A Christmas Carol

Love this story and the development of the character of Scrooge.

The story was greatly diminished by a synthetic voice. No true emotion or inflection in the individual characters. No sense of wonder or awe in the voices of the 3 spirits. Very much a disappointment.

One of the best-loved and most quoted stories of “the man who invented Christmas”—English writer Charles Dickens—A Christmas Carol debuted in 1843 and has touched millions of hearts since.

Cruel miser Ebeneezer Scrooge has never met a shilling he doesn’t like...and hardly a man he does. And he hates Christmas most of all. When Scrooge is visited by his old partner, Jacob Marley, and the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present, and Christmas Yet to Come, he learns eternal lessons of charity, kindness, and goodwill.

Listened to as part of Craftlit podcast. This was actually 2010's Christmas book, but I've only got around to listening to it in full now. The book has pervaded so much of our definition of Christmas that it's actually good to go back to the original text and find out what was covered.

Heather, as an English Lit teacher, gives an excellent commentary over the various chapters and manages to give a little context around Dickens, how his upbringing could well have affected the writing of the book - eg Scrooge's attitude towards the poorhouse for instance, and why the Ghost throws it back in his face.

The Narrator (from Librivox I believe) was excellent and well suited to the story

My husband has made me watch A Christmas Carol every year since we met in 2004. Over time, I’ve come to enjoy it more and more.

Recently, I joined my local library, and this book was one of the featured selections. Curious to see how it compared to the movie, I decided to read it. To my surprise, I enjoyed it even more than I expected!

That said, if I hadn’t seen the movie first, I’m not sure I would have appreciated the story as much. It’s truly a book that everyone should read.

I'm embarrassed to admit I had never read this book, and I don't believe I've ever seen a complete version of any of the traditional movies made of this book.... My family and I watch "Scrooged" every year, which is a very modernized (well, late 80s, so it WAS modernized, ha! ha!) version of the story...

I recently saw the Audible version has Tim Curry doing the narration, and it was a lock for me!

I'm so glad I listened to this. I found myself, a number of times, feeling like I would still struggle reading it in print on my own--the language is so very Old English, and without someone (Curry) saying things in just the right tone, I might not have understood the meaning. But with Tim Curry reading it in his crisp, delightful British accent, knowing exactly how things are meant to sound, and with a delightful dramatic flair, the story was so enchanting and beautiful! I hung on every word and savored this story!!! I highly recommend it to anyone who has never read it and to those who have loved it for years!!!

Five stars because everyone should read this at least once in their lives. I'd like to give it a bonus star for Hyman's art because I do love her work... unfortunately, she didn't make enough pictures for this book and they, frustratingly, almost served more as distractions than enhancements... though of course they were lovely, as usual.

I do wonder about Scrooge's ready conversion during the trip to his past, though. I guess he needed the second two visits to ensure the lesson would stick. Dickens was, after all, a master psychologist, and probably knew all about the fragility of good intentions.

My copy of A Christmas Carol also includes The Chimes, The Cricket on the Hearth, The Battle of Life, and The Haunted Man. The preface by the author, which is just a couple of sentences, intends that these are all stories for "the season" or Christmas. Three of the other stories include visits by ghostly spirits who help people discover the importance of altruism, home, and family, in a similar vein to A Christmas Carol. And the one story that does not include a spirit, has similar themes. It is a repetitive short story collection- I believe there is a reason that A Christmas Carol is the only one that we've ever heard of before, nevertheless it is a charming collection of vaguely gothic Christmas stories for those who enjoy Charlies Dicken's writing.

Listened to this as a podcast by The Cultured Bumpkin. He read the story in a Southern drawl. It worked quite nicely. A classic, surprisingly never read it before.

