A Christmas Carol

Author: Charles Dickens
Genre: fiction, fantasy
Publication info: Scholastic, 1962 (originally published in 1843)
Pages: 122

You are familiar with this story. I'm sure of it. You've definitely seen an adaptation of it, probably more than one. And there's a good chance you imagine Bob Cratchit as a frog. Okay, maybe not that last one, but my point is that A Christmas Carol is deeply entrenched in our Christmas traditions.

I think that's a good thing. A Christmas Carol is a great story. But I never got around to reading the actual story until just now.

As I've said with many books before, I'd been missing out. Although the story held few surprises for me in written form, I learned that Charles Dickens is a very clever and funny writer. That might seem obvious, but this is the first Dickens work I have read, so it was a delightful introduction for me.

As an example, you are probably familiar with the opening line: "Marley was dead, to begin with." The narrator goes on to really drive the point home that Marley was dead (otherwise his appearance as a ghost would have no significance). A few paragraphs down, he says that Marley was "dead as a doornail." Have you ever wondered what is so dead about a doornail? Well, this narrator wonders that for a while. The tangent he goes on has very little to do with the story, but it made me chuckle. I can tell that Dickens really knew his language.

It was also nice to read the original story so I can know how accurate the many adaptations are. I found that the Hallmark version with Patrick Stewart is very, very close (they even work in the rambling about the doornail). But other versions that you wouldn't think to be very accurate are closer than I thought. Even Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol uses a lot of lines verbatim from the story. Who would have thought?

A Christmas Carol is a delightful story. It teaches some great lessons that are especially important around Christmastime. I'm glad it's so prevalent in our culture, and I recommend the story to anyone who enjoys the movie adaptations.