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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Dickens' Christmas Carol
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Lucrezia Spagliatoni Dayglo
Apprentice
# 16907
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by birdie
You know, I've always thought that. (Speaking as someone who is most familiar with the Muppets' version of the story). Were I Mrs Cratchit, and someone turned up with a huge, uncooked bird on my doorstep just before lunch on Christmas Day I strongly suspect my response would be along the lines of 'sod that, take us to the Ivy'.
I love the Muppets' version. I've always had visions of Miss Piggy ramming the turkey onto Scrooge's head, 'hiya!' ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Lothiriel
The fitting in the oven may not be such a huge problem -- I can't remember where I read this (maybe in notes in my edition of ACC?) -- but at that time, people would take their roasts to local bakeries for cooking. Since bread was baked in large, very hot ovens early in the day, these were available for people to roast their meat as the ovens slowly cooled down.
Yes, I seem to remember reading/hearing something like that too. Knowing Mrs Cartchit's luck there would have been no room in the oven due to late arrival of her turkey! ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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Work hard, drink hard, play hard and fall over hard.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
What turkey? It's a goose, for goosdeness' sake.
The end of the introduction with Scrooge's vision of the moneylenders eternally tied to their money boxes is the most powerful justification of the doctrine of Hell that I know.
And Tiny Tim is surely the Christ child, redeeming through this sufferings.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I try to imagine the effect a much disliked boss showing up with a turkey on Christmas Day would have on the mood of the family. I would think it would be very awkward.
Though in the book he just sends the turkey off and gets on with his day.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I try to imagine the effect a much disliked boss showing up with a turkey on Christmas Day would have on the mood of the family. I would think it would be very awkward.
Though in the book he just sends the turkey off and gets on with his day.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by k-mann:
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I also wonder about Dickens' device of the spirits that visited Scrooge. Was this something commonly believed at the time? That is, that ghosts might speak to people, that they could show people their early lives, or that people could forge spiritual chains by the actions of their lives.
Not having lived at that period, I cannot know for sure, but I highly doubt it. I fail to see the necessary link, however, between believing in ghosts and believing "that people could forge spiritual chains by the actions of their lives."
Ghosts have always been a common belief - in biblical times and surely long before.
Some aspects of this, though, have special interest for me as a Swedenborgian.
Dickens had several close Swedenborgian friends. One was James John Garth Wilkinson. In 1841 the Swedenborg Society in London presented him with a copy of Swedenborg's "Heaven and Hell". He responded with thanks, assuring them "that he will not reject the book unexamined and that it shall have his most careful and attentive consideration."
This pro forma response is probably nothing more than politeness, and it has never occurred to me that anything in "Christmas Carol", published in 1843, reflected on that book. In Swedenborgianism spirits do not speak to people, and if they do it is not a good thing, as the Bible says.
But there are several things in ACC that, now that I think of it, may have been plucked from Heaven and Hell if they were not already common ideas:
- 1. Everyone is surrounded by spirits and angels, but they are invisible to us, as we are invisible to them. While communication with spirits is a bad thing, spirits do sometimes speak to people who lead very solitary lives, as did Scrooge (Heaven and Hell 249).
- 2. By the actions of their lives the wicked "become like one bound in chains. But as long as he lives in the world, he does not feel the chains" (Divine Providence 296).
- 3. Everything that a person has done and thought throughout the course of their life is recorded in their memory. After death these scenes can be "replayed", as happened to Scrooge, to show them the turning points of their life and help them know their own quality (Heaven and Hell 462).
I had always thought that these things were standard Christianity, or according to the standard popular view, but maybe not.
It never occurred to me that the enthusiasm for Christmas, the focus on Christian charity, and the universal warmth, love and happiness associated with the celebration of the Lord's birth was out of the ordinary for the time that ACC was written. So interesting.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
As far as the problem of roasting the turkey is concerned, I thought that kind of cooking was still done over open fires.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
What turkey? It's a goose, for goosdeness' sake.
In some versions it does end up being a goose. But in the original it is a turkey:
quote:
``Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the corner?'' Scrooge inquired.
``I should hope I did,'' replied the lad.
``An intelligent boy!'' said Scrooge. ``A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there? Not the little prize Turkey; the big one?''
``What, the one as big as me?'' returned the boy.
``What a delightful boy!'' said Scrooge. ``It's a pleasure to talk to him. Yes, my buck!''
``It's hanging there now,'' replied the boy.
If it wasn't already the common Christmas practice, it certainly caught on.
But the Cratchits did have a goose in Scrooge's vision with the Ghost of Christmas Present:
quote:
Master Peter, and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course; and in truth it was something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped.
I've never had goose. I imagine it is like duck.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
As far as the problem of roasting the turkey is concerned, I thought that kind of cooking was still done over open fires.
