Lee Allen's Blog - Posts Tagged "charles-dickens"

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The classic Christmas ghost story of redemption and seasonal goodwill.

Ebenezer Scrooge despises Christmas and sees no reason why he should embrace the spirit of the season and wish goodwill to his fellow man. But one Christmas Eve, he is visited by the ghost of his long-dead business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley, dragging behind him the chain he forged in life, implores Scrooge to change his ways, else suffer the same damnation as him.

Marley tells Scrooge that he will be visited by three spirits – the ghosts of Christmases Past, Present and Yet-to-Come – to offer him a final hope of salvation. Discomforted by this encounter, Scrooge retires to bed exhausted – but his Christmas night has only yet begun.

As the spirits show him memories of the fixed past, events of the present, and shadows of the possible future that will come if he continues on his current course, Scrooge’s cold heart is urged to thaw and finally embrace the true spirit of Christmas.

Perhaps the most famous Christmas ghost story of all time, and certainly amongst if not the most famous of all Dickens’ works, ‘A Christmas Carol’ is a timeless classic. Originally published in 1843, ‘A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas’ was an instant success, the first and most successful of Dickens’ Christmas books. There have been innumerable adaptations for stage, film and television, but the novella itself remains unrivalled.

The book is chilling and heartwarming in equal measure, possessing a fable-like quality with its simple message of hope and caring for others, and imploring people to change for the better. Told in staves rather than chapters, it brims with classic Christmas imagery that remains with you long after reading. It is credited not only with immortalising the tradition of a Victorian Christmas, but also with popularising it, perhaps even inventing it.

We all know this story, yet never tire of revisiting it. Over a hundred and fifty years later, a tale that speaks of the woes of pride and avarice and the virtues of altruism and selflessness is as timely and significant as it was then. Humanity still has need to learn of its best qualities and put aside its worst, making this a fable for the ages and one that will doubtless be read and enjoyed at Christmas for many centuries to come.



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Miss Marley: The Untold Story of Jacob Marley’s Sister by Vanessa Lafaye

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A heartwarming prequel to Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Orphaned at a young age, Clara and Jacob Marley soon find themselves in a fight for survival on the streets of London. Jacob is determined to do whatever it takes to prevent them further suffering, striving to gather whatever money he can by whatever means required to pull them from their life of squalor and deprivation.

Through sheer will and courage, Clara and Jacob begin to build a life for themselves, finding opportunities for work. Jacob joins a bookkeeping firm and becomes acquainted with Ebenezer Scrooge – they are true kindred spirits, determined to become successful and never be without money again. As the firm of Scrooge and Marley is formed and builds, Clara struggles to come to terms with the changes she sees in her brother – their life of hardship and his newfound success have turned his heart to blackened stone.

Clara finds her own sources of joy in her life. But tragedy threatens to strike and there is but limited time for Clara to save her brother from the chains he has forged, from which he may never be free.

As the first ghost to visit Scrooge on Christmas Eve in Dickens’ classic tale, Jacob Marley is one of the most significant characters in ‘A Christmas Carol’, the catalyst by which the rest of the story unfolds. Yet we only meet him fleetingly and know little of his life aside from him having been guilty of the same sins as Scrooge, whom Marley implores to use what remains of his life to change for the better. As such, Jacob Marley remains shrouded in mystery.

‘Miss Marley’ tells of Marley’s history from the perspective of his younger sister, Clara. Both suffer the same loss and hardship, yet we witness the two paths that such torture of the human spirit can lead one to follow – Clara embraces gratitude and a greater appreciation of the beauty of life, while Jacob becomes hardened and uncaring. There is no time when these differences are more apparent than at Christmastime.

Beautifully written in the lyrical prose of Dickens’ era, this charming novella brims with imagery of the season of goodwill, while laced with heartbreak and despair – a consistently emotional rollercoaster. It engrosses from beginning to end; a touching addition to the legacy of this legendary Christmas ghost story.

The true tragedy of this work is that its author, Vanessa LaFaye, sadly passed away while writing it. Much like Dickens himself, she left her final book incomplete. Her friend and fellow writer and Dickens enthusiast, Rebecca Mascull, completed the book, capturing the spirit of the story seamlessly. The finale is evermore poignant for this.

If the legacy of ‘A Christmas Carol’ teaches us anything, it’s that, no matter how short our lives are, what we leave behind long outlives us and is born of what we hold in our hearts. Stories are immortal and, in them, their authors live forever.



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The Chimes by Charles Dickens

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A winter's tale of social commentary and moral lessons.

The chimes of the bells of the abandoned church tower ring out, timeless. One New Year's Eve, Toby, who often sets up vigil beneath the tower, is once again dutifully in place. The bells have now become a part of him; often he hears them intoning hidden messages only he appears to be able to hear.

His daughter is due to marry on New Year's Day, a union he has some misgivings about due to their financial plight. Members of the upper classes are quick to share their own thoughts on such a marriage to Toby, his daughter and her fiance, leaving them all troubled.

