A Christmas Carol: Charles Dickens

In a way it’s a good job that Charles Dickens is long dead otherwise I’d be lobbying him to grant Jacob Marley a reprieve.

Poor chap.

He’s as mean and miserly as his mate Ebenezer Scrooge but, because he has the misfortune to die first, is condemned to hell-fire and damnation while Scrooge, thanks to the interventions of the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, gets a second chance.

Normally, I don’t get so worked up about Dickens.

His episodic cliff-hangers, sometimes OTT characterisation and the interminable length of many of his novels are a big put-off.

But A Christmas Carol – shorter, fast-paced and minimal back-story – is a gem.

And, it’s easy to forget – because the story, first published in 1843, has been around so long – just how clever it is of Dickens to weave the fantastic – time travel and ghostly apparitions – into a world that is so real you can almost smell the dirt and poverty of Scrooge’s London streets.

I love it.

Review by Sue Featherstone

A Christmas Carol is available to buy from Amazon.