2022: Even though we stopped celebrating Christmas two years ago, I'm still reading through this every Christmas week. Ha! It has a good message that should be applied every day.

This time through I focused on humor. Dickens is stinking hilarious. The entire exchange between Scrooge and Marley is super funny---especially considering how terrified and curmudgeonly Scrooge was at the time. The last stave is also super funny. Additionally, I loved these quotes:

"Marley's face...had a dismal light about it...like a bad lobster in a dark cellar." WHAT?!! Hahaha! Has anyone ever experienced a bad lobster in a dark cellar? Do lobsters give off dim light?

"Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now." (This page also contains the "shade" joke)

"'What has he done with his money?' asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey cock." WHY??? Hahaha! There is absolutely no reason for this very minor character to be described thus, other than to just make us laugh. I love it.

And finally, I loved this quote that just really gives off the attitude of "shove-itousness" that Dickens seems to often take:

"Some people laughed to see the alteration in him (Scrooge), but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter at the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms."

Love it. Timeless lessons to be learned. As a friend said to me this morning, "Merry Everyday Christ!"

2021: This year I thought, "Ah, I should talk a little about two specific parts that always stand out to me: the fireplace tiles and the quote about 'Standing in the spirit at your elbow'..." Welp. Guess this review is just a rerun of last year's. Ha! Love this story. This is the first year we've not celebrated Christmas. Am I now a Scrooge???

2020: I read through A Christmas Carol this last week---it was wonderful, as usual. This year I paid special attention to a few things that were endearing to me:

The fireplace tiles: I love how they illustrated different stories from the Bible. I bet it was beautiful and I'm curious where Dickens saw these or what gave him the idea to include them in his story.

"I am standing in the Spirit at your elbow." Every. single. time. I read that, I look to my right and imagine him there. I wonder how far into future history he imagined his stories would go. I thought about that today as I laid in my 21st century bed in a little village in the American South thinking about this man who wrote the story 170 years ago somewhere in England. Fascinating.

I loved thinking about how Scrooge didn't seem to ever care about how people viewed him, but at the end of the story, it's a good thing. "Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him."

It has that distinctive ring of not casting one's pearls before swine...good for you, Scrooge!

2018: Each time I've read this book, I've only read the first story, A Christmas Carol. After finishing it, for the fifth time, a few days ago, I thought I'd give The Chimes a try.

My Dad once told me (about 16 years ago) I couldn't live on love (in a conversation in which he was berating my husband for not going to college yet). He was SO wrong. Trotty Veck finds this out in this spooky New Year story and, like Scrooge, has a second chance to change his ways.

I found the story to be a little convoluted but I think it will grow on me over time. I'll see how I feel about it next year. ( )

A Christmas Carol—

This is the second time that “Goosecap” has read A Christmas Carol, although I don’t know how many more years I’ll read it, you know, the newspaper novel being to the 19th century what the television series is to us, and they are not entirely dissimilar, as much as I distrust our visual culture, and as much as I don’t want to do the academic equivalent of Scrooging it out of the park—as, I don’t know, simplistic as the story is.

So last year (2021) I read it, and I mostly noticed the good things: the nephew, really, who I still think is good, and not impossible. But I also notice now the way he works with women, basically making them the foil; always the foil, and never the center (and indeed kinda the foil to the foil, as far as the nephew goes). Though I suppose here it is good to distinguish the (soft-core) sexist from the (hard-core) misogynist or woman-hater, you know. I mean, I’m not “The Feminist” if that’s the feminist partisan, you know. I’m more of a reformist.

There are other things about the book: it’s a ghost story, and a ghost-story for Christmas, and so not unlike ‘The Nightmare Before’ the same. But as much as there is a spiritual element to even a muted horror story, the really standing-out feature of the text is its place in the initializing era of the commercialization of Christmas. It’s basically: don’t be a boar, spend some money, have a good time, and as such is pretty much equally relevant to the 2020s as it is to the 1840s, you know.

