Book Review: ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens
Everyone knows the classic Christmas story, A Christmas Carol. Whether you first met Ebenezer Scrooge as played by Scrooge McDuck, Bill Murray, or Jim Carrey, you can recognize his greed and selfishness from a mile away. And no Christmas is complete without seeing his transformation from a miserly jerk into the epitome of Christmas spirit. But how many of us have actually read A Christmas Carol in Charles Dickens’ original words? It might seem silly with all the movie versions that exist, but I promise you, none of them capture Dickens’ full story, and it’s a story that’s worth reading in full, at least once in your life.
[Warning: My review of A Christmas Carol contains some spoilers!]
The story we all know is a pared-down version of Charles Dickens’ novella
Charles Dickens is known for his great novels, but A Christmas Carol is just a little novella. But this tiny tale of Christmas magic has had a far greater impact than many of his longer works (no mean comments, I’m not debating this!). Even though the tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas has completely faded from the cultural psyche, A Christmas Carol persists. It is told and retold every year. Some versions have become a seasonal touchstone (it isn’t Christmas in my house until we watch Mickey’s Christmas Carol), but new versions are created every year. It’s the story itself that has worked its way into our minds, but just what is that story?
Miserly old Scrooge is so proud of his penny-pinching ways. He truly believes that he who dies with the most money wins (money, not toys, that’s important), and he doesn’t want to give even a cent of his away if he doesn’t have to. He believes this makes him a great man. But then, on Christmas Eve, he is offered a new perspective. He is warned by his old partner, Jacob Marley, who was just as greedy as Scrooge, that only misery awaits him in the hereafter if he continues to be so avaricious. Then three Ghosts come to visit him. The Ghost of Christmas Past reminds Scrooge of who he used to be. The Ghost of Christmas Present shows him the good that is still in the world, and the problems that Scrooge could be helping to solve, too. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come reveals the bleak future that Scrooge is creating for himself and others with his actions.
The visions Scrooge is shown have the effect of scaring him straight. Most movie versions cut Scrooge’s interactions with each spirit down to a scant hour, with only a couple of trips being made to change Scrooge’s heart. But Dickens knows that a man like Scrooge needs a little more than that to change, or else he would have already. In the original A Christmas Carol, each ghost spends an entire night with Scrooge, and some nights seem to stretch even longer for Scrooge (that’s why Scrooge is so amazed that it’s still Christmas morning when the visits are over). And each ghost takes Scrooge to many different people and places to make their point to Scrooge. Indeed, the Ghost of Christmas Present takes Scrooge around the entire world.
Of course, movies just don’t have the time to make so many stops, but by streamlining Scrooge’s journey, something is lost about his transformation, in my opinion. In the books, Scrooge can see just how far his influence extends and how many people he unknowingly affects (for better or worse). The movies focus on the people that he interacts with in his everyday life. Most really just focus on the Cratchit family. But Dickens knew that everyone, everything, and everywhere is connected, even if we don’t realize it. And he makes Scrooge understand that the entire world can be made better, or worse, by his choices, by showing him more than one small family. That global view is lost in most interpretations, but it is a lesson that I rather like and wish more versions would work into their telling.
The richer story of A Christmas Carol is worth reading
There are many people out there who will say “So what?” after reading that last section. Maybe modern retellings have cut out some of Dickens’ nuance, but they still get their point across, right? And maybe those people have a point. Even though most people have never heard Fred toast his Uncle Scrooge and wish him happiness, or listened to Scrooge’s servants laugh as they pawned off his possessions shortly after his death, they’ve still experienced the power of his transformation and (maybe) applied the same lesson Scrooge learned in their own lives. But look around at our society. Not everyone has gotten the message.
Now I’m under no illusion that just by reading a book, big CEOs will suddenly feel more kindly towards their fellow humans and change how they run their companies overnight. But maybe if they were presented with, and thought about, some of Dickens’ more unsettling scenarios, maybe they would think differently. And thinking differently is the first step to acting differently. Little steps can slowly lead to big changes, and suddenly we could all be living at the end of A Christmas Carol. Okay, maybe that’s asking a bit much out of a nearly 200-year-old novella, but Christmas miracles can happen…
My Rating: 9/10
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is available now! Have you read this novella before? What’s your favorite version of A Christmas Carol? Let us know @BoxSeatBabes on all social media!
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