A CHRISTMAS CAROL : BOOK REVIEW
We as a culture
owe Charles Dickens a big apology. War on Christmas? Ha! It’s nothing compared
to the outright torture we have done to his “A Christmas Carol” since its
publication in 1843.
Let’s start at the beginning…
Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
In “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens is tapping into a Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories around the holidays. It was also believed that on Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, ghosts would be among us -- a scene Charles Dickens recreates with Scrooge at his window. So Dickens, right from the start, is easing his contemporary audience into a story that would not have surprised them on a cold winter evening. But then he changes it, and this is where his genius sneaks in. For his ghosts have a message, a lesson. They are not simply saying “boo!”
It is the message
from the ghosts that many Dickens adapters miss their mark. Yes, you can say
the Ghosts of past, present and future, and you would be right, but you’ll also
be missing the gravity below those scenes.They are so much more than
ghosts.Let’s start at the beginning…
Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. Scrooge’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
In “A Christmas Carol,” Charles Dickens is tapping into a Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories around the holidays. It was also believed that on Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, ghosts would be among us -- a scene Charles Dickens recreates with Scrooge at his window. So Dickens, right from the start, is easing his contemporary audience into a story that would not have surprised them on a cold winter evening. But then he changes it, and this is where his genius sneaks in. For his ghosts have a message, a lesson. They are not simply saying “boo!”
Through the tour of his past, Scrooge remembers his lost humanity. In the present, he learns to see it in others. And in the future, he recognizes its existence after he is gone. This lesson of Scrooge transcends different religions, beliefs and non-beliefs. It’s almost too bad this tale is tied to a holiday that comes around only once a year.
Everything
else — possessions, wealth, and today’s obsession with fame — are meaningless
next to the heart of a small, loving boy with crutches. For we all have the
capacity to change like Scrooge, to grow, to make a positive difference in this
world. Oh, if all the talent and money that has been spent on retelling this
story each year were instead used to do some good, I’m sure Dickens would have
appreciated that gesture a whole lot more.
“A Christmas
Carol” is Charles Dickens at his writing forte. It is a book made to be read
aloud, and I hope you will try it yourselves this year, like readers would have
done when the book was first printed. And please remember that, as the clock
turns for a new year, in Charles Dickens eyes we all need to be good to each
other, rich or poor -- or, as Tiny Tim once observed:Posted by Riya Chatterjee, XI - Tulip, Roll No:25
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