Moo
The poor in that day took their roastables to the baker for spell in the bread oven.
The soot from the Cratchit's coal fire would have made a slow roasted fowl inedible.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
If it wasn't already the common Christmas practice, it certainly caught on.
But the Cratchits did have a goose in Scrooge's vision with the Ghost of Christmas Present:
Turkey for Christmas was an instant hit the moment it hit Saint Henry's court. In the book the family has a miserable Christmas dinner of a very small goose, and someone comments how much they would rather have turkey for dinner.
The repentant Scrooge sends them the turkey they pine after.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I think someone (John Sutherland?) worked out that was why Bob Cratchit was late into work the following day. The time it would have taken to roast a bird that size would have meant the family didn't eat until around 2 am.
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
I would think the effort Mrs. Cratchit would have invested in the goose went into the turkey instead. Depending on how early the turkey arrived, and I imagine Scrooge was a very early riser, she might not have even bought the goose yet.
One of my favorite scenes in the book is the market with all the piles of food. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
From the beginning of A Christmas Carol: quote:
"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by Three Spirits."
Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.
"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.
"It is."
"I -- I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.
"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."
"Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.
"Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"
Note three nights.
So what is with these? quote:
The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.
He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.
Then immediately: quote:
Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention.
As far as I can see, the same night as the evening he gave Bob Cratchit permission to have the next day off, not two or three days before. In fact, Scrooge doesn't even receive the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come back at his own house but when and where he is left by Christmas Present. I don't remember anyone mentioning this in my reading of commentaries. It seems like a strange gaffe. Or it must be that ghosts can squeeze three spectral nights into one earthly one.
Or it could be that Scrooge was right in the first place: these were very vivid, life-changing dreams, from the visit of Marley to that of Christmas Future caused by indigestion and inspired by the suggestive conversations with people he had talked to that day.
Oh, and one more thing. Scrooge seems to have a glimmer of generosity in his flinty old soul. He did give Cratchit a paid holiday.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lyda*Rose:
I don't remember anyone mentioning this in my reading of commentaries. It seems like a strange gaffe. Or it must be that ghosts can squeeze three spectral nights into one earthly one.
I always thought it was a central "ah-hah" of the whole story.
The spirits were able to fit three nights into one night. Celestial time is different than earthly time.
All so that Scrooge can be reformed in time for Christmas.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
You obviously have a much more poetic soul than I, Freddy.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
"What's today, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.
"Today!" replied the boy. "Why, Christmas Day."
"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They an do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can..."
No mistake. It's in the story.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
Oops. Sorry.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Originally posted by Zach82 quote:
I was under the impression that the visitations took place over three Christmases. The Ghost of Christmas Present doesn't bugger off until after a children's 12th night party.
I don't think that would work. Anyone one Christmas can have a Past, Present and Future, but if you had a series the various spirits would have to double up various manifestations depending on whether it was 'their' Christmas.
Meanwhile Tiny Tim would have been having an uncommonly lingering end even for a child of Victorian fiction.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Why can't people read the book? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte.
Marley visits Scrooge on Christmas Eve and the Spirits visit him during one night. He awakes in time with the church bells ringing for Christmas Day to buy a goose (at Leadenhall Market presumably) to send to the Cratchits in time for Christmas dinner, which he has already viewed in advance in an alternative reality.
Dickens was fairly hostile to what is often called "organised religion", but there are a whole number of significant religious references throughout the book, which are likely to be overlooked in the light of the present secular view of Christmas. When he does quote scripture in his other works, it is often very moving (Mrs Gummidge of all people in David Copperfield)
[ETA Translation link, "il n'y a pas de hors-texte" = There is nothing outside the text, please remember to translate foreign phrases - DT, Purgatory Host]
[ 27. November 2012, 05:41: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Whoops. Just looked up the book. Scrooge does send a turkey to the the Cratchits on Christmas Day. I wasn't reading the text. Apologies.
And it is Sutherland who calculated the cooking time.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Why can't people read the book? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte.
Which, being translated, means?
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We have a 2-CD set purporting to be the Patrick Stewart one-man stage play. After Scrooge's "conversion" he portrays him walking into a church and singing a stanza of a hymn. I couldn't find that in the text. Is there an ur-text out of which it was left? Or a later text that it was added into? Our book has an inscription with the date 1913.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
Sutherland suggests that perhaps Scrooge knew the turkey would make Bob late. He deliberately engineers this as a practical joke so that he can pretend to be angry with Bob before raising his salary...
Posts: 1092 | From: Hants., UK | Registered: Jan 2005
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Lola
Ship's kink
# 627
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Why can't people read the book? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte.
Marley visits Scrooge on Christmas Eve and the Spirits visit him during one night. He awakes in time with the church bells ringing for Christmas Day to buy a goose (at Leadenhall Market presumably) to send to the Cratchits in time for Christmas dinner, which he has already viewed in advance in an alternative reality.
Dickens was fairly hostile to what is often called "organised religion", but there are a whole number of significant religious references throughout the book, which are likely to be overlooked in the light of the present secular view of Christmas. When he does quote scripture in his other works, it is often very moving (Mrs Gummidge of all people in David Copperfield)
Yes - I am always in bits over Mrs Blinder and the three orphaned childern of the debt collector and her "t'aint much to forgive 'em the rent" and how he notes that in as much as it was done for the least of these she would one day find it was indeed much. Dickens mostly likes doctors over clergy but he has good and bad of both and his concern for the poor and marginalised is sincere. I believe he once tried to write a children's Bible too.
Posts: 951 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2001
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
What turkey? It's a goose, for goosdeness' sake.
The end of the introduction with Scrooge's vision of the moneylenders eternally tied to their money boxes is the most powerful justification of the doctrine of Hell that I know.
Yes: and in distress because they now wish to relieve the want that they see but have no means of doing so. A very powerful passage which is much to Dickens' credit both as a writer and as a man.
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
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We have a 2-CD set purporting to be the Patrick Stewart one-man stage play. After Scrooge's "conversion" he portrays him walking into a church and singing a stanza of a hymn. I couldn't find that in the text. Is there an ur-text out of which it was left? Or a later text that it was added into? Our book has an inscription with the date 1913.
Scrooge's activity on Christmas Day, after meeting the men to whom, the day before, he had refused a request for a gift to charity:
'He went to church, and walked along the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro and patted the children on the head...etc.'
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Interesting. Dickens may have been ambivalent about organised religion but he did rent a pew in the chapel at The Foundling Hospital and was a regular attender at services there. He supported the Hospital a great deal and lived nearby on Doughty Street.
I get the impression that he wasn't antagonistic about religion per se but just some of the kant and hypocrisy that can surround it ... which might apply to most of us I s'pose (ie. our own attitudes towards religion of whatever form and our own kant and hyprocrisy ...)
One could argue that Dickens was off-kilter in his own personal morality - viz Ellen Terry - but generally I'd suggest he was on the side of the angels.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
One could argue that Dickens was off-kilter in his own personal morality - viz Ellen Terry -.
Now there's a bit of scandal has never made it into the biographies.... One just hopes Nelly Ternan never got to hear about it.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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venbede
Shipmate
# 16669
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Posted
Ellen Ternan, not Terry. And his treatment of his wife was appalling.
However the few scriptural references in the other works are very telling. There's a very good clergyman, Frank Milvey, in Our Mutual Friend.
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Man was made for joy and woe;
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Whoops ... ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
My bad, as the Americans say.
Serves me right for posting in a hurry.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
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We have a 2-CD set purporting to be the Patrick Stewart one-man stage play. After Scrooge's "conversion" he portrays him walking into a church and singing a stanza of a hymn. I couldn't find that in the text. Is there an ur-text out of which it was left? Or a later text that it was added into? Our book has an inscription with the date 1913.
Scrooge's activity on Christmas Day, after meeting the men to whom, the day before, he had refused a request for a gift to charity:
'He went to church, and walked along the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro and patted the children on the head...etc.'
That doesn't say he sang a stanza of a hymn. Did you read what I wrote?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
mousethief, when you say in this production Scrooge sang a stanza of a hymn, what were the details? For example: Was it an empty church, he goes in, sings a stanza, leaves? During a service, he happens to stop in while a hymn is in progress, sings a stanza, leaves? Or was it indicated in the production that he attended an entire church service (or more than just the single stanza of a hymn), but they only showed the one stanza? Or something else?
How would you dramatize "he went to church"?
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
IIRC, Scrooge (Stewart) came in late during the Christmas service while a hymn was being sung. He had to politely nudge his way into a pew, and then sang with gusto. I think it was inferred that he stayed for the rest of the service.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
kant and hypocrisy
Well, yes, some have drawn connections between Kantianism and Christianity….sorry, we all make typos, but I couldn’t resist it.
(One of my university lecturers, who had a thick Czech accent, used to provoke unseemly mirth by his pronunciation of that philosopher's name).
Dickens’s Christianity was both theologically and morally loose.
He was never worried about Unitarianism, and met with one of its churches for some time.
His The Life Of Our Lord, written for children, is not only scripturally inaccurate (he describes Herodias, not Salome, as a “fine dancer”!), but contains hints of universalism (“Heaven, where we hope to go, and all to meet each other”) and Adoptianism (the infant Jesus “will grow up to be so good that God will love Him as His own Son”).
It is non-soteriological (“It is Christianity to DO GOOD ALWAYS” because