Reviews

The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain by Charles Dickens

izzyclouty's review against another edition

2.0

I just didn't get along with it. Little Johnny was the only character I really felt for.

annecrisp's review against another edition

3.0

3.5*

colorfulleo92's review

4.0

I wanted to listen to some short Christmas story and thought "why not Dickens?" Haven't read much of his novellas and loving A Christmas carol I wanted to give another ago. I ended up enjoying it quite a bit. Not sure why though as it doesn't have the same charm but something about it just worked for me. Maybe it was the scene with the couple giving each other a heavy angry banter just to realize how much they actually care and love another

rollingfroth's review against another edition

5.0

I really really like this story. Dickens will flatten you from time to time in between books that you might have been lukewarm on.

ed_moore's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

Dickens’ ghost novella ‘The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain’ is a Christmas tale of morality alike to ‘A Christmas Carol’ whereas is written far more poorly. It had some positive elements such as a reasonable moral message that past sorrows are important to remember as it allows us to forgive, the final line serving alike to the final moral of the story in fairy tales: “Keep my memory green”. It also had a small paragraph describing the Street Urchin in the expected Dickensian tone of pity, that such children were unaffected by the curse to forget sorrows for all they knew was the lowest life of the low, and therefore as it was the norm they knew no sorrow because they had always suffered, of which though a frequent message of his was still powerful. Lastly, the gothic and gloomy setting of the city was fitting and commendable, whereas that is as far as my praise goes as the novella in its entirety was extremely confusing. I am likely to doubt myself and assume that I have misread it but I have read some other reviews and many address the same issue. I felt that many passages and events were left unexplained, and though the tale had some leniency for this as it was supernatural, non-supernatural elements were also confusing. The scenes also felt extremely patched together, the narratives of the two families and the ‘Haunted Man’ Redlaw not being particulate associated at all. I struggled to follow the plot and was unengaged by the characters, the spirit figure was also very unexplained and therefore uninteresting as the antagonist of a supernatural tale. I feel it was a work trying to mimic the success of ‘A Christmas Carol’ whereas failing miserably in its attempt to do so.

smiths2112's review against another edition

fast-paced

3.5

13delathauwere's review against another edition

emotional mysterious reflective fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

hxnnxh99's review against another edition

emotional hopeful inspiring reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

jlink17's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

3.0

laurenjpegler's review against another edition

1.0

This is the final Christmas Book from the Vintage Classics Dickens at Christmas.

It sucks that I'm rating this so low, but, in all honesty, I have no idea what was going on in the story. As usual, I really liked Dickens' writing style. His descriptions are so beautiful; I specifically loved the opening and closing to the story when he was describing portrait of the man that hangs under the wreath of holly, watching over all of the characters. But the middle left me disappointed. If you asked me to summarise this, I'd have a very hard time. The summary online didn't help much either. I wanted to enjoy it because of the supernatural elements to the plot (as I thought it'd tie in well with A Christmas Carol), but I just couldn't understand what was going on and why.

Again, this wasn't a Christmas book to me. It was set around the Yuletide season, but it wasn't specifically about Christmas. The only true Christmas book from this collection is A Christmas Carol, as well as the short stories from the periodicals. So, I'm a little ugh about this collection as a whole.