26 December, 2001
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
Ill. Arthur Rackham
1843
147 pp (HC)
It was Christmas, I was in the mood for something Christmassy, so I unearthed this old chestnut from my parents' basement, where it had been relegated when they cleared out my old bedroom. It had suffered a little water damage at some point, but is still in pretty good condition.
Anyway, I last read Dickens in, like, ninth grade, when we read A Tale of Two Cities in English class. I really didn't like it; it struck me as overly melodramatic, with flat characters. I'd read A Christmas Carol earlier, when I was even younger, and thought that it had a neat plot (although of course I already knew the story).
Reading A Christmas Carol again was interesting, in that it gave me a chance to re-evaluate Dickens. The characters are, indeed, two-dimensional, and the plot (which everybody knows) is as melodramatic as they come. Thing is, I enjoy melodrama a lot more nowadays than when I was a teenager, and thought everything was oh-so-serious. And, something I completely failed to appreciate was Dickens' prose. It's very droll, and he has a great turn of phrase:
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.
Anyway, the story is so well-known that it's practically a cliche, but the reason it's so well-known, I think, is that it resonates with so many people. After all, there have always been more poor people than rich people, and we often wish that the stingy rich ones who care more about money than people (hello, CEOs of international mega-conglomerates) would realize the errors of their ways, and try to use their power for good. The message is particularly pertinent in today's economic climate, when companies are failing, and the major executives make out like bandits, while the workers get screwed.
I also like the idea that there is one time of the year where everybody puts their troubles aside, and celebrates the happy things in life, no matter how small. It's what I think Christmas ought to be, even if in reality, it doesn't always live up to the ideal.