It's not the season for A Christmas Carol, I know!

And we all know it by heart too, from reading it as children with our grandparents maybe, as young adults for essays in high school, as adults to our own children. We have watched the Disney version many times, and seen it performed on stage, for decades, in December.

So why do I have to drag out my old, torn copy of my earliest traditional December Dickens in April? Because April is the cruellest month, and it made me realise how many Scrooges are out there, celebrating their narcissistic personality disorder as a virtue and key to their success while ignoring the needs of their families, friends and business partners. My fear, however, is that we have no willing ghosts left to show the Scrooges of our times the path back to caring and loving community.

Where is the ghost to tell the greedy self-absorbed rich of today:

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."

Where is the understanding that laughter and humour is worth more than gold can ever pay for? Where is the LANGUAGE of Dickens to express that there is hope for humanity if we open our eyes and dare to see what is going on around us, rather than a reflection in a mirror of our own ugly fake face - hiding Dorian Gray's real portrait under the shining surface?

I fear that the ghost of Old Marley may be dead as a doornail too!

But I call on the Ghosts Of Literature Past to come back and teach us something of humanity's potential. Come now, today, in the cruellest of months. You can do it. Don't be scared of us humans. We are not as dangerous as we look.

One of my favourite books of all time. It's a beautiful reminder of the spirit of Christmas, what the holiday represents and how we can be more kind and mindful of our actions.

It has been a decade since I last read this classic, so I decided to look at it again, taking note of what I have forgotten or imperfectly remembered and also garnering any new insights my older (and I hope wiser) self could now find within it.

But first, I decided to do a little research, and discovered the great irony underlying the book’s creation: how this tale that warns against miserliness was born because of Dickens' acute need for money, and how its publication resulted in a dispute about the distribution of profits.

Dickens was already famous in 1843, but the sales of the recent installments of Martin Chuzzlewit were less than half of what he had received for the individual numbers of his previous novels. His publishers Chapman and Hall were so alarmed that they invoked a clause in Dickens' contract which demanded that they be reimbursed for the printing cost of the Chuzzlewit installments. Dickens was alarmed too, but also hurt, offended...and worried. A large mortgage payment would soon be due, and his wife had just given birth to their fifth child. Still, he was convinced that his idea for a yuletide novella would yield an ample return and make up for the Chuzzlewit deficit.

He financed the sumptuous edition of A Christmas Carol himself—colored plates, colored title page, gilt embossed front cover, gilt-edged pages, etc.—and insisted that the price not exceed the sum of 5 shillings (still expensive: one third of Cratchit’s weekly salary). Dickens waited eagerly for the money to roll in, but, although the sales were indeed phenomenal, Dickens gained little money from them. Although the cost of producing the elegant volume must have cut deeply into the profits, Dickens was convinced Chapman and Hall were cheating him and he refused to do business with them for the next fifteen years.

But enough of money matters, for now! What follows are a few random observations on this, the latest of my many readings.

1) How thoroughly Marley’s Ghost is surrounded by iron objects: doorknocker (large Victorian doorknockers were typically iron), iron door nails, iron coffin nails, iron chain and iron metal strong box. Helps us see what hard, unrelenting old sinners Marley and his partner really are.

2) In addition to being hard of heart, Scrooge is a man with a deliberate philosophy of self-exoneration. It consists of two principles: 1) taxpayers fund the poor houses and prisons, thereby discharging in full their obligation to all of their fellow human beings, and 2) death by starvation, although it may seem regrettable, is actually a positive good as proven by science (because Malthus!), and relieves the rest of us of the burden of a surplus population. This philosophy is the shield that protects Scrooge from feeling the pains of sympathy and compassion.

3) The first emotion produced in Scrooge by the Ghost of Christmas Past is sadness at this own boyhood loneliness, but the second emotion is his joy in the books that consoled him and helped him empathize with others: The Arabian Nights, the old romances (Valentine and Orson), and realistic fiction (Robinson Crusoe). In Ebenezer’s coming transformation, the sadness and its memory are of course necessary, but no more necessary than this joy.

