Books and Christmas go together like – well, Turkey and stuffing or Plum pudding and custard! Christmas wouldn’t be half so much fun for me without books. I give them as gifts, I love to receive them, I spend hours reading them, and I write them! I even had a Saturday job in a bookshop once – when I was at university. So, one way and another, books are a very important part of my life.

So in the tradition of Charles Dickens’s, A Christmas Carol - I thought I’d look at the “ghosts” of books past, present and future.

Past: As I child I always received books for Christmas and a huge part of Christmas day would be spent with my head in the pages of just such a much loved gift. I was often given an annual and depending on my age and my current fad I can recall receiving Beano, Dandy, Rupert and many others. The Rupert book below is one (of the many Rupert annuals) that I had as a child, and interestingly my husband was also given a copy of this particular edition:

I remember so clearly the year I was given a copy of Blacky Beauty by Anna Sewell (first published in 1887!) and also Heidi by Johanna Spyri - there was hardly a peep out of me for the whole festive season! Recently, one of the Sunday papers that I regularly read gave out a free promotional DVD of Black Beauty so I will be watching it this Christmas – handkerchief to hand!

Black Beauty: A classic adventure story for children about a young boy and a spirited horse. Black Beauty begins his life on a country estate but then by a twist of fate is given away to a cruel squire when he takes possession of the farm where the horse lives. The horse’s life journey means he experiences the best and the worst humanity has to offer and he receives and witnesses much cruelty, before eventually being reunited with the boy who was his friend. It does thankfully have a happy ending – but you will need the tissues to hand. It is a lovely book to give to any child, particularly if they love horses. It is incredibly sad in parts but it will teach children empathy. When I read this book for the first time I remember experiencing a growing awareness that animals had feelings too – and it coloured the way I treated them all of my life.

Present: It is very hard for anyone to give me a book as a gift because I read so much and am likely to have read much of what is on the shelf at the bookstores. I read English literature at university – everything from Beowulf in the original Anglo Saxon text ( I went to Birmingham University, and it was the only university other than Oxford & Cambridge that studied Anglo Saxon as a language) through Chaucer, Shakespeare, and through the 16th, 17th & 18th Century writers and right up to the modern day. I specialised in Shakespeare, John Milton, William Blake, D H Lawrence,  Thomas Hardy and Henrik Ibsen (the only non English writer I studied at university, he was a nineteenth-century Norwegian playwright).

(By the way there appears to be a glitch in the wordpress system, so the above section went black and after numerous attempts to change it back – I gave up!)

So if Santa could bring me any book I wanted (regardless of cost or rarity – we’re talking fantasy here) I’d choose a leather bound version, beautifully illustrated of course – and preferably antique ( a first edition would be far too much to ask for!) of Milton’s Paradise Lost (it was originally published in 1667 – an epic poem in blank verse about the fall of man). If you haven’t read this epic piece do treat yourself to the gift of reading it – the use of language is extraordinarily beautiful. The alliteration, iambic pentameter and the sheer scope of this epic is utterly breathtaking.

Amazingly in these days of modern technology you can read it online (It’s not for the faint-hearted though as the language takes some getting used too). Although for me, the real joy is a copy in my hand to carry with me – and read sitting overlooking the sea, or on an aeroplane, or maybe in a coffee shop enjoying a cappuccino and the live, live buzz of the crowd!

Of course I already have my own copy – a poor, worn, much used secondhand version that has survived from my university days. It is full of underscoring and asterisks and I have written comments and notes in the margins – and before you throw up your hands in horror at my admissions – it was, and still is a working text. If Santa delivered a leather bound copy it would be kept in pristine condition! Honest!

One of the chapters (Forty-one) in my novel A Curious State of Affairs (USA & UK & Canada), has many references to Paradise Lost, although they would go unnoticed to anyone that was not familiar with the epic by Milton; the novel can be enjoyed with or without the academic knowledge.

In this particular chapter the protagonist Stefan, who is at a very low ebb in his life, visits a night club, is persuaded to buy drugs and overdoses on Cocaine – an extremely foolish act that almost kills him. Stefan is in many ways the epitome of fallen man, and the whole novel is his metaphorical journey towards seeing the light.

The club Stefan visits is called Beelzebub’s (the devil), the bar is described as an abyss (Hell), and when Stefan peers through “the murky light” he sees “Heaven’s fugitives, twisting and slithering around the dance floor” and “the fake flickering candlelight is comforting; it makes everyone look attractive, even the ugly.” These references further suggest Hell, and the fallen Angels, and the falseness and silver tongued persuasion of evil. In addition, the background noise is described as “pandemonium” and the drug pusher is described as “a spirited sly snake” (as was Satan in Paradise Lost) and he “tempted” Stefan with his “forbidden fruit” -obvious references to the prelapsarian garden of Eden when Eve is tempted by the snake. The drug pusher’s tongue is described as flicking and darting around his mouth (like a snake’s) and Stefan admits the drugs are “the damned instruments of my woe” – page 160.

Stefan also says: “Which way I fly is Hell. Myself am Hell” – page 161. I go on to to say in this chapter of the novel, through the voice of Stefan: “So with consummate ease accompanied by the thought of lost happiness and lasting pain I allowed myself to fall prey to the seduction of him who promises pleasure but ultimately opens the gates of Hell. He smiles but behind his grin is villainous intent.” In this section Stefan is identifying himself with the fallen Angel; he is seduced by the words of the drug pusher (Satan) and realises the consequences (Hell) – but too late. When Stefan kneels in front of a toilet using the seat as a table to cut his drugs, I used the phrase:  “like a priest at the alter.”  This was meant to be deliberately shocking – how far removed from the alter can one be than cutting drugs in a toilet cubicle? And sadly, after taking the drugs Stefan says: “I felt an alteration in my reason take effect no sooner had I done the devilish deed.”

Chapter Forty-two that follows in my novel, is as full of light as the previous chapter was full of dark. Having entered the gates of Hell and almost killed himself in the process – Stefan awakes in hospital – and all the imagery is of light and flowers and is symbolic of Eve in Paradise Lost. I won’t say more – in case I’ve inspired you to read it for yourself!

Future: Well I suppose I’d like to be wrapping up copies of my next book to give as gifts. It’s almost finished. The trouble is I spend so much time blogging …….

NB: Please note that all exerpts from A Curious State of Affairs are subject to the © of Jan Marshall.