Laura Admin
Number of posts : 2387 Age : 38 Location : Germany Dictionary Definition : Laura: Also known as "Solveig", her internet pseudonym, this female specimen of Homo Sapiens founded the Literary Cabinet world. One can spot "Laura," by the fun she has grading papers and drinking coffee, with triple coffee consumption ever since she quit smoking. Like another species, Homo Sapiens Zarasahanous, she enjoys picking at the extreme Twilight fans. This specimen is particularly fond of procrastinating, as most of the other species of the Literary Cabinet Universe are. Registration date : 2008-12-02
| Subject: Re: Group read? Thu Dec 30, 2010 7:04 pm | |
| I definitely prefer it to "Oliver Twist", which I happened to read in the same week I read "A Christmas Carol". The language appears to be smoother, more elegant, and also more precise. Precision in language is always very important to me; I cannot stand writers who continually use weak verbs like "say", or, even worse, weak adjectives. But in the novella, Dickens avoids that trap to my fullest satisfaction.
If there is something annoying about the story, it is that it has been reproduced so many times. Each and every comedy series of the 80s, 90s and early 21st century (or so it seems) has done an episode in which someone meets three ghosts and blablabla. (Remember the Roseanne episode "Halloween IV"? Well, I do. I don't think my IQ has fully recovered yet.) But of course, that is not Mr Dickens' fault. He could not know that modern society's TV makers had only one chance of getting their viewers acquainted with literature: by adapting it into stupid comedy. I mean, I like "Roseanne" as much as the next person, but that particular episode was horrendous.
Back to the novella in question. I absolutely loved the introduction, it had that twist of English irony that makes Victorian literature so wonderful. After that, it quickly became a bit cheesy, but after all, it is a Christmas story, and therefore by its very definition has to be cheesy at some point. I particularly hated how Tiny Tim was introduced into the story. Every word of the chapter was designed to be tear-jerking, which always stops me from developing any connection to the characters at all.
I loved the way Scrooge's nephew was portrayed. He wasn't black or white, he was a real character, with a good heart, but some real flaws, too. He gave the story some much-needed authenticity. In a way, I believe it is his character (and his character alone!) that distinguishes the novella from a pure fairytale. Apart from him, there are only really bad people (Scrooge and in a way Marley), and really good people (Tiny Tim's family), and of course supernatural beings. To me, that sounds much like the ingredients of a fairytale. But thanks to Scrooge's nephew, there is actually a connection to real life.
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