A Christmas Carol

The book club is reading A Christmas Carol by  Charles Dickens. Charles Dickens was a prolific writer and turned to writing Christmas stories so as to make some money. It turns out that A Christmas Carol is one of the favourites.. with things like Scrooge and Bah Humbug now being enshrined in common legends.

Charles Dickens we learn was able to write about London poverty in ways which other authors did not and apparently was able to bring out some changes through the writing. The book was apparently a catalyst for new Christmas traditions.

What was fascinating was that Dickens wrote a lot about the food and merriment.. and very little about the religious aspects. Scrooge did not get his inspiration and goodwill from going to Church and hearing inspirational hymns - but rather from people - in his youth, and the Cratchitt family and his nephew Fred with the plump girls and so on.. just how Guyanese will be inspired by Mavado and Kartel and so on this Christmas, no more Christ here for Christmas.


This is the first time I have actually read the book - even though I had seen a school play and one of the cartoons and had read of the story so many times that I started to think I had read the book. Kind of like the Bible and the Gita and to a certain extent the Koran where you hear it preached and quoted so much and you start quoting back..

Nice contrasts.. darkness and despair and cold of winter and gloom, matched with warmth and light.. and it is easy to fall into Dickens' spell. Christmas Day in Dickens time seemed a lot more lively than it does today in the UK. My favourite part is when in the possible future when Scrooge sees the men and women selling off his clothes and bed curtains.. can't see what is wrong with that, recycling and all, and if Dickens was farseeing, somebody could have sold the cadaver to medical schools - surely Scrooge would not have a problem.

I still trying to understand why this is called A Christmas Carol.. i mean, it does not have any music or so .

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