Yes, it is a great story. For me, though, it s tarted wonderfully and finished a bit flat. If the ending had carried as much fun and promise as the beginning, I would have loved it rather than just liking it. The "Commentaries" in the back of the book were interesting and gave a quick Life of Charles Dickens, some Thoughts and Questions for readers and teachers, some other authors' thoughts on the story and some discussion on Dickens and Drama which included the story of 'Valentine and Orson', a book by Nancy Ekholm Burkert. which was referred to by the illustrator.

This book has become part of my Christmas celebration. Reading it every year is a wonderful reminder of what we should strive to be and that there is always a chance for redemption.

Never gets old for me.

Tim Curry is BRILLIANT!!! That.is.all!

I'm amazed how much of the Muppet movie came directly from the book, including scenes I thought were too ridiculous to be real! There are also a few Symbolic and Allegorical scenes that just wouldn't float in a modern adaptation. Still, good fun, and I'm glad I finally read the original.

I've read this book a few times. I always like to read it at Christmas.

Read this one every year though I don’t tend to add books I know I’ve read plenty.

This time round it was the audiobook read by Tim Curry which I’d give a four star I think. Remarkably understated performance for Tim Curry which is probably why I enjoyed it. Still looking for the perfect audio version but this is pretty good and thankfully the character voices weren’t ridiculously over the top.

Every time I read it, I discover something new. Beyond its inspiring message, it’s just darn funny.

Great story and great narration! A Christmas Carol has been on my TBR list for more years than I can remember but I just never got around to it. I've seen various productions on TV or in movies but never read the actual story.

Audible gave away the version with Tim Curry doing the narration, last year I believe, but still I didn't listen. It took a good friend mentioning that she was listening to it yesterday to get me going. Well, that and the fact that I still need five books for my annual challenge and this was short.

I loved it. Tim Curry did a fantastic job and I even found myself tearing up three times. Yes, I'm PMSing but still...

2013, January -- No entry


2015 -- Audio Book Reading by Neil Gaiman

A favorite habit of mine is to read this book every year at Christmas. I got lucky this year and Neil Gaiman read it to me, flush with all of Dicken's own personal notes for how the piece was best performed to audiences.

Over the course of December, I've participated in an online book club called A Dickens December where Charles Dickens' classic story of Christmas redemption was released in short chunks for each day up until December 26.  I am, like most people in the English-speaking world (and beyond), very familiar with the story of the greedy and self-interested old Ebeneezer Scrooge who is transformed by spirits of the Past, Present, and Yet to Come.  Not only have I seen this story adapted into several films, but also I participated in two different stage productions in my childhood!

And yet this is the first time I've actually read the book.  The adaptations tend to get it right, adding embellishments more than leaving anything out.  The big thing about reading the book though is seeing Dickens way with words.  I've included several of my favorite passages below that show Dickens' talent with a turn of the phrase.  As always it's nice to revisit something familiar and see it in a new light.

Favorite Passages:
Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.



The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.



Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!



"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!"



He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were.



Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!



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 isn't Christmas without a bit of Dickens and this audio edition narrated by Hugh Grant was just excellent.

Occasionally derailed by Curry's hyper-camp

My annual reading of A Christmas Carol. I always enjoy watching Scrooge change his ways. This time I picked up some new things that Scrooge says and does. Didn't expect that after all these years of reading it. Worth reading. The Christmas season would not be complete without reading this.

What a classic Christmas story!

It has been a very long time since I read the book and I wish I had re-read it before now. I am sure everyone knows the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, so I will not go into a long drawn out review. However, I will say this: it is better to be a giving spirit than to be a "scrooge" as having the spirit of Christmas makes you feel better as a person.

Loved this book once again and I will have to make it a Christmas tradition to read it every year from now on. Five "Christmas" stars!

Loved the book. Wonderful story.

For something that's had a thousand adaptations, the original holds up very well. Short and sweet and sentimental.

Christmas may be just another day for avaricious Ebenezer Scrooge, but perhaps he’ll change his mind when the ghost of Jacob Marley, his former business partner [dead some seven years] comes to visit. If not, perhaps the three spirits of Christmas will bring about some changes.

