Antonia Fraser
Someone once said, channelling Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “There’s nothing good nor bad, but Christmas makes it worse.” I can only imagine that it came after a bad time Christmas shopping, or forgetting to buy the turkey. For me Christmas is a wonderful time; beginning with Frequent Family Gatherings (FFGs) but including opportunities to read as others open their presents. I plan to educate myself enjoyably by reading The World: A Family History by Simon Sebag Montefiore, which has been hailed as a rollicking tale of the great families of history from all over the globe, told with all of Sebag Montefiore’s accustomed brilliance. Frequent Family Gatherings, indeed! Most appropriate. I shall also allow myself the luxury of rereading a classic: a book first published in 1840, which was re-recommended by an intellectual friend of my grandson: Mikhail Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time. I haven’t read it for 40 years, and all I can remember about it is that there is a Byronic hero, Grigory Pechorin, and that it is an utterly compelling story. The real motto of Christmas – which I actually adore, with Midnight Mass, FFGs and everything else – is that there’s nothing good nor bad, but reading makes it better.
