The fourth of Dickens' Christmas novellas, The Battle of Life is really not Christmasy at all, but it is generally enjoyable. Beginning with a truly gruesome description of a bloody battlefield, the story quickly moves far forward in time to an idyllic apple orchard on that same field where we will witness "The Battle of Life" in a rather complicated love quadrangle involving two very lovely and sweet (too sweet!) sisters and two men, along with a philosopher father who thinks all of life is just a ridiculous joke, a pair of lawyers, and a couple of servants that provide us with our comic relief. The servants, Clemency and Britain, are truly the highlight of the novella and inject it with some humor and action that is entirely absent in the idealized and sentimental love story. The twist is pretty unbelievable, but nice enough. Read this one for the battlefield description at the start, and keep at it to see what happens to Clemency and Britain. Not bad, but there is more substantial Dickens out there.