Re-reading A Christmas Carol

I have no idea when I first read A Christ­mas Car­ol. Per­haps it was read to me. I might have heard it on the radio, if you can believe in such ancient times. Many times I have seen the British film, in black and white, with actor Alas­tair Sim who played Scrooge quite won­der­ful­ly. I took my kids to see stage adap­ta­tions of the book. I have read the book to my wife any num­ber of times. Indeed, it has been said that the best way to enjoy the book is to read it out loud. I’ll do so this Christ­mas eve.

Dick­ens wrote the book quick­ly, appar­ent­ly with­in a six-week peri­od in 1843 even as he was work­ing on a much larg­er ser­i­al nov­el, Mar­tin Chuz­zle­wit, not, in my view, one of his bet­ter efforts. As he wrote A Christ­mas Car­ol in a fren­zy, he described him­self alter­nat­ing between cry­ing and laugh­ing aloud. Still, the first draft was not per­fect. The orig­i­nal man­u­script is in the Mor­gan Library and Muse­um (NYC) and, yes, I have looked at it when it’s been put on dis­play there. Here, look at it for your­self.

When vis­it­ing class­es, I used to show kids pages from this MS by way of demon­strat­ing that even a writer of genius revis­es his or her work.

But I note that the open­ing words, “Mar­ley was dead: to begin with,” was not altered, and I think of that sen­tence as one of great brilliance.

I think the writ­ing through­out is quite won­der­ful, so deep and incise in delin­eat­ing char­ac­ter and place, while swerv­ing mad­ly — like a race­car dri­ver on a twisty course — from humor to pathos.