4) At Fezziwig’s Christmas party, the guest list is inclusive: the family and the clerks of course, but also the housemaid, the baker, the cook, the milkman, and a boy and a girl from down the street whom the Fezziwigs fear are mistreated by their masters and mistresses. Scrooge’s defense of his employer Fezziwig's little party which may only have cost “a few pounds” is even more eloquent than I remembered:

n  He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."n

If I were dictator, I would compel our 21st century employers to listen to the above words at least four times a year. (Exception: employers who, in order to increase the volume of key strokes, forbid all family photographs and personal items in their data entry cubicles. No, those guys should have to listen to the above passage on a loop, eight hours a day, for the rest of their lives.)

5) In my favorite movie version, the Alastair Sim Scrooge (1951), Ebenezer sees his former fiance as an old woman (still beautiful of course) nursing the sick and dying in the shadowy corners of the poorhouse. It is moving, certainly, but how much more effective—and crueler—is the Dicken’s original! There, Scrooge sees his former love happy in the recent past, a contented wife and mother surrounded by a whirlwind of children.

6) In the past I have viewed the temporal structure of the tale (ghost past, ghost present, ghost future) as an effective but obvious device. But the more I think about it, the more profound it seems, psychologically and spiritually. This, after all, is the pattern of every true conversion, the manner in which we grow in sympathy toward our fellow human beings: we reflect upon the emotionally charged sense impressions of the past, observe their consequences for good or ill manifested in the present, and then—on the basis of these observations—we make a decision to act in a new way, a way which draws us closer to love. Certainly St. Augustine would have understood, for it was how he envisioned the Trinity, as a model of love in action: memory, understanding, and will.

Oh, speaking of how painful memories can inspire a person to action, I forgot to tell you the rest of the story about A Christmas Carol and money. Another factor that reduced Dickens' yuletide revenue stream was a cut-rate bit of plagiarism issued two weeks after Carol by Parley’s Illustrated Library called A Christmas Ghost Story. Parley's claimed they owed Dickens nothing because what they had published was not a piracy, but an "analytical condensation" of the tale, and, in addition, they had improved upon the original. (For example, in their version, Tiny Tim sings a song about a little child freezing in the snow.) Dickens sued and won, but Parley’s went bankrupt, and instead of gaining any money from his legal ordeal, Dickens was forced to pay 700 pounds in court costs.

Now, here comes the good news: This painful experience so disillusioned Dickens with English civil law that he used it as his inspiration ten years later for what is arguably his finest, most mature creation, the masterpiece Bleak House. So I guess Dickens gained something from the experience after all.

On that high note, I will leave you. And God bless us, everyone!

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"--one of my favorite lines said by Scrooge to his old and dead friend Marley, who visits him as a ghost. Scrooge, a rationalist who does believe in love, marriage, caring for other humans, and so on, surely would not believe in ghosts! Bah, humbug, as he says. That is, until he actually does believe that Marley and the other Ghosts are actually visiting him.

Yesterday I listened once again to Dickens' novel, written in less than six weeks time in 1843, and then yesterday evening introduced three teenagers who live in this house for the FIRST TIME (I confess!! I'm ashamed) to a faithful film adaptation of the story (the Patrick Stewart version, which I am happy to say they loved!). (These kids knew the cultural reference to what a "Scrooge" might mean, and they knew [mainly from a meme, I am guessing] of the image of Scrooge McDuck but have not yet seen a stage version. That's on me).

The novel is sentimental (that "crippled" Tiny Tim repeating "God bless us everyone") and as the morality parable intends to be, is preachy, but I say it still works. It's Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate during this break, and as it is 2021, we have had yet another year when we could drink a cup of just a little more kindness. Scrooge is your very definition of the kind of cruel capitalist with whom we are still familiar--I bite my tongue as it is Christmas-time and so will not mention any names we can easily associate with Scrooge; I won't say these names! I won't!! This is a feel good review of a feel good book!--who says that those who are poor should be imprisoned or put in workhouses; and actually says that those who are suicidally depressed about their poverty should actually go right ahead and kill themselves to reduce the population!

