Many thanks to Pemberley for furnishing me the impulse to re-read the Christmas Carol -- I thoroughly enjoyed it.Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!
Posted by Stolzi on December 21, 1997 at 17:06:52:
Many thanks to Pemberley for furnishing me the impulse to re-read the Christmas Carol -- I thoroughly enjoyed it.
As a child, I received a book which I had for years, I think one of the wonderful May Lamberton Becker "Rainbow Classics" editions. It had three of Dickens' Christmas stories, all beautifully illustrated -- Christmas Carol, The Cricket on the Hearth, and The Chimes .
I loved the stories then too. But I've always been a bit confused about the "Spirits" Dickens chose. The description of Christmas Past is really odd, and as for Christmas Present, I always enjoyed him, of course, most of the three; but I wondered why he was not, apparently, Father Christmas, and indeed why his robe was green instead of red.
The matter of time, too, is confusing. How exactly do those three nights get packed into one? Why are two Spirits present at the hour of one, but the last one at the hour of twelve? Did Dickens have any reason for this, or did it "just happen to turn out that way"?
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