And, although his clerk, Bob Cratchit, has Christmas Day off, it was a grudgingly-granted concession from Scrooge to conform to social custom.

Can Ebenezer change his greedy, selfish ways or is his fate already decided?

=========

This novella, originally published in December 1843, has never been out of print. Themes of the narrative concern redemption, change, and kindness. In the unfolding story, the author also addresses the treatment of the poor, especially children. Tiny Tim, evoking sympathy with the reader, provides a platform for the author to speak to the need for charity without alienating his audience.

Widely translated, adapted for both the screen and the stage, the classic story is timeless; here readers can appreciate the author’s eloquent tale of kindness. Dickens advocated family gatherings, a special meal, and generosity of spirit as the focus for Christmas, all of which remain part of the celebration of the season. With its focus on the true spirit of the holiday, readers will find much to appreciate here.

Highly recommended.

The classic book presented as it originally was. The story of deep humanity is my annual favorite read.

This originally appeared at The Irresponsible Reader.
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WHAT'S A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE BY TIM CURRY ABOUT?

Yeah, just kidding. We all know.

SO, WHAT DID I THINK ABOUT A CHRISTMAS CAROL: A SIGNATURE PERFORMANCE BY TIM CURRY?

Really, all this post needs to be is: "Tim Curry read A Christmas Carol" and include a link to purchase. What else do you need? That's pretty much all I needed to read from this post by Bookstooge.

But let me say something about the narration—it's good, it's really good. It's also not what I expected, at least not fully.

I think I went into it anticipating an almost-over-the-top performance, whatever the audio-equivalent of a scenery-chewing showcase of Tim Curry excess. Which would have been delightful, make no mistake. Curry's got one of those voices that would've lent itself to such a thing and I'd have made it an annual listen.

But no, Curry's a pro. And he shows that here. He treats the material with respect and gives just the right emotional weight, sentimentality, personality, and life that the text and characters call for.

One line reading, in particular, made me chuckle (and came as close to what I anticipated as anything does):

“You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost, “by Three Spirits.”

Scrooge’s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost’s had done.

“Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?” he demanded, in a faltering voice.
“It is.”

“I—I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge.


I chuckled at that last line and went back to listen to it a couple of times.

This is just what I needed—did it make my heart grow three sizes that day? Nope. Too much of that moralism-disguised-as-Christianity so typical of Dickens and his era, this work will never have that effect on me. But it's a nice dollop of holiday spirit, and sure to entertain anyone who gives it a listen.

I reread a Christmas Carol with the holidays poised to start, for me the first thought of the holiday's always begins with the Macy's Parade. Anyway while reading I came to Negus and being unfamiliar with the word,I just had to look it up and found the following recipe.


from Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, originally published in 1861:

1835. INGREDIENTS - To every pint of port wine allow 1 quart of boiling water, 1/4 lb. of sugar, 1 lemon, grated nutmeg to taste

.Mode.—As this beverage is more usually drunk at children’s parties than at any other, the wine need not be very old or expensive for the purpose, a new fruity wine answering very well for it. Put the wine into a jug, rub some lumps of sugar(equal to 1/4 lb.) on the lemon-rind until all the yellow part of the skin is absorbed, then squeeze the juice, and strain it. Add the sugar and lemon-juice to the port wine, with the grated nutmeg;pour over it the boiling water, cover the jug, and, when the beverage has cooled a little, it will be fit for use. Negus may also be made of sherry, or any other sweet white wine, but is more usually made of port than of any other beverage.Sufficient—Allow 1 pint of wine, with the other ingredients in proportion, for a party of 9 or 10 children.

Kids most have had some wicked hangovers, wine always used to give me a splitting headache if drunk in quantity.

This is the best thing Dickens ever wrote. It shows that it was the only thing that he wrote because he wanted to tell the story instead of getting paid by the word.