Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens 1812-1870
Illustrated by Roberto Innocenti
1990


BACK OF THE BOOK: A miser learns the true meaning of Christmas when three ghostly visitors review his past and foretell his future.

THOUGHTS: I am sure most people have seen the movie (with people or Disney characters or the Muppets), however they just don’t compare to the book. I probably would never have read this book if it hadn’t have been on the list for book club. I just figured that I knew the story too well, and wouldn’t enjoy reading it since I had seen all the movies. Well, I was wrong. I should have taken my own advice and remembered the book is always better than the movie. In this book I had two favorite parts that the movies never expressed.

1) The narrator. He was funny! I wouldn’t have guessed that there would be a lot of humor in this book, but the narrator will randomly go off on a tangent that may not create “laugh-out-loud” type humor, but funny nonetheless. For example the first page is devoted to talking mostly about doornails.

2) The writing. There is a reason all Dickens books are a classics. The wording and the style of writing are amazing. This was writing that was meant to be read out loud and to be heard. One of the paragraphs that I had to just stop and read out loud (even though Owen gave me some odd looks) goes as follows: “Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine alter here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at they command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make on feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released; it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender; and the pulse a man’s. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow the world with life immortal!” People just don’t write like this any more. I can picture someone upon the book’s first publication sitting down with their family around the fire, probably after diner, reading this and putting so much meaning and expression into the words that the rest of the family just couldn’t help but be drawn into it. Carson would never want me to read out loud to him, but someday I plan on reading this book to my children.

ENDING: If you’ve seen the movie you know how it ends and for once Hollywood didn’t deviate too far. There were some differences that I had been in ignorance of until this reading. Scrooge never actually goes to see Bob Cratchits at the end. Most of the movies show him popping into the house on Christmas Day, but Scrooge waits until the next day to talk to him. It wasn’t anything big – just different. The other thing that wasn’t at the ending, but was different was the second spirit, Christmas Present. In that section Scrooge alludes to the spirit being God or Christ. The spirit denies it, but it is never resolved in Scrooge’s mind. It was just a little surprising that that would be thrown in there. This is one thing I am glad the movies left out because it didn’t need to be in there and it wasn’t Christ so I guess it kept the movies simpler and without the possibility of degrading the Lord. The other thing that was better about the book’s ending as compared to the movies’ endings was because of the passion behind the writing the climax was so much more exhilarating.