Fetch Your Copy A Christmas Carol In Prose; Being A Ghost Story Of Christmas Illustrated By Charles Dickens Conveyed In Pamphlet
Christmas Carol in Prose met with instant success and critical acclaim, A Christmas Carol tells the story of a bitter old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge and his transformation into a gentler, kindlier man after visitations by the ghost of his former business partner Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come.
The book was written at a time when the British were examining and exploring Christmas traditions from the past as well as new customs such as Christmas cards and Christmas trees.
Carol singing took a new lease of life during this time, Dickens' sources for the tale appear to be many and varied, but are, principally, the humiliating experiences of his childhood, his sympathy for the poor, and various Christmas stories and fairy tales.
sitelinkA Christmas Carol by sitelinkCharles Dickens
It's a very heartwarming story and will remind one to have a giving and loving spirit.
Loved this story. The tale is as delightful as its messages are, Found the messages so touching, I have gotten so much empathy toward the characters that'll be hard to describe, It'll break your heart, uplift your soul, and make you believe in the power of humanity and the human spirit,
For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas
A timeless classic.
One of the most influential and anti grinchy works of all time,
It might be hard to impossible to find someone who hasnt at least heard about this classic example of Christmas ethic seminar, something close to impossible to achieve and to thank Dickens for as a paladin of humanism.
The story is well known, close to an epigenetic factor because of its prominence, so lets drivel around the core element,
I dont know where this kind of moral storytelling originated, probably tens of thousands of years ago when the first shaman or chief thought it would be cool to use vision, prophecy, the power of dreams, imagination and a grain of indoctrination to communicate the right behavior to her/his people.
Ethics and moral are important, omnipresent, and timeless topics that shouldnt be reduced to the few holidays of different religions to give people, working against the interests of humankind to enrich themselves the whole year, a bad conscience as if this would be possible, as if they would even realize what monsters they are as they dont directly kill, but just indirectly support the misery by playing key roles of a dysfunctional system, but used in everyday life, politics, and every single decision.
Ok, before it gets completely unrealistic, Ill better end this review,
Just one more if you have time Great, A bit too much fourth wall breaking here today, sorry for that,
The bigotry and mendacity of society and the middle and upper classes have grown since Dickens times, as they were at least confronted with the poor and their suffering, directly starving on the streets next to the degenerated elite, while noblemen and ladies were worried there shoes or clothes could get stained if a dying person collapses in their direction as blood was so difficult to get out those days without fancy detergent tech.
Today, the hardship and slums are kept far away from the modern, beautiful, important parts of cities, recreational and cultural centers, etc.
so that nobody has to burden her/himself with thinking or even worrying about the majority of people living in precarious conditions to serve the upper class to enable their useless, earth shattering consumption and snobbish spare time activities they need wage slaves for to really enjoy, as they cant even get their lazy buttocks moving to make themselves a coffee or meal or find hobbies not involving dozens of minimum wage paid people needed to support their entertainment.
Not even to mention the Southern hemisphere and the immense, unnecessary, by a fair economic system easily preventable, suffering of billions and dying of tens of millions of people directly caused by this system.
But hey, merry Christmas everyone,
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
sitelink org/pmwiki/pmwiki. ph How many times have I seen a version of A Christmas Carol Probably too many times to count, but I can try:
A stage version at least half a dozen times
The Disney version with Scrooge McDuck
The Disney version with Jim Carrey
A Muppet Christmas Carol
Scrooged with Bill Murray
Probably more that I am forgetting
Finally, I have taken it upon myself to read the source material! Did I like it Two words: BAH, HUMBUG!
In Dickensese that means I did.
I have enjoyed pretty much every adaptation I have seen and, in general, they seem very close to the original story, So, I have no complaints!
One thing you will find with the book is that each ghost has one or two more scenes that they show Scrooge.
It seems like adapters of the book have generally agreed on which stories to leave out as I don't think I was familiar with any of the "new" tales.
Do you love Christmas stories Classics Adaptations of this story I am not saying you should read this, I am saying you pretty much have to!
Ive seen countless film, TV and stage adaptations of A Christmas Carol, but it wasnt until this week that I read the actual text.
Which is strange. I adore Dickens, If pressed, Id call him one of my alltime favourite authors, But its a busy time of year, and when I watch the films its usually in a social situation,
This week I found myself with a few extra hours and finally read the novella, Wow. Im very glad I did, Here are some thoughts:
I can see why its so frequently adapted and has stood the test of time
The structure is brilliant.
