Ebenezer: The Final Years of Scrooge

http://www.amazon.com/Ebenezer-The-Final-Years-Scrooge/dp/0981509185

This is a Dickens pastiche that I bought a few years back, and haven't gotten around to rading until now. I had read a sequel to A Christmas Carol much earlier called God Bless Us Everyone, which, among other things, untilized Charles Dickens as a character. In that case, the familair trope was used that the author used actual events  and people and fictionalized them.

Truth be told, this author does do something similar here, but the revelation doesn't occur to the end (and also raises additional questions), so I won't spoil it for anyone. As the subtitle indicates, this book is about Scrooge's final years. The author throughout manages to make the reformed Mr. Scrooge both grumpy and merry, not an easy task. We get to meet Bob Crachit's children and grandchildren, and we get to know the adult Tim Crachit quite well. The author does "cheat" a bit, unlike in "God Bless Us Everyone", regarding the line in the canonical tale stating that Scrooge "had no further intercourse with spirits." Scrooge has encounters with two possibly supernatural entities early on, one of which turns out to be a true ghost. Scrooge is visited by annoying (or annoyingly endearing) child named Jack. This scamp at first asks annoying questions, and begs to be told of Scrooge's encounter with the Spirits of Christmas, but he gradually seems to be other than what he appears. Then there is the frightening hooded enity, some like the Ghost of Christmas Future, who lurks in shadowy street corners, and later on appears to threaten both Scrooge and Tim Crachit. Tim, by the way, though having survived into adulthood, is now again having health issues, and a doctor informs him that he is soon to die...

Frankly, I found much of the middle portion of this take on Carol to be depressing. Scrooge suffers a terrible accident which leaves him dreafully disfigured, and the part about one of one of Belle's adult children blaming her troubles on Scrooge and seeking revenge is something the story could have done without. Tim slips into depression about what he thinks is his imminent death, and even seems to regret the fact that he was saved as a child. I actually felt some relief when Scrooge gave Time a badly needed wake-up at that time.

Fortunately, all does end well and happy for all in this tale at the last. I wondered for some time how the author was going to do it, but rest assured that she manages. The scenes with the reformed Ebenezer playing "pirate" with the Crachit family are heart-warming. The discription of how Scrooge feels when he again has a true supernatural experience is wonderful. A

ll in all, it's a book I recomend.