Scroogey Thoughts On A Christmas Carol

Reading A Christmas Carol, I can see why people who don’t like Dickens don’t like Dickens. It plods to its conclusions like a powerpoint.  It’s sentimental and moralistic. And, yes, there are the overelaborate metaphors, the show offy lists.

And then there’s this:    

Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good upon change for anything he put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.
    Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I think I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

I am familiar with this style from my college days. I didn’t study it; I practiced it. It is what happens when you have three pages of material for a five page paper and it’s two in the morning.

But then, in Saint Paul years later. you you get a phone call from a friend who will say, “It’s really nasty out. I think I saw Albert actually pulling Ellen across the street because he wanted to come in” and then you will look down at the Dickens and see the phrase “misanthropic ice” and remember that you are someone who loves Dickens.   

Comments

[Mandy]

It's an unforgettable passage. One of my grade school teachers would turn off the lights and read it to us by flashlight.

[Carolyn]

First of all, I can't believe you're reading A Christmas Carol. Secondly, I love this meditation on Dickens. Most of all, I love the way Dickens draws a character. Oh, thirdly, I used to practice that style of writing, too!

[Kootch]

I'm one of those who don't like Dickens. But oddly enough, I do like A Christmas Carol; it's the only Dickens I do like, but it's probably not so much for the writing as the story. Which, in itself, is also odd, 'cause I'm not that big on the whole Christmas season (I can say that without fear of reprisal now that it's the 28th, right?). Scrooge is one of my favorite Christmas story characters (along with the Grinch) -- until the ending when they come around.