Hi everyone. Our December selection will be 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens. Because it is such a short book, we can wait a week or so before beginning (but I certainly encourage people to begin whenever they feel it personally appropriate). We can shoot for Friday of this week, that would be December 6th. Please feel free to join in if you have the time and inclination...it's a really wondeful little book!

It is a gem of a book.Here we go then:
"Marley was dead...."

Oooh, Ren! Wonderful idea - you can read it to us! I would love to have someone read me bedtime stories One of the disadvantages of growing up is no one reads to you anymore.

Oh Babymoo, how I would love to do just that. I love reading stories aloud to children more than anything. I love trying to change my voice with each character. As I said in another thread, my grandad used to dress as Dickens and sit on stage, reciting A Christmas Carol. He knew it by heart! (yes the whole thing..)

It would be amazing to see someone dressed as Dickens reciting A Christmas Carol! I think it would be the greatest holiday entertainment!

I love to read to children too. At the moment, I only have one nephew that is young enough to enjoy it. All of my nieces have outgrown it. Kids grow up too fast these days, and move on to older kid things far too soon to suit me. Even the 7 year old feels she is too old to be read to. (Brings a tear to my eye!) They all love to read, but they don't want to be read to.

A timeless Classic! I read it whenever I can and watch the films every Christmas. My favourite is the original with Alastair Sim but to have someone dressed as Dickens read it -that is an experience!

Dickens himself wrote the following words about 'A Christmas Carol'.

"I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it."

Let the happy haunting begin!!!

That is in my copy too Izzi.
Great luck today, I found Dicken's Christmas Stories , all in one paperback, for about 3 US$. So I read some on the train home. The description of Scrooge's meanness is superb.

Wow!! That was terrific, again! It never fails to make my hair stand on end. I also always shed a tear at Tiny Tim...
What a wonderful imagination. His descriptions are beyond compare.

Well, just got the chance to write down my impressions of rereading the first chapter of "A Christmas Carol". You'll recall I was haunted throughout my childhood with the vision of the door-knocker taking on Marley's appearance in the animated Mr Magoo version. Well, I'm here to say, in writing it's much worse!
It's been forty years perhaps since I first saw it, and it still is scary.

Just think of how the passage builds up, Scrooge is just about the best portrayal of a joyless miser I've ever been privileged to read. I'm sure we all know people like that, I sure have. Though they hide a bit more these days. And after trying to rain on his nephew's and clerk's parades, he goes home to his miserable dwelling, and there:Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it like a bad lobster in a dark cellar".
I'm trying to think why the door knocker still scares me even in writing. Perhaps it is the first manifestation of what is to come for Scrooge, his last chance. And as Dickens writes, he hasn't even thought about Marley since he died seven years ago. Didn't bother taking his name off of their business either. So this apparition just sticks out for me.
I'm assuming that "livid" for the door knocker is used in the old way, pale and ghostly, rather than a livid bruise or purplish wound. I had the hardest time adjusting to French when I began reading it, as "livide" still means pale and as if you were going to faint.
I also enjoyed reading Scrooge's answers to Marley's ghost, trying rather desperately to rationalize and then, even after hearing the announcement of the arrival of the three spirits, he goes to sleep in his clothes.
So now I've confronted my childhood image of the darn door knocker, I mentioned elsewhere that I had to make a trip down to the storage thing and I'd just read it, and frankly, it was still in my mind...and I still don't know why it remained in my mind for forty years.
The Christmas carol still produces in me the same emotions as a film like "The Sixth Sense" in which the ghosts of those with unfinished business roam the earth, but only a few can see them. Though the Christmas spirit of the Cratchetts and others is there, I still recall the ghostly parts.
One thing I always enjoy about the nineteenth century, my area of study by choice, is that I'll always be a first person, Dear Reader type writer, and Dickens makes you feel instantly at home.

Well, have to download the rest, must confront those graveyard scenes. I suppose I can shrug off the shadowy images with the Mickey Mouse version, like Scrooge tried to do to that image of Marley's face on the door knocker. I'll try.

A masterly morality tale which has stood the test of time!!

Hey! How is everybody enjoying Christmas Carol? In the copy I got from the library, it is divided into Staves, instead of chapters, Stave one, Stave Two, etc. I have never seen this before. Is it this way in the copy that anyone else has? This copy also has full-page, color illustartions by Maraja. It also has the Preface by Dickens, dated December 1843. But the story is as timeless as Christmas itself, isn't it?

I just finished the first couple of sections, up to the point where the 2nd ghostly visit is completed (the ghost of X-mas past). There's a weird phenomenon going on for me. I am such a big fan of the Patrick Stewart version of this story (I saw him do both a live, solo version, and also the TNT production) that I imagine Scrooge as Patrick Stewart. Normally this might be a bad thing, I hate having 'pop culture' adulterate my enjoyment of fine literature. In this case, however, the Stewart performance has practically embodied the character for me. I think that's why this little story is so well-beloved, it is so easily translatable to film, television or what have you.