So this is a redemption tale specifically for Christmas, that thief-on-the cross point that even the worst humans can be saved from eternal damnation by admitting they have been bad and by committing to doing good.

This is also a ghost story, which was once a popular Christmas tradition, to read them at this time of year, so that's interesting. So this is a weird time (and space) travel part of the story, for Scrooge to go back to his childhood, to visit the Cratchit house in some dream state, to see himself as an unloved cadaver in a casket. Preachy, sure, but I still like it, it's fun and you know, you need reminders/stories that can help you become a better self. Well. . . . will this story really make you a better self? Doubt it, but hey, it's fun.

But this is mostly a book that is consistent with the social commitments in almost all Dickens' work: He is on a global mission to eradicate poverty, to create economic equality. This is the center of Dickens's work (from the nineteenth century, completely unheeded), that we cannot sustain a wider and wider gap between rich and poor, because the rich cannot be counted on for kindness or charity (except in this moral tale) for their survival. At the very least Dickens makes a case for charity here, for giving, for sharing the wealth in the name of community. And love, which Scrooge finally agrees he believes in, finally.

I’ve written a review on this book before. You know, back when I wrote mostly proper reviews!? It was a good one for once, but it’s disappeared, so there! 5 Stars ⭐️



Mel

With a multitude of fabulous reviews already written, plays acted out and movie adaptations made from this marvelous tale, I’ll keep my review short.

It is Dickens. His writing is silky smooth and the characters, of course, lived brightly in my mind. He’s universally considered a master of the written word for good reason.

n  "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."n

These lines created a poignant visual, which led me to reflect on the chains I forge in my own life.

n  "I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!"n

What a wonderful world it would be if we held the spirit of Christmas in our hearts the whole year through.

Mr. Dickens has given me food for thought with this petite, magical story. I turned the last page with Tiny Tim’s encouraging words warming my spirit. "God Bless us, every one!"
Indeed!

I read this every year at Christmas, and I always will do. Simply because of the atmosphere it evokes. This story is Christmas as far as I’m concerned. It wouldn’t be the same without it. It is perfectly festive and is also appropriately didactic. It is an allegory for what happens to those that are unnecessarily bitter and twisted, refusing to take part in a joyful occasion. It is a glimpse at what could happen to someone who rejects their family upon trivial grounds, and let’s themselves be set apart. It is also a suggestion that one shouldn’t be so concerned with money. Money isn’t everything; it certainly didn’t buy ol’ Scrooge happiness. But, Christmas did and will do so again.



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This is my absolute favorite Christmas story for the season that I enjoy reading every year. The audio for this version is perfect too. Wonderful

5*****

Merry Christmas my friends! May love, peace and happiness be your reward. Oh and also lots of books! God bless us, every one!
Helga

Master Scrooge is bleak and tightfisted; he is as cold and foggy as the weather outside. His precept is ‘the cheaper the better’, and one thing he hates the most is the Christmas celebrations.

If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart.

For scrooge, darkness is cheap, charity a sin and avarice a virtue.
Has he always been this niggardly uncongenial wretch or was he once a joyful youth; an amiable soul?
It’s Christmas time once more; a time to sing Carols and warm each other’s hearts. It’s Christmas time once more and for Scrooge it’s a time to be discourteous and unpleasant.
But arriving home on the eve, he is visited by Marley, his dead as a door-nail partner.

You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling. Tell me why?
I wear the chain I forged in life, replied the Ghost. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.

You will be haunted he is told by the ghost by Three Spirits; by the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future.
Is this a dream? Is it real?

* Read many times and will read many times more.

I’m truly shocked to be saying that I actually enjoyed a classic. Charles Dickens’ writing style is surprsingly easy to understand for a classic author and the story had such a great message. I was even tearing up at some parts of the story because of Tiny Tim. I honestly don’t remember a lot about the movie adaptations of A Christmas Carol, so Tiny Tim was basically a whole new character to me and his story was heartbreaking yet inspiring at the same time.