Think of all the characters Scrooge interacts with in the opening section Cratchit, his nephew, the people from the charity, Notice how he encounters them all in the final section, too! The dialogue is so clear and sharp screenwriters dont have to change much.
And that dialogue has to be memorable “Are there no prisons” “Decrease the surplus population” in order to register when the lines are thrown back at him later.
Dickens description of Scrooge is amazing:
Oh! But he was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire secret, and selfcontained, and solitary as an oyster.
The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait made his eyes red, his thin lips blue and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice.
Look at that series of words “squeezing, wrenching, grasping”, They tell you everything you need to know about the man, I'm not sure I like “secret, and selfcontained, and solitary as an oyster” we already get that, But what colourful, characterrich description, I LOVE the flint that doesnt give generous fire! And that then leads to the passage about how the coldness WITHIN HIM affects his features.
Brilliant.
I love the humour
Scrooge say the name and your face scrunches up in a snarl walks in the street and here's Dickens explaining how people avoid him:
No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was oclock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge.
Even the blind mens dogs appeared to know him and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts and then would wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!”
That “what it was oclock” and “such and such a place” are classic and timeless.
I love that bit about the dogs, Its visual and funny.
When the ghost of Marley visits Scrooge speaking of which: that chain of cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, etc, is a brilliant, brilliant image and metaphor!, I always, ALWAYS laugh at Scrooge's explanation: "a little thing affects the senses, A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats, 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!"
The smug pun on "gravy" and "grave" is amusing, and there's a poetry of sorts in that "fragment of an underdone potato.
"
The story moves at a clip!
After Scrooge leaves his office, theres this: “Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his bankersbook, went home to bed.
” I figured thered be a whole couple of paragraphs at the restaurant, Nope!
Whats amazing about the text is that after his transformation Im assuming
this isnt a spoiler, there are only somepages left for him to realize its still Christmas Day, order the turkey I love the exchange with the boy on the street for Cratchit and his family, walk the streets as with renewed vigour, go to his nephews for Christmas dinner and then surprise Cratchit the next day.
Thats a LOT to fit in,
Heres the exchange at his nephew Freds home:
“Why bless my soul!” cried Fred, “whos that”
“Its I.
Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner, Will you let me in, Fred”
Let him in! It is a mercy he didnt shake his arm off, He was at home in five minutes, Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same, So did Topper when he came, So did the plump sister when she came, So did every one when they came, Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness!
But he was early at the office next morning”
Most adaptations understandably have Scrooge asking Fred for some sort of forgiveness, to add an emotional beat that recalls Scrooge's dead sister.
But Dickens, whos often accused of writing too much, goes right to the next scene!
The name of Scrooges kindly old boss, Mr.
Fezziwig see above illustration
His name always makes me laugh, But to READ the name in print is almost more fizzy fun than to merely hear it said,
Social conscience
Dickens knew poverty and his books shed light on the social inequities of the Victorian era: the workhouses, debtors prisons, etc.
His sensitivity comes through even in this short book, not just in that classic sequence about Ignorance and Want, but also in the scene in which the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge to the miners village and then to spy on a couple of sailors “the elder with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figurehead of an old ship might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in itself”.
After the great scene at nephew Freds place, where they play the game that involves Scrooge, comes this passage:
The Spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful on foreign lands, and they were close at home by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope by poverty, and it was rich.
In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in miserys every refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.
Wow. I love this passage. Its expansive, encompassing many people and lives,
Sentimentality
Okay, theres the matter of Tiny Tim: “and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father.
” So Tim NEVER dies
Lets instead concentrate on Dickenss insights into human behaviour:
If you look at the Cratchits dinner during the Ghost Of Christmas Present scene, I love how Dickens shows how the familys in denial about the size of the meal: “There never was such a goose.
Eked out by applesauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole famly indeed, as Mrs, Cratchit said with great delight surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish, they hadnt ate it all at last! Yet every one had had enough”
Dickens makes even the most minor character memorable.
Consider all the fuss about Master Peter Cratchits collars, something thats classic if you substitute those collars for the latest teen fashion, And Dickens even gives us this little bit near the end of that scene: “ and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbrokers.
”
This is Dickens acknowledging human truths, Hes not judging, simply observing, Yes, the book is a ghost story and a tad sentimental, But what makes it a classic are details like this that show how flawed, limited people can be redeemed by the thought and spirit of something larger than themselves.
To quote from near the story's end: "May that be truly said of us, and all of us!",