Typically, I would be skeptical of this sort of story...the sudden transformation based on a few brief experiences, but in this story Dickens does a good job of convincing. It seems that Scrooge is always teetering on the edge of goodness, but is so stubbornly insistant on being a, for lack of a better word, Scrooge, that he is able to stave off his inherently good-hearted nature. He just needs the gentle nudging that the ghosts provide.

Interesting, Bruyere that you find yourself feeling a bit fearful in the early stages of the book. I have never found myself feeling trepedation over any of the ghostly visitings in this little story. I guess for me it's a little bit more comical than scary, considering how much of an old curmudgeon Scrooge is. He is able to maintain his poise even after the doorknocker 'vision'. I would have spent the night in a hotel after seeing such a thing, but Scrooge can't be shaken. He even manages a clever comeback for Marley, 'there's more of gravy than of grave about you'!

I finally checked it out from the library today, but by tomorrow afternoon I will be more than caught up in reading (I should say re-reading) it.
I absolutely love the way Dickens wrote "There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate." To me those two lines set the reader up for an amazing journey.

The book I have isThe Oxford Illustrated Dickens. The library I go to has most if not all of his books as Oxford Illustrated.

Mine has Stave 1, Stave 2 etc too Linda.

I have seen a couple different versions of the movie. The one I own has Albert Finney as Scrooge, and it is a musical. I am thinking about buying another version that isn't a musical so I can watch it straight through with the true feeling. The songs are a great addition, yet at the same time they take away from the movie because they are a distraction from the "seriousness" of it.

Babymoo, I absolutely love the Albert Finney musical, too. I've never seen the Patrick Stewart Christmas Carol, but I am certainly going to be on the watch for it after your high recommendation, Jazz. The Alastair Sims version was one of my mother's favorite movies. We used to watch it every Christmas, on television, when I was a child. It was an old black and white film made in the 1930's, I think. I also love George C. Scott as Scrooge, so if anybody hasn't seen that one, I think you will enjoy it, too.

I read Christmas Carol for the first time when was I was eight or nine years old. It was an abridged edition supposedly for older children. I can assure you, Heather, Marley's dead face was very scary to me, and the final spirit gave me all kinds of nightmares, too. Now that I've read it as a grown woman, I love the story. From the very first, from Dickens's preface, I am amazed how much I have enjoyed it.

Heather, you know what really impresses me? It's after Scrooges enters the building, after seeing Marley's face, he thinks he sees a locomotive hearse running up the staircase ahead of him as he starts up the stairs. Isn't that a great mood setter, though?

I think it's really funny when Dickens says that he would describe Marley as being dead as a coffin nail, but he couldn't change similes from being dead as a doornail or "the Country's done for".

It looks like I'm becoming a big fan of Dickens--after avoiding him for all these years!

THanks I purposely left that part out!
Now I've got the chills!
I guess I'm what folks call "emotive" in French.
The hearse was strong too. I just love him trying to chase that stuff away, to rationalize, then fall asleep in his clothes...

I love the way he tries to convince Marley's ghost - or more likely himself - that he (the ghost) is just a stomach ailment due to bad food. For me the hearse going up the stairs is far creepier than the door knocker becoming Marley's face. I can't really explain why.

Anyone who watched the Lion King about a thousand times will know what I mean here. When the Whoopi Goldberg and Cheech hyenas were talking about Mufasa...they kind of indulged in this delightful, "mufasa mufasa mufasa" thing...to scare themselves about it.

The locomotive hearse and the door knocker, well I just read your words and get the heebie jeebies...
As he's trying so hard to dispell them with logic, and they are still there.

Time is an important theme in A Christmas Carol. The time motif is alluded to when Dickens describes the setting of the novel by mentioning how easy the church bells usually are to see and then is stressed with the names, lessons, and descriptions of the ghosts.

Some smaller examples of the subject are when Scrooge speaks about how he feels about Christmastime, when he closes shop on time, when he tells Cratchit that he expects him to be at work on time, and when he looks out of the window to tell the time.

Some bigger moments with time are when Dickens stresses the amount of time Marley has been dead, when Marley warns Scrooge about what to do with his time, when Marley says what time the spirits are supposed to visit, and then when Dickens shows how much Scrooge expects the spirits to arrive on time.

A part of Scrooge’s lesson is in time. Scrooge’s first lesson in time is when Marley explains how short time is and the consequences of misusing it.

At the time the first spirit is to appear, Scrooge get ahead of himself when he attempts to anticipate what is about to happen. With the second spirit, he is late. With the third, time doesn’t seem as important--It’s just 12 o’clock and the phantom is there—But time is mentioned.

After the last spirit’s lesson has been learnt, Scrooge doesn’t know what day it is and is fine with it, but it is still something about time. When Cratchit is late to work, although Scrooge isn’t upset, it is a mention of time. And then finally, we learn Scrooge is going to live in all three tenses of time.

Time is mentioned too many times to mention and it wouldn’t have been so if the concept wasn’t so important to the story and that is what makes my question important. The spirits were supposed to come one per night for three nights, but they all came in one day. What is the explanation?

Was this all just a bad dream that Scrooge has learnt from?

Has something like senility softened Scrooge’s heart?

