A Christmas Carol is probably the quintessential Christmas story. It is one all of us are familiar with and is still one of the first stories we think of when we think of Christmas. It has been adapted for film and TV more times than I care to count. While when reading many classic books, one is shocked to find how different they are from various film and TV adaptions. However, with A Christmas Carol, one is amazed by how much the majority of film and TV adaptions follow the book. While they may have their own twists on the story (like having Gonzo be Charles Dickens) most adaptions not only follow the basic story but include multiple lines of dialogue straight from the book. Reading this book today it is easy to see why. Despite being an 19th century novella, it holds up near perfectly today and needs no changes to be accessible to a modern audience.
You are all familiar with the story. Scrooge is a hard unfeeling man, who cares only about wealth and not about his fellow man. The night before Christmas he is visited by the ghost of his old business partner with a warning to change his ways. His business partner then tells him that he will be visited by three more ghosts that night. These ghosts show Scrooge his past, present and future. Through this he learns the error of his ways and wakes up Christmas morning a changed man.
This book is a classic for a reason. The story is timeless. Themes of loneliness, greed, mistreatment of the poor and our moralistic to help those less fortunate are still as relevant today as they were in the 19th century. It gets across each of these themes in a way that is still entertaining and effective. Despite being a morality tale, it never feels like a sermon but rather the themes come across in a natural way.
The main reason this story is so effective is that Scrooge is a fantastic lead character. Though the name has become a term for any greedy and selfish person, the character is more complex than that. Though Scrooge can be very unlikable towards the start of the book, he is never simply an evil caricature. Instead, he is something much more real and human. He is instead a man weathered and hardened by a tough life and an often-unfair world. As we see in the ghost of Christmas past segment, the change from an ambitious young man to a cruel unfeeling old man was a very gradual one, that he was not aware of as it was happening. Even at his most cruel his younger more caring self is still hidden beneath. This makes his transformation completely natural and believable. If the story was just a completely evil man learning the errors of his ways, it would not have been at all effective. It is the complexities of the character that make the story so powerful.
Dickens writing is also incredibly wonderful here. Dickens has a way with the English language and that is something even his staunchest critics must agree on, Dickens so beautifully describes each setting creating a very atmospheric feel. Many claim Dickens was the inventor of many of the ways we view and celebrate Christmas and reading the way he describes the holiday, it is easy to understand why. As well as brilliant describing the settings, the book also gives us very detailed and well-written descriptions of each of the ghosts. The way Dickens describes them gives them an other-worldly and truly magical feel.
One of the most overlooked elements of Dickens is that he was a great humorist. This is seen throughout this book. Despite the serious nature of the message, there were multiple moments that made me laugh out loud while reading it (I especially love Dickens' description of a doornail).
This is a pure classic for a reason and essential yuletide reading.
-Michael J. Ruhland
No comments:
Post a Comment