…. The Chimes—

The Chimes is a shade more social than the Carol, but it’s a strange little book. I guess that Dickens’ day was the age of the white working class liberal, and I guess some Trump people today might not mind an all-white liberal cast, no coolies, thanks, you know. I don’t know; I don’t always like the way things used to be. That so many people today are not unconditionally conservative, despite the bluster, and obvs not unconditionally liberal, but rather unconditionally white…. I don’t know. I don’t know about you, Buddy.

I mean, in a way, parts of it are good. I agree with Charles that for the rich man to be the Friend of the Poor would have been nice had he meant it, and it’s not so surprising that he didn’t mean it. But I don’t know. So radical in your own case, and so negligent in the non-Englander’s case, ah, I don’t know about you Charlie, I don’t know….

…. The Cricket on the Hearth—

I’m not sure how I feel about Sentimental Charles and the Folksy Christmas story, you know. “That’s the thing about young ladies, they are ALL so bloody clever!” “There’s Sentimental Charles for you, reducing the collective IQ of the county.” “Oh, you’re So Proud, *now*, Fitz, So Proud, *now*.”

I mean, I don’t know. I thought those HomeGoods signs that say that Santa Wants Beer or whatever were totes modern, so it was instructive that Charles depicts one of his people drinking beer at Christmas time, you know. Then again, when it comes to HomeGoods and its kitschy drinking signs, do we really want to feed the beast? 🐗🤨

I did like this line: “Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her, when everybody must, who knew her? Never….” Takes me back to my once-upon-a-time unhealthy obsession with *Jane Bennet*, you know….

Let’s see, what else….

I mean, it’s simple writing. I guess in any story there’s probably a LITTLE terror, you know, if you’re invested in it—“oh no, the baby dinosaur is going to die! The alcoholic father dinosaur isn’t going to save it” 🥺—so I mean…. At least it’s a story, and not gossiping, right. I don’t know. It’s obviously not Jerk Apatow and the 21st Century Stereotype, you know, it’s a…. *fake British accent* It’s a little, Victorian…. Right…. No, Right-*O*….

I mean, Big ole Charles D is usually pretty formulaic, you know, but I think if you can have a sense of it having a certain sort of distance from real life, like all fiction, to some extent or another, right—I don’t think it’s really *harmful*, you know. I mean, some people Believe in his Andrew Lang crap because it’s the most non-threatening religion, at least to its core constituents, right, and some people are like, The Blind Girl itches that shitty itch they have for disabled sentimental girls! —Yeah. Yeah, you could say that right. —And that means, girls aren’t Allowed to be blind anymore! What do we want, Sight! When do we want to see it, Now! Come on, bitch! Into the streets! Vive la revolution!

And it’s like, *well*…. 🤷‍♂️

I mean, it’s a very credulous story. Christmas is a very credulous time of the year, for some people…. I just try to guide them into the Light. Put down the gun, bro; shit’s gonna be ok. 😎🤓

So let’s review: blah blah blah I’m a liberal, blah blah blah “liberal/conservative” blah blah blah “fascist sympathizer” blah blah blah “Skater Mike has been on the staff of IndieBeat since high school. In ten years, he’ll be old, though. Ditch him while you can, girls—he won’t be the youngest generation forever!” 😂

"En julsång på prosa har utgjort en omistlig del av den engelska jultraditionen sedan den kom ut första gången 1843. Sagan om den elake enstöringen Scrooge som under själva julnatten förvandlas till en god och givmild människa förmedlar en intensiv julstämning med doft av brasa, julträd och kalkon.
Julberättelser ger i koncentrerad form allt det bästa hos Dickens: den genuina Londonatmosfären finns här, liksom ett pittoreskt persongalleri, värdigt Pickwickklubbens författare."

A wonderful trio of stories to read during the Christmas season. A Christmas Carol is well known, the other two not so much but they should be since both deal with similar aspects of A Christmas Carol. ( )

A Christmas Carol; The Chimes; The Cricket on the Hearth