If you want to read A Christmas Carol, I highly recommend listening to the Audible version with the full cast. There’s fun music and sound effects that make the story even more interesting. The cast also includes Miriam Margolyes (Professor Sprout) and Jenna Coleman (Clara Oswald) so of course it was a delight to listen to.

Having seen many movie versions of this famous book , I thought it was finally time to read the book this (time of) year and I did!
How talented Dickens was... to invent this story and write it in beautiful language. Maybe I'll reread it again by Christmas time next year, so much detail there, deserves great attention, and my good intention will be to read more Dickens in the time to come. A delightful book, a very talented writer, so long ago... A magical story, famous for its moral and 'advice in life', capturing the hearts of people young and old...and through times it will always stay that way.
And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!

Am avut un prieten care citea în fiecare an - de Crăciun, firește - cartea lui Dickens. Putea cita de la orice pagină, după vreo 50 de lecturi, o știa pe de rost. A încercat să mă facă și pe mine un fan al cărții. Am parcurs Povestea..., mi s-a părut cam didactică, am rămas sceptic.

Abia acum am ajuns s-o recitesc, au trecut mai bine de zece ani, m-am înstrăinat de prieteni, nu mă mai impresionează sugestiile lor. Franc vorbind, cînd am redeschis cartea, nu mă așteptam la cine știe ce revelație, presimțeam o nouă dezamăgire: nu sînt nici sentimental, nici credul.

S-a petrecut probabil ceva în mintea mea, vreun aflux de serotonină, o schimbare de ADN, o îmbulzire de hormoni, o inflamație a amigdalei cerebrale. Poveste de Crăciun m-a emoționat și, în pofida judecății mele estetice, mi-a plăcut. Chiar mi-a plăcut... E un fantasy din care aflăm că minunile sînt cu putință măcar într-o zi din cele 365 ale anului, în seara de Ajun, care poate dura trei nopți (ca în cazul lui Ebenezer Scrooge).

Conversiunea protagonistului e un miracol împotriva firii și a principiilor psihologiei. Nimeni nu se modifică radical peste noapte. Oricîte duhuri îl vizitează și îl bagă în sperieți pe un zgîrcit (mă rezum la apariția defunctului Jacob Marley), el nu poate deveni un binefăcător, e o imposibilitate. Dar dacă principiile încetează, măcar de Crăciun, să mai fie valabile? În fond, de ce nu...

Dincolo de întîlnirile cu aspect gotic din prima parte a cărții și de remușcările lui Scrooge, ea ține de genul carnavalesc, al veseliei dezlănțuite. Dickens știa foarte bine că nu există „le pays de de Cocagne”, țara oamenilor care trîndăvesc între ospețe și se înfruptă pe săturate cînd nu trîndăvesc. În Poveste de Crăciun, a fi fericit înseamnă a mînca pe săturate împreună cu toți ceilalți. Cocagne e un vis al flămînzilor. Tărîmul a fost inventat de goliarzii medievali și e numit ca atare în textele din Carmina burana. În Gargantua și Pantagruel, Rabelais a reluat visul gastronomic.

Charles Dickens descrie cu vervă și umor acest tărîm al abundenței și risipei. Enumerările culinare, care se întind pe pagini întregi, sînt, negreșit, savuroase: „Aici puteai admira coșuri mari, rotunde, ticsite de castane..., strecurîndu-se pe la uși și rostogolindu-se pe străzi în abundența lor nebună. Erau și cepe roșii din Spania, mari și rotunde... Erau pere și mere, puse unele peste altele în piramide imense, și ciorchini de struguri care... se legănau la vedere, atîrnați de cîrlige... Erau grămezi de alune care, prin mireasma lor, te duceau cu gîndul la foșnetul frunzelor uscate... și erau afine, bondoace și oacheșe, contrastînd cu galbenul lămîilor și al portocalelor...” (pp.87-88).

Zărim prin această enumerare, care i-ar fi plăcut neîndoielnic și lui Umberto Eco, ceva din bogăția acelui tărîm mult jindut de sărmani...