Why has three days worth of events happen in one night?

this is one of my favorite books

My thoughts on the three days worth of events happening in one night is to set the reader up for the joy Scrooge feels when he realizes he hasn't missed Christmas after all. That joy may not be felt as deeply by the reader if Scrooge would have had to wait a whole year for the next Christmas to come around. We would have let our minds wander through all of the events he had to go through, throughout the year, and the softening of his heart toward Christmas wouldn't be as fresh in our minds.

I don't know if it was something like senility softening his heart or if it was the glimpse of the future showing that no one was sad to see that he died, yet some rejoiced in the fact. I know it would make me change my ways if I had a glimpse of the future and saw only relief that I was gone!

I love the way Dickens had Mrs. Cratchit saying that the color of her needlework hurt her eyes instead of saying that she was crying (Or trying not to cry), to be strong for her children. It showed strength on her part, where alot of the women in Dickens' books are portrayed as decorative fluff - for lack of a better term.

Your thoughts on the influence 'time' has throughout the book are very interesting Lanni. As I see it, the whole dream or visitation, if you prefer, has to take place on Christmas Eve and the reformation of Scrooge's character completed before the next morning to have the desired effect on Dickens' readers. It's the reason why the whole story works so beautifully, as babymoo points out.

The timing is important because Scrooge had hardly given a thought to Marley since he had died 7 years previously. However, the two gentlemen seeking a charitable donation for the poor and homeless had mentioned Marley by name on Christmas Eve, the anniversary of his death, and had 'invoked his spirit' as it were, at least in Scrooge's subconscious. They had confused the two and for the first time we see the similarity between the personalities of Marley and Scrooge.

The most powerful point that Dickens makes in the book for me is where Scrooge asks the apparition of Marley why he is fettered. Marley replies "I wear the chain I forged in life, I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it." Wow ... such thought-provoking words!! Can anyone read that passage without doing a little soul searching? Marley had suffered by his own actions since his death, and having learnt his lesson too late, makes a bid to save his partner from the same fate. A very strong image of repentance.

For me the dreams are all linked together by the theme of childhood. Scrooge sees himself in his youth, the two children 'Want' and 'Ignorance' and then, of course, the heart-wrenching Tiny Tim.

One thing which surprises me a little is that for a book written by a Christian about Christmas, Dickens actually only touches lightly on religion occasionally throughout the book, but strongly stresses the importance of moral attitudes as his main statement.

Izzi, I think that there are two explanations for the spirits appearing all in one night. The first would be that the whole thing is a dream. If you think about it, it is the seventh anniversary of Marley's death. Scrooge is actually asked, by one of the gentlemen collecting for charity, which one he is, Marley or Scrooge. The fog is very dense. Marley's on Scrooge's mind, so he thinks he sees Marley's face where the door knocker should be. He has eaten something that doesn't quite agree with him.. so, having Marley on his mind, Scrooge dozes off and dreams Marley's ghost. In the dream, Marley tells Scrooge about all the three Spirits. Scrooge rouses up, goes to bed and actually sees, all in one night, the three ghosts. He wakes up--it's Christmas morning!

Or, my favorite explanation, and the way I like to think it happened, Lanni, is that it all happened literally. Scrooge sees Marley face, dead as a door nail, instead of the door knocker. He sees Marley ghost all bound up in the chain of cash boxes, and the three spirits are real. The way I think it happened it one night, is that time, as we know it, does not exist in the spiritual world. Therefore, Scrooge could travel with the Spirits to the Past, Present, and Future, because time has no meaning to them, therefore it's irrelevant to Scrooge's sense of time.

Anyway, that's my thought. I'd love to be in the room get Stephen Hawking and set a load of theoretical physicists loose on this time problem. They'd probably told Scrooge to avoid meeting his grandmother at all costs whilst time travelling in the future--or he might just invoke the dreaded Grandmother Paradox.

What I had not realised until recently is that Dickens was largely responsible for the revival of Christmas customs in England at that time. People had been streaming into the big towns and some had left their village/ countryside homes , and with that all their sense of family, therefore Christmas, was getting lost.
There is a story that someone broke the news of the death of Dickens to a young barrow-girl. She reacted with tears and said something like ."Dickens is dead? Does that mean Father Christmas will die too, now that he has gone?" Such, apparently was the influence that Dickens had over the common people then.
A bit like TV series affect us, it seems that each episode of his works was eagerly awaited. There was an uproar when Little Nell was about to die, and people waited anxiously for news when the paper was due.
On re reading his works, as we have been doing, I am not a bit surprised that people were spellbound by his words. However many times I have read A Christmas Carol, I have not been able to put it down until I had finished it.

Hi! I'm new to the forums but not new to Dickens. I've been enjoying Jazz's Pickwick quizzes and he suggested I join the discussion. When I was little my mother read Dickens to us. A Christmas Carol was an annual tradition. Dickens has become a lifelong interest for me with frequent re-readings of his books and short stories. Each reading brings to light some new facet of story and character. I am also very interested in Dickens himself and what a completely contradictory character he was. So, I'll head to my shelves for another reading of A Christmas Carol and jump in. Cheers. Beth