As the bells ring out that night, Toby ascends into the bell tower, coming across the goblins of the bells. As he experiences a vision of the future, he may come to understand the meaning of his life and of many whom surround him.

'The Chimes' is Charles Dickens' second Christmas novella, following 'A Christmas Carol'. Published the following year, in 1844, it features heavier prose and a denser narrative than its predecessor, and feels lacking in its Christmas magic. But such is the curse of creating a classic - the works that follow will be compared rather than judged on their own merits.

From the opening quarter, the bells themselves are almost their own character, haunting the plot throughout. With vivid descriptions of poverty, set against the class system, the story explores the attitudes and ingrained prejudice of society, and how poverty and suffering breed crime and injustice in ways in which the two are not the same. While life may be very different now to when the novella was written and published, the social and moral issues that thematically illustrate the story prove to be as timeless as the chimes, its core message as accessible now as ever.

Toby is a sympathetic character - something that from one perspective may make him more relatable, but on the flipside make his moral lesson more difficult to grasp (and perhaps never quite stop feeling a little unfair; he is, after all, as much a victim of society and his circumstances as the other characters in the passages used to build this world and convey its lesson). In Toby's journey, the reader bears witness to and is able to reflect on Dicken's moral message.

A fable about embracing the spirit of joy and gratitude and how showing love and being loved is being in possession of true riches, how one should find renewed faith in the goodness of humanity, take responsibility and not turn one's back on those in need; complete with goblins and spirits showing a vision of a possible future, with the bells ringing in New Year's Day to show this may not be the future that will come to pas, it nevertheless proves a somewhat bleak Christmas novella.

With 'The Chimes', Charles Dickens has delivered a subtle and restrained moral message. Goblins aside, this is a grounded, gritty view of the struggles of the 1840s and a plea that unless humanity can come together, strife cannot be overcome.



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The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Take a glimpse into the past from a festive fireside.

A tranquil family evening is interrupted by the arrival of a stranger on the eve of a local wedding.

So begins a chain of unexpected events that lead the lives of a small group of people in unforeseen directions.

Truths will finally be seen and new paths chosen in a fairy tale of home.

'The Cricket on the Hearth' is Charles Dickens' third Christmas novella, originally published in 1845. It's more light-hearted than the previous book, ‘The Chimes’, and lacks the gothic shadows of ‘A Christmas Carol’, nonetheless feeling as if it possesses less Christmas magic. It is perhaps a much more subtle depiction of the themes of love, goodwill and family that we cherish at Christmas, the pivotal day instead being a wedding day (it may indeed be subtle commentary from Dickens that such notions are not only seasonal and exclusively for Christmas, while some sources suggest this story's plot was not originally intended as one of the Christmas books).

As with much of Dickens' work, we experience the class structure of society of the time, the deprivation of the lower classes, and the social constructs and expectations - not least of all the role assigned to women in this society. The morality of adultery becomes suddenly far more grey when one did not fully have a choice in entering into marriage. It is always interesting to consider both how much has changed and also how little has changed within our societies when reading this in the 21st century.

The Christmas books tend to include events supernatural in nature or characters preternatural in origin - previously the ghosts of 'A Christmas Carol' and goblins of 'The Chimes'. In this novella, are the fairies - their appearance is fleeting, though it may be the fairy spirits which possess a certain insect and inanimate objects throughout, the supernatural elements being far more subtle. During the Victorian era, crickets were seen as a symbol of luck and finding one in one's home was believed to bring good fortune, hence the novella's title - "to have a cricket on the hearth is the luckiest thing in the world."

Though more a sub-plot, it is the story of blind girl Bertha and the fiction her father has built for her that resonated most with me - when she finds out the truth of what is beneath the veneer described to her, she sees with a clarity that sight could not give her - a perfectly orchestrated metaphor for emotion and a person's true character beneath the skin. Their relationship felt emotionally authentic and possessing a far deeper connection than that between the various couples.

As to the identity of the omniscient narrator - this is somewhat ambiguous. Perhaps the reader, or the person who may have performed the tale at a public narration? The story has the feel of witnessing a play and is also told in three acts. My own interpretation was that our experiencing this domestic drama was akin to witnessing the interactions of spirits of the past, perhaps making the narrator somewhat a Ghost of Christmas Past.

A heartwarming and whimsical domestic fable, 'The Cricket on the Hearth' makes for a short, charming read during the Yuletide season.



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The Battle of Life by Charles Dickens

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A love story of romance and family.

On the eve of a young man's departure into the wider world, a family dine together, and his young love promises to wait for him.

But on his return, he finds her vanished into the night with another man, leaving him and her family heartbroken.

All the players must navigate the trials and strife life offers, in the ongoing quest to live and do the best with the time one has.

'The Battle of Life' is the fourth of Charles Dickens' Christmas books. Differing from the previous three in that it features no supernatural phenomena, it is instead a tale of love and loss, of family and sacrifice, of change through the passage of time. The Christmas magic is far more metaphorical, felt through its themes and message, with only the second of the three parts taking place in the depths of winter, the opening events of the first and culminating events of the third taking place in the autumn.

