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A review by trish204
A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books by Charles Dickens
5.0
Every year in December I read this classic of all Christmas classics. This year, I decided to give one of the audio versions a try. This particular version is read by Tom Baker.
The story should be well known to everyone, but just in case:
There once lived an old man named Ebenezer Scrooge, who was a wealthy but very grumpy and arrogant businessman. He just wasn't into anything nice and especially not the jolly Christmas spirit. In fact, he even wanted all the other people to be as miserable as he was. So in order to teach him a lesson, he was visited by three spirits: that of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas-Yet-To-Come. And boy, did they teach him a lesson! It's a metamorphosis story if you will, infused with all the good things we've come to associate with this time of year (from snow, to carols, right down to feasts).
One of the most amazing facts is that this book basically gave us everything we hold dear about Christmas. Dickens was quite in debt when he wrote it in 1843 but his publisher refused to run with A Christmas Carol. Thus, Dickens used what little money he had to self-publish the little book and singlehandedly re-invented Christmas that had fallen into disfavor thanks to lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution, by giving the people of that dreary age new cheer, warmth and a renewed seasonal spirit.
So when I say this story belongs to Christmas, I actually mean that Christmas as we know it might actually not exist if it wasn't for this book (and yes, the Christmas miracle for the Dickens family was that Charles could pay off his debt).
The story should be well known to everyone, but just in case:
There once lived an old man named Ebenezer Scrooge, who was a wealthy but very grumpy and arrogant businessman. He just wasn't into anything nice and especially not the jolly Christmas spirit. In fact, he even wanted all the other people to be as miserable as he was. So in order to teach him a lesson, he was visited by three spirits: that of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas-Yet-To-Come. And boy, did they teach him a lesson! It's a metamorphosis story if you will, infused with all the good things we've come to associate with this time of year (from snow, to carols, right down to feasts).
One of the most amazing facts is that this book basically gave us everything we hold dear about Christmas. Dickens was quite in debt when he wrote it in 1843 but his publisher refused to run with A Christmas Carol. Thus, Dickens used what little money he had to self-publish the little book and singlehandedly re-invented Christmas that had fallen into disfavor thanks to lingering Puritanism and the cold modernity of the Industrial Revolution, by giving the people of that dreary age new cheer, warmth and a renewed seasonal spirit.
So when I say this story belongs to Christmas, I actually mean that Christmas as we know it might actually not exist if it wasn't for this book (and yes, the Christmas miracle for the Dickens family was that Charles could pay off his debt).