
Jacob's Bell
A Christmas Story
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Narrado por:
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Russell Bentley
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De:
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John Snyder
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At one time, Jacob MacCallum had it all: wealth, a wonderful family, and a position as one of the most respected businessmen in Chicago. For the past 20 years, he's lived in an alcohol-induced haze, riddled with guilt for his role in the untimely death of his wife. Estranged from his children and penniless, he embarks on a journey to find his family and seek their forgiveness. On his path to redemption, he encounters a young girl whose friendship might be the key to reuniting the MacCallum family just in time for Christmas.
©2018 John Snyder (P)2018 Dreamscape Media, LLCThe Worst . . . and Best of Us All
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Full disclosure: I'm a pastor.
I found the story to be a guilty pleasure of escapism, almost as if one was thrown into a Thomas Kinkade painting. This is fascinating, because the story is obviously really dark before it's better. It's dark, in that the mess Jacob's made of his family requires some explaining.
I enjoyed the narrator, especially his casting one pastor as Irish. If Snyder mentioned that the pastor was Irish, I missed it in the narration, but I did appreciate that we just didn't get 34 different American accents. It is a quick listen, all it took for me was a few long walks, but it was a good Christmas story to get one in the spirit. Again, I was wishing as I was watching, that a mini-series would be made.
A few things I would nitpick about:
> Sadly Snyder has apparently missed the memo, or decided to be willfully ignorant when it comes to the Salvation Army - the Salvation Army historically hasn't practiced physical communion and baptism. Being part of another denomination that shares those values (Evangelical Friends / Quakers), I can also say that among the Evangelical Friends, allowances are made for physical observances of these rituals. Perhaps the same is true in pockets of the Salvation Army. And perhaps Snyder didn't wish to delve to deeply and explain this reality, and thus, he just matter-of-factly depicted these events occurring around Jacob. I mean, the story centers on a Salvation Army Bell-Ringer, we can't have any other denomination.
> While some might critique this story and say it's all picture-perfect, like a series of paintings by Thomas Kinkade, I won't go that far... except one character. Jacob's son Tom, his wife, is very one-dimensional. While she pleads slightly with Tom to have a heart for his dad, she is the quintessential 40s housewife, who doesn't get too upset if Tom ignores dinner, or comes home late or the like. I found her TOO picture-perfect. I was born in '89, so maybe the vast majority of 40s wives REALLY DID fit the stereotype, but I just found that her character was a little bit too much of the "scenery," and not real enough.
> Too much "tell" in some spots, and not enough "show." This is where a mini-series, or even a season or 2 of shows would do this book some real justice. I understand that Snyder perhaps wanted a book that people could read in a few sittings in an already-busy Christmas season, but there were just too many spots where the author said, "Jacob did this for so many years, and in that time this, that, those, and these things happened... and he ended up in prison." When that could've been used for giving us an even deeper sympathy for the characters.
> Perhaps a bit predictable. But people coming to these sorts of books are usually coming for a wholesome, predictable, feel-good story, and shouldn't be surprised if that's what they find. Most of the stories that I can predict, I still watch because I want to see how it shakes out anyways. There's a bit of comfort and satisfaction in that.
A Good Ol'Fashioned Wholesome Christmas Story
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Very enjoyable story.
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