A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books ~ Charles Dickens
I will admit, reading a Christmas book in January is not my normal cup of tea. In fact, it felt very weird to read a quintessential Christmas story not long after the festivities have completely finished. However, A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books by Charles Dickens is the first novel I’m due to study when I start my uni course next week (and that’s a lot closer than I am ready for).
A Christmas Carol is the first book in this collection. Everyone knows the story of Scrooge and the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, but it is entirely different to read it. Usually, I try not to see adaptations before reading the books, but it’s a little different with this story and I spent a lot of my time reading it thinking about which of the many adaptations I have watched got each bit right. Mickey Mouse’s A Christmas Carol is probably the most memorable of these adaptations and my mind immediately wanted to make Scrooge a (Mc)Duck. I really enjoyed reading A Christmas Carol, it was slightly darker than I expected, but I really should’ve expected it with Dickens.
There are four other Christmas books; the first being The Chimes. I will admit that this one confused me. I got very lost whilst reading this and found myself turning the page without having a clue what happened on the page before and having to go back and reread it. I really thought I was going to enjoy this story as I do love a good goblin story, however, I just couldn’t comprehend the plotline enough to enjoy it much.
The next book is The Cricket on the Hearth. I liked this little story about love and being kind to strangers. However, this was another story in which the influence Disney has had on my life; as soon as crickets and fairies were mentioned all I could see was Jiminy Cricket and the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio. The relationship between Dot and the Carrier was very sweet and nice to read.
The third story is The Battle of Life which is classified as a Love story and it did not go in the way I expected it to at all. I was expecting it to go one of two ways: Marion would end up with her childhood sweetheart or she would run away with the man who claimed to have fallen in love with her later on. Neither of those endings came to pass. I will admit that near the end, I got a little lost, just before the major reveal and I don’t know whether that’s because I misunderstood some of the text or just that I accidentally skipped over a couple of lines. In the end, it all made sense and was a cute little story about love.
The last story is The Haunted Man. As it was near the end of the book, I felt like the Dickensian language didn’t feel quite so foreign. I started off feeling so confident and then the plot was mostly forwarded by dialogue and I found myself grasping at understanding. For some reason, I really struggled with reading and comprehending Dickensian dialogue. I did piece together what was happening but it felt like I was doing some complex maths.
It was a little touch and go reading this book, but I feel a little more prepared for my uni course as I’ve read it before needing to study it. I’m half hoping that all we’ll be studying is A Christmas Carol. However, I can now say I’ve read the entire thing. Overall, I give it three stars. I was debating on giving it two, but I enjoyed A Christmas Carol so much that it bumped it up.
C🌙
