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A review by prolixity
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
2.0
I just read the Goodreads description for this story and laughed my ass off:
That is the official description of a story (the kindle edition) with more than 62,000 ratings. Aren't descriptions/blurbs supposed to be positively biased towards the book? Make no mistake, I love the snarky undertones about the artwork and the fact that it is on this site as a book description rather than a subjective review, it just seemed exceedingly strange to me that that would be the official description.
As for the story, there's not much I can say. I read it a while ago in school but forgot about it until now (the holiday season and the unceasing Christmas music at work reminded me of it). It's decent, not really memorable or special in any way except to teach dim middle-schoolers: "Look, children, that's called TRAGIC IRONY. Copy that down in your notebooks, now!"
Maybe I didn't love this story because I'm not a Christmas person (I'm Jewish by birth but don't practise) nor much of a holiday person. Too much good cheer for my evil tastes, I suppose- but mostly I just wish we celebrated things that are more worthwhile. (I'm not trying to knock any Christians here; I'm talking about cultural holidays in general.) So I couldn't really relate to the couple's strange need to buy things for each other. They are just things, after all.
Anyhow, hopefully everybody reading this has a better Christmas than Jim and Della did, and is perhaps a bit more conscientious about what really matters around the holidays.
O. Henry's classic tale of Della and Jim, the struggling newlyweds so anxious to give each other a Christmas gift that each sells the one thing the other holds most dear, receives an oddly lifeless treatment here. Heyer's meticulously detailed illustrations are pretty but stilted; the characters look like mannequins. The rueful Jim fares better than the poor prematurely middle-aged Della, who at times looks more like his mother than his wife. Still, the story is as touching as ever, and neither time nor mediocre artwork can dim its glory. All ages.
That is the official description of a story (the kindle edition) with more than 62,000 ratings. Aren't descriptions/blurbs supposed to be positively biased towards the book? Make no mistake, I love the snarky undertones about the artwork and the fact that it is on this site as a book description rather than a subjective review, it just seemed exceedingly strange to me that that would be the official description.
As for the story, there's not much I can say. I read it a while ago in school but forgot about it until now (the holiday season and the unceasing Christmas music at work reminded me of it). It's decent, not really memorable or special in any way except to teach dim middle-schoolers: "Look, children, that's called TRAGIC IRONY. Copy that down in your notebooks, now!"
Maybe I didn't love this story because I'm not a Christmas person (I'm Jewish by birth but don't practise) nor much of a holiday person. Too much good cheer for my evil tastes, I suppose- but mostly I just wish we celebrated things that are more worthwhile. (I'm not trying to knock any Christians here; I'm talking about cultural holidays in general.) So I couldn't really relate to the couple's strange need to buy things for each other. They are just things, after all.
Anyhow, hopefully everybody reading this has a better Christmas than Jim and Della did, and is perhaps a bit more conscientious about what really matters around the holidays.