Opening with a vivid description of an ancient battle and the changes wrought by the intervening years upon the battlefield, we are then introduced to the central characters - sisters Grace and Marion, their father and Marion's betrothed, Alfred. In its domestic and family themes and use of an omniscient first person narrator, either an unseen observer or someone telling the tale through hearsay, it feels reminiscent of its predecessor 'The Cricket on the Hearth'.

Dickens' trademark social commentary is more subtle in this novella, as we witness the unfolding events. The first part explores a philosophy of life, weaving the thread that runs throughout the story of viewing the struggles of life, including romance, as a figurative battle. Taking place across almost a decade, we witness how the plans for one's life go awry as the narrative picks up three years later, followed by an unexpected disappearance, returning a further six years later for closure, and concluding with some philosophy on time itself.

Whimsical and laced in metaphor, 'The Battle of Life' is another portrayal of Dickens' view on the truth of Christmas - of love and finding light in the dark.



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The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain: Classic literature by Charles Dickens

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A Yuletide parable of loss and love.

In the days before Christmas, Mr. Redlaw is visited by a spirit, whom he begs to bestow upon him a gift - to remove his sorrow, wrong and trouble from memory.

But with pieces of his past missing, it changes Redlaw beyond recognition. Not only that, but his gift comes with a price - that he will spread its effect to whomever he meets.

As Christmas Day arrives, Redlaw grapples with the curse he was once desperate for, praying its power spreads no further and leaves no one else a mere fragment of themselves.

'The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain' is the fifth and final Christmas book by Charles Dickens, originally published in 1848. Originally subtitled ‘A Fancy for Christmas-Time’, this is a tale told in three acts, a warning to be mindful of what you wish for, of a gift desired without full consideration of its repercussions. The story returns to the theme of ghosts of Dickens’ original classic Christmas book, following forays into goblins and fairies, and lacking any supernatural phenomena in its predecessor, but this time with a difference - the spirit being a shade of the central character's own self, perhaps his darker half, or his higher consciousness.

Probably the darkest of Dickens’ Christmas novellas, the prose is fused with stunning imagery, deeply atmospheric and composed of gothic images, some passages feeling like rich portions of tales of horror, toying with concepts such as a bargain struck with spirits who bestow our wishes at a cost, or the duality of our natures and life’s circumstances, feeling like a precursor to later stories such as Robert Louis Stevenson's ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’. Creating an intricate sense of place and contemporary society, the prose is at moments intensely bleak, with touches of humour gesturing towards farce with certain characters, and in parts dense and descriptive, perfectly conjuring a sense of the early Victorian era almost two centuries later.

At the story's centre is chemistry professor Mr. Redlaw, his benevolence and kind-hearted nature marking him as an antithesis of Ebenezer Scrooge. Lonely and grief-stricken, he desires to forget his pain. Yet, without it, his character sours, with the loss of the memory of events of his past that played their role in creating the man he is today – the gift effectively altering time, as if the entire course of one’s life is changed, creating an entirely different version of oneself. It plays well as a metaphor for aging and declining, perhaps even an observation of what we would today diagnose as dementia, or alternatively for amnesia associated with mental illness, the mind's attempt to protect itself from trauma and subsequent slow regaining of these lost pieces.

As is one of Dickens' signature components, the narrative features a supporting cast of eccentric characters from across the spectrum of Victorian society, illustrating the divide between rich and poor, the privileged and the destitute, the gift soon diffusing through this group, while a mystery presents itself with the curse proving to have no effect on some of the characters while having such a profound effect on others. The novella is primarily message driven, the moral of the story taking centre-stage over plot and character, exploring the concept of true appreciation and gratitude being found in the juxtaposition between joy and suffering - that without the latter, we can never truly appreciate the former; an observation that life and love are an entwined complexity of light and dark. For to forget one's grief, one must forget their love.

Becoming my second favourite of Dickens' Christmas books, ‘The Haunted Man’ is a thought-provoking piece of philosophical fiction, depicting the polarity of the season with its shades of dark and light, good and evil; an astute observation of society, comprised of metaphor and moral complexity. It’s a welcome return to the supernatural manifestation of Christmas magic and the concept Dickens so artfully and more distinctly developed in 'A Christmas Carol' of past, present and future co-existing during the season, also as much a time to reflect and acknowledge the ills and terrors of the world as to rejoice in its beauty and pleasures, and ultimately conveying the enriching salvation of the power of love.

While Dickens may not have succeeded in re-creating the power and majesty of his classic story in the succeeding four fables, though this a feat perhaps impossible to achieve, he once again presents an enjoyable and timeless tale with a resounding moral in ‘The Haunted Man’ - we can either allow the ghosts of our minds and memories to haunt us, or we can embrace them as part of us and our histories and seek to make peace with them.



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