A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of A Christmas Carol
Book Review: Christmas Carol Review
Summary: 5 Stars
The book was delivered on time as promised and arrived in great shape. It was a present and was given to the individual who used it to make a book review of his class.Book Review: Christmas Story Classic
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read this story before when I was younger. I like the way this book is formatted though. Its a easy story to read and understand. I like how it gives a message of appreciation to the simple stuff in life and to not take everything for granted. I really love reading this during the holidays.Book Review: Even the Blind Mans Dog avoided Scrooge!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the most heartwarming story EVER written about Yuletide, the story is truly magical. It captures the very essence of what Christmas is all about.
I like to start reading it every December, just to get into that "Christmassy" mood, it's a lot more effective then "Bottled" Christmas spirits.
But let us not forget as the author is at pains to point out;
Marley was dead,.... to begin with.
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"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."
"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarsfish stature.
"No. Your past."
(One of many simple but great lines, that stay with you when you've finished.)
Reading this story certainly changed my life, and saved me the need for three visits!
"God bless us everyone".
Book Review: Ghosts of Christmas
Summary: 5 Stars
"A Christmas Carol" is not just A Christmas story, but one of THE Christmas stories -- not only is it instantly recognizable by pretty much everybody, but it's relentlessly copied and spoofed in countless Christmas specials. But taken just by itself, Charles Dickens' yuletide novella is a pretty bleak and bittersweet affair, with brilliant imagery and lots of ghostly weirdness.
Scrooge is... well, a scrooge -- a professional miser who hates Christmas, goodwill, charity, puppies, kittens, his relatives, his employees, and virtually everything else except money.
And on Christmas Eve, his dead partner Jacob Marley comes back, wrapped with supernatural chains, and claims that Scrooge is doomed to the same fate. But he has a chance at redemption: three ghosts representing will visit him that night, taking him on a guided tour of Christmases past, present and yet to come.
So Scrooge is transported on a trio of hourlong trips through time. The childlike Ghost of Christmas Past takes him to his bleak childhood, when he was less jaded and hard. The jolly Ghost of Christmas Present takes him to people's homes on the very next morning, specifically of of his nephew and the poor miner Bob Cratchit. And finally a Ringwraith-like spirit gives him a glimpse of Christmas years in the future... a bleak and terrible future, unless he changes his ways.
You can read plenty of symbolism into a story like "A Christmas Carol"; I've heard speculation about Dickens' father, the Industrial Revolution, spiritualism, and all sorts of other stuff. But at its heart, "A Christmas Carol" is the most powerful when appreciated for its story alone -- a story about a greedy, miserable man who redeems himself by learning to love all humanity.
Dickens' writing is utterly brilliant here. Most of the book is bleak, grimy and painted in shadows, with Dickens only rarely holding back from showing the dark situation of England's poor. A great example is the symbolic children Want and Ignorance ("a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds"). As for the Grim-Reaperlike third ghost, it's the stuff of nightmares.
But all isn't dark here. Occasionally Dickens splashes it with moments of crystalline brilliance ("It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and... its dress trimmed with summer flowers"). And as dark as the book is, Dickens offers hope for the future.
He also does a brilliant job with 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." Having worked hard to make us hate Scrooge, Dickens then deftly displays his skill at slowly revealing how Scrooge became who and what he is, and slowly redeeming him.
Charles Dickens created one of the greatest Christmas stories with "A Christmas Carol" -- bah humbugs, merry Christmases and all. God bless us, every one!
Book Review: God bless us, every one.
Summary: 5 Stars
Ebenezer Scrooge is a bitter, miserly old man who is visited by the ghost of his old partner, Jacob Marley. Marley warns Scrooge that three ghosts will visit him and give him one last chance of redemption.
The three ghosts of Christmas (Past, Present, and Yet to Come) convince Scrooge to change his ways and to rediscover the kind and generous man he was as a young man.
A true Christmas classic and the only Dickens novel that I LOVE.
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