Keane's 15 stories are not traditional Christmas tales, rather, they are stories about the lives of ordinary Irish country people during the holiday season. In his focus on the offbeat, the quirky, the out-of-the-ordinary, and the hidden, Keane delivers listeners the real Ireland--the one behind the stereotypes.
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Editorial Reviews
From AudioFile
These eight stories, read by the author, are sentimental, funny, gentle and full of feeling. The stories are wonderful, literary but accessible. "Spreading Joy and Jam at Christmas" and "Cider" are two of the best stories. Keane's soft voice requires careful attention from American listeners. Soon, however, the listener becomes attuned to the cadence and rhythm of County Kerry and is transported to the Ireland of our imagination and dreams. L.R.S. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"When Christmas came to our street, it came with a loud laugh and expansive humor that healed old wounds and lifted the heart.",
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This review is from: Irish Stories for Christmas (Audio Cassette)
Note: Amazon has incorrectly linked a short story collection and this audiotape of the same name. These products are completely different, containing different stories. This review is for the audiotape, ISBN 1-57093-051-9. The audiotape consists of seven stories: "The Curriculum Vitae," "Spreading Joy and Jam at Christmas," "A Cock for Christmas," "The Magic Stoolin," "Many Years Ago," "Cider," and "The Great Christmas Raid at Ballybooley." Since all the copies available through the MarketPlace are for the book version, one can only hope that Amazon will separate these products so that vendors can list this terrific audiotape!Anyone with a touch of the Irish (and who isn't Irish on some level, especially at this time of year?) will delight in this collection of down-home stories written and narrated by John B. Keane, famous for his novels and stories of traditional life in Kerry. Keane's Irish lilt and unfamiliar local vocabulary require careful listening--preferably at least twice to be sure that one understands all the words and the goings-on, though the stories are such a delight that a third or even a fourth listen is as charming as the first. Telling about Christmas among the residents of poor farm communities (who often don't realize how "poor" they are because of the richness of their lives), Keane creates a magical portrait of lives lived close to the earth and to each other. In "Curriculum Vitae," he tells of a postman who defies everyone with influence and hires the poor father of an enterprising young daughter to be assistant postman during the holidays. "Spreading Joy and Jam at Christmas" tells of the wealth of jam that "makes" Christmas for a young girl and her mother. "A Cock for Christmas" is a love story of a Kerry dove and two imported birds who fly to Paris for the holidays, and "The Magic Stoolin" centers around a keg of porter which falls off a lorry and is hidden in a pile of turf so that it can become the centerpiece at a local Christmas party. These and "Many Years Ago" are all relatively short pieces, ranging from five to eleven minutes long. The two longest stories are by far the most involving--"Cider" and "The Great Christmas Raid at Ballybooley" are classics for their revelation of Irish character. "Cider" is the tale of a young man of seventeen who has discovered hard cider, something he does not want his parents to know. His encounter with a banshee on Christmas Eve, while he is drunk, leads to a new understanding of his own father. "The Great Christmas Raid..." is a hilarious Irish tall tale, in which everybody wins--at the expense (not surprisingly) of the British. These stories are twenty-two and twenty-three minutes long, long enough to completely involve the reader in the magic of Keane's Irish communities and the warmth and humor of their spirits. For anyone who loves John B. Keane, the opportunity to hear him reading his own stories is priceless. n Mary Whipple
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