“The Close and Holy Darkness”
December 16, 2009
Dylan Thomas’ poetic tale, A Child’s Christmas in Wales, is a moving evocation of Christmas from a child’s point of view. It was made into an excellent movie in 1987 starring the British actor Denholm Elliott. It is well worth purchasing and watching once a year with children or grandchildren, remarkably faithful to the text and a Christmas movie likely to survive for generations.
All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen.
Thomas was born in Swansea, South Wales in 1914 and the story is loosely based on childhood memories. He was scheduled to read it on a live radio broadcast in 1945, but the reading was cancelled by the producer. Thomas was known for showing up for public appearances drunk. The story revolves around a boy and his grandfather, recounting Christmases past. In addition to Mrs. Prothero, there are the aunts and uncles of Christmas dinner; the gifts, both useless and useful; and the gang of neighborhood children out of sight of preoccupied adults. There is also the stirring beauty of a town enveloped in snow and of church bells ringing out over an ancient land:
No, no, no, in the bat-black, snow-white belfries, tugged by bishops and storks. And they rang their tidings over the bandaged town, over the frozen foam of the powder and ice cream hills, over the crackling sea. It seemed that all the churches bomed for joy under my window; and the weathercocks crew for Christmas, on our fence.
The tale is available as a book with illustrations by Fritz Eichenberg. At the end, on Christmas Eve, the boy turns out the lights:
I turned the gas down; I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness and then I slept.
—– Comments —
Sheila C. writes:
Thank you for your posting on “A Child’s Christmas in Wales.” My unusual high school English teacher (Miss Mary Lee Ruddle) used to play a recording of Thomas reading this work on the occasional snowy day while we were at school. I have a small paperback copy of the poem and even reading it online brought back memories of his voice, intonation, and evocative imagery. I think of the great body of Western poetry – all I read in high school and college and after, and I compare it to what now passes as “literature” or great writing, and I want to weep. I recently bought a book of Kipling’s poetry after reading bits of it in various web comments and I keep picking out phrases and images to savour.
Laura writes:
You’re welcome.
Miss Ruddle sounds like the perfect name for a spinster devoted to great literature. God bless the Miss Ruddles of the past.
