A review by elusivesue
A Christmas Carol: And Other Christmas Books by Charles Dickens

5.0

To be fair and honest, I only read A Christmas Carol, and can't finish the other stories right now because the Christmas bug has left the building, so to speak. However, A Christmas Carol was thrilling. You get so many images, sounds, and feelings in your head about that story from all of the different media versions - plays, TV movie, Muppet version, and so on... but then you put those ideas together with Dickens' superb writing... it's like rediscovering orange juice by sitting in the orchard and squeezing the oranges yourself right off the tree. Is it wordy? Yes... but in a spell-binding, descriptive way. Dickens got paid by the word, but instead of being bored by all the extra, the phrases and clauses keep layering, creating a more vivid tableau full of detail and emotion. I will definitely get the book around December to reread, and read the other Christmas stories.