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Cannonball Read III: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

By TylerDFC | Posted Under Book Reviews | Comments (14)

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Before any of you start bitching about something related to Christmas popping up on Pajiba (of all places!) before Thanksgiving, please note that TylerDFC wrote this at the beginning of CBR-III (so around Christmastime last year). And since it’s his turn to be in the CBR spotlight and this review met my requirements, it’s getting posted. So you can suck it and enjoy his lovely review.—TU


Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is a classic for a reason. It is simply constructed, but loaded with details and inflections that make the story come alive. I’ve seen most versions of the story told in film. My favorites are the George C Scott movie from the 80’s, Scrooged with Bill Murray, and the Muppet’s Christmas Carol because, well, it’s the Muppets with Michael Caine as Scrooge. How can you NOT love that one? But until this year, I had never actually sat down to read the book.

Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is not a long novel. I actually read it over an extended lunch hour just before Christmas. It was originally intended to be a tract to encourage charity toward the poor of London, a cause that Dickens rallied for most of his life. Most everyone knows the story of A Christmas Carol by heart. Curmudgeonly Ebeneezer Scrooge is given one final chance to turn around his greedy and selfish ways or face everlasting damnation. On Christmas Eve he is taken on a journey to his past, present, and future by separate Christmas spirits to recapture the cheer he had lost and learn to be a better person.

Where the novel succeeds so wonderfully is in the writing and dialogue. Dickens didn’t write this as a deep and complex tale, it is simply a little fable about doing nice things for others. The enduring legacy of the book is hard to ignore while reading, but the story felt just as fresh to me as the first time I heard it. There is a reason the tale resonates after 150 years. The desire to be better than you are, to do more for those less fortunate, to share your good fortune for the betterment of your fellow man, these are timeless messages. Just as relevant today as it was in Dickens’ time. It is a holiday classic for a reason. If you have never taken the time to read it, you are doing yourself a disservice. I plan to re-read it every holiday season. It is a marvelous antidote to the cynicism and commercialization around Christmas and a good reminder to take the time to appreciate your friends and family and to do your part to help others both at Christmas and the whole year through.


For more of TylerDFC’s reviews, check out his blog, RUFKM.

This review is part of Cannonball Read III. For more information, click here.









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Comments

I was lucky enough to get to see Patrick Stewart perform this as a one man show on Broadway. What a great show! What a great book! What a great review!

(love the banner pic btw)

Posted by: mswas at November 16, 2011 9:40 AM

This is Mr. Julien's favourite story and we have filmed versions in heavy rotation come Christmas. Little Julien has even acted it out for us: he took a box and Mr. Julien drew a face on each side to represent each Ghost and Jacob Marley. Little Julien would go "offstage" and to rotate his mask according to the point in the story.

I have seen, I believe, virtually every version (except that Jim Carrey one) and, interestingly, it's The Muppets who struck me as most faithful to the dialogue and writing. The Mr. Magoo version has unexpectedly great songs.

I think this might be the year when we read a bit of it to Little Julien every night at bedtime, and time it to finish on Christmas Eve.

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at November 16, 2011 9:59 AM

It used to be a tradition on Christmas Eve to drink hot cider and tell each other ghost stories until after midnight. I'm not sure why it was a Christmas tradition (OK, no TV or internet), as it appears to have absolutely NOTHING to do with Christmas. But Christmas wasn't really a big deal a hundred or more years ago, before it got commercialized. I'm not sure when the telling of ghost stories fell out of favor. It can't have been too long ago, as several Christmas songs from the middle of the 20th century mention telling ghost stories.

As far a Christmas ghost stories go, A Christmas Carol is the best of the best.

I really don't like Dickens when he's depressing, but I love him when he's more lighthearted and funny (Pickwick Papers). A Christmas Carol sort of bridges the gap between the two.

Posted by: BWeaves at November 16, 2011 10:01 AM

Download A Christmas Carol for free to your mobile phone (you know how) and read it again. No excuses.

Posted by: FillOaks at November 16, 2011 10:01 AM

Nice review TylerDFC (I always think of you as a football club collectively posting).
Our local pub does a full reading of A Christmas Carol every year on two Saturdays in December. An actor reads from the book while we are served tea and scones and all the proceeds go to the Chicago Food Depository. It's a lovely way to spend an afternoon.

Posted by: PaddyDog at November 16, 2011 10:16 AM

Mrs Julien: While it goes overboard a bit to satisfy the 3D requirements, the Jim Carrey version is remarkably close in description to events to the book. More than most of the adaptations in fact. I read the book right after seeing the movie and I was pretty surprised how faithful it was. Other than the part where he gets shrunk, that is.

PaddyDog: I'm not sure how to take that comment. Thank you? Anyway, attending a reading sounds quite enjoyable.

Posted by: TylerDFC at November 16, 2011 10:44 AM

TylerDFC - Doesn't the Jim Carrey version have that Zemeckis/Polar Express freaky-deaky animation in which all the people look short a chromosome (or two)?

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at November 16, 2011 10:46 AM

PaddyDog - That sounds delightful! I'm jealous.

Posted by: tamatha at November 16, 2011 10:58 AM

Oh man, it's been so many years since I read "A Christmas Carol", and I really need to re-visit it. You're absolutely right about the dialogue being one of the shining parts of the book - I seem to remember Scrooge having some amazing lines. And of course, there's this opening:

"Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail."

THAT is a great start to a book. ;)

Posted by: luthien26 at November 16, 2011 11:03 AM

Mrs Julien: It is Zemeckis, but the dead-eye thing isn't as bad as his earlier mo-cap stuff. Plus, it doesn't really bother me. I love The Polar Express, we watch it every Christmas Eve.

Posted by: TylerDFC at November 16, 2011 11:19 AM

Hey luthien26 - Thank you for reminder. I remember the first time I read the novella and realised that Dickens is really, really funny.

Posted by: Mrs. Julien at November 16, 2011 12:03 PM

Great Cthulhu, I love this book, and I annually watch the version starring Alastair Sim as Scrooge.

Posted by: The Wanderer at November 16, 2011 12:42 PM

I think you've inspired me to finally read it as well. But, yeah, I'm going to wait until after Thanksgiving.

Posted by: DarthCorleone at November 16, 2011 2:13 PM

I will always fondly remember seeing Patrick Stewart's one-man version of this, particularly for the withering pause when someone actually had the temerity to take a flash picture during the performance. That man can glare.

And I will always cherish the Muppet version, particularly for this scene:
http://youtu.be/w6JURRsVRxM

Thanks for the review, I will have to pull this one out for the holidays!

Posted by: Anne At Large at November 16, 2011 11:29 PM