A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

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A Christmas Carol “Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! A squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire.” “Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!” as his Nephew bid him a Merry Christmas, and those two words encompass the feelings of the truly miserly and miserable Ebenezer Scrooge. A man of such unimaginable bad will that ...
...coal in the fire at a time. A man that sees Christmas day as little more than a poor excuse for picking a mans pocket every twenty-fifth of December, and warns the aforementioned Cratchit that he had better be at work all the earlier come Boxing Day if he is to have the whole of Christmas Day away from work. Yes, it’s fair to say that Scrooge kept Christmas in very much his own way – by simply ignoring and berating it completely, he ignored his Nephews ... Read review

Advantages: Great story and message, great for Dickens fans.
Disadvantages: I found Dickens' writing tiresome once again.

“Bah Humbug!” has become a famous catchphrase. Scrooge has become famous as well. If you’re tight-fisted or if you’re a bit of a party pooper you’re jokingly nicknamed Scrooge. Well, where did the two famous sayings come from? Well, Dickens’ A Christmas Carol of course. One of Dickens’ most loved novels holds these two famous sayings and is as famous today as it was back then. Even though A Christmas Carol ...
...as his other classics. In a recent survey (on the web) out of all of Dickens’ work only 1/5 had read A Christmas Carol. This isn’t a lot considering 1/2 had read Great Expectations. It seems that A Christmas Carol, although loved by many and known by almost everyone, isn’t a novel that people consider reading. So, after seeing this odd fact I set out to read one of Dickens’ most famous work, and least read novels… Whether ... Read review

Advantages: Everything - the wit and intellect, the style, the story.
Disadvantages: Perhaps just not long enough.

...I begin the review, here's a brief side-note just to say how good it is to begin writing again on Ciao. It's been a good long while since I did my last review and I feel a bit out of date, but hopefully it shouldn't take too long to get back into the swing of things. Seeing that a new review of 'A Christmas Carol' hasn't been written in a couple of years, I thought what the hell... I'll give it a shot. It is, after all, the most well known and successful ...
...turned down? You have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate.' **The plot...** For those who don't know it already, here's a brief over-view of the plot. 'Marley is dead', as the first line so readily points out. In life, he was the partner of the notoriously cruel, tight-fisted money lender, Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge is a miser - rich, but morally bankrupt. A young clerical worker by the name of Bob Cratchit works for him for extremely low ... Read review

Advantages: A really beautiful story, about Scrooge's past, present and future.
Disadvantages: A little bit boring story.

...outcome of his skinflint ways. A Christmas Carol is not so much a Christmas story but like for New Years. This story can influence us in changing ourselves, if we want this year's resolutions to actually mean something, we need to go through an Ebenezer-like process. For me the past for its lessons, search the present for its patterns, and project where those patterns will lead us in the future. And if the patterns lead to sadness, those patterns ... Read review