a nice group for a single volume.

"A Christmas Memory" is my favorite short story ever. I've read it every Christmas for six or seven years now and I have the same powerful, emotional reaction every time. I smile, laugh, cry, and daydream about my own memories every time I read it. No other story affects me like this one, and I think everyone will see a little of themselves or their childhood somehwhere in these pages.

The other two stories are very well done. I'd probably rave about them much more if I could value each on its own merits, but they do get lost in the glare of "A Christmas Memory."

Excellent literary work, but I really value the beauty, simplicity, and truth in these stories. Highly recommended for a holiday evening with hot chocolate, a lit tree, and Xmas carols playing.

Truman Capote is the champion of the human heart in these tales of childhood memories that echo the spirit of love and celebration that we all wish for and find in these pages. Keep this volume on your bookshelf to warm the hearts of yourself and your loved ones throughout the year, and especially during those times that we rejoice in the love we have for one another.

This book is a great gift for anyone on your list. My family reads the stories annually. Every southerner will relate to these characters.

Every year, on the first chilly day of autumn, I get this book off the shelf and read "A Christmas Memory." The story is a beautiful, elegiac account of Miss Sook's seasonal ritual of fruitcake-baking and gift-giving, which she and Truman Capote shared. The story encapsulates the spirit of the season. And the spirit carries me through my own fruitcake-baking for the season.

The other Christmas story in this collection, entitled "One Christmas," is probably my favorite short story of all time; the ending always makes me cry as few writings can. The story is a perfect, crystalline window into Truman Capote's soul as shaped by his sad childhood. Utterly heartbreaking. If you are looking for a gift for someone who celebrates Christmas and does not have the good fortune to have read these beautiful stories, this is the perfect little gift.

Do not be tempted to read these stories any other time of year. Keep these stories sacred to the season.