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.

A Christmas Carol and its Adaptations

A Christmas Carol And Its Adaptations by Fred Guida, is a book I recently finished reading. I first learned of this book on Mr. Guida's site, Charles Dickens On Screen. This is a tome he authored himself, and it is almost unbeleivably comprehensive in regard to Carol adaptations. Every adaptation known to man is not only listed but examined, often in detail, from the very first versions known to be adapted (often plagerized) for the Victorian stage.

Given considerable attention in the chapter on televised versions are the George C. Scott version from 1984, and Henry Winkler's An American Christmas Carol from the late sevenites. This latter is notable, among other things, for taking place during the Great Depression. The point is made that oftimes the various versions of the Carol reflect the social climate and problems of their times. Clive Donner's version with George C. Scott may be seen for example as a critique of the Reagonite and Thacherite politics of its time (as can Donner's Oliver Twist, also staring Scott, filmed a couple years earlier). The Carol is, after all, a deeply mythic tale, one in which Dickens had apparently managed to actually tap into the collective human consciousness. It is a primal tale of death and rebirth found throughout religion and myth. That is why so many versions in so many places in time have cropped up, and continue to crop up, each holiday season. According to Paul Davis, author of the excellent Lives and Times of Ebeneezer Scrooge (which I also own and which Guida references) "We are still writing the Carol."

I learned quite a few things I didn't already know, including the fact that the animated Rankin/Bass feature from 1970s, The Stingiest Man In Town, was actually based on a previous live-action version staring Basil Rathbone of Sherlock Holmes fame, of all people. This version is, so far as I can tell, not available, which is a bit surprising. Sir Michael Hordern, famed actor of the british stage and cinema, actually made it into two versions, once as Marley, and the seond time as Scrooge. It's somehow strange to think of the soft-spoken Hordern as Ebenezeer, one thing Guida takes note of. The book also reveals that a sumptuous, and (according to Guida, at least) very good adaptation was filmed in France, the very same year that the famed Gearge Scott version premeired in America. This Frence version, sadly, is also not available, so far as I can tell.

The Filmography section of the book covers all versions of the Carol, and detail is given to those not included in the previous chapters. This includes all TV versions, all animated versions, all the versions that have cropped up on sitcoms at during the season over the years, and even "versions" that should perhaps be considered "semi-Carols." These are tales that, while clearly inpsired by the story of Scrooge, do not follow the same plot. One such film is My Little Boy, a film from way back in 1917, in which a Scrooge-like uncle disaproves of his nephew Fred's marraige. On Christmas eve the old curmudeon has a horrific dream in which he accidently kills his nephew's son, but wakes to the happy truth and as a result, becomes a a reformed man. A heart-rending film with a happy ending to be sure, though also, unfortuantely it is not avialable in any format. Also of note is a Christmas episode of "The Charlie Drake Show", a BBC serial in the UK back in the 60s. This "version" features characters from other Dickens novels, including Nicholas Nickleby, Pip and Miss Havisham from Great Expectations, and Fagin and Oliver from Oliver Twist, all of whom owe Scrooge money, and it's Bob Crachit's job to collect. I would have loved to seen this one, as it takes the "shared universe" concept to a whole new level.

In one chapter Guida deals with Dickens' other Christmas tales, and the curious fact that so few of them have been substanially translated into film. The Chimes, for example, has only recieved film treatment twice. Most unsual is that Dickens' The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain" has apparently never been filmed at all. The story, virtually unkown to the public, invloves a chemist named Redlaw who encounters his own ghostly double one Christmas eve. This particular sort of phantom is know as a fetch in English folklore. The bargain concerns Redlw's desire to forget all the painful memories of his past. There turns out to be a major downside to this, until Redlaw manages, to see the error of his decison through the wisdom of the story's most innocent character.

Why has The Huanted Man never been filmed? Well, Christmas Carol, it seems, is so mythic in its essence that its resulting popularity has apparently drowned out all of Dickens' other tales. The reference to "scary ghost stories" in the song "Most Wonderful Time of the Year" often leaves people confused. Isn't there just one Christmas ghost story? Well, actually no. Guida does mention that The Haunted Man was indeed presented in at least two stage plays in the ninteenth century, one of which featured a "flying ghost." But sadly, the plays themselves no longer exist. One may hope that this and others of Dickens' Christmas tales may some day reach the screen.

All in all, a fantastic volume for Christmas Carol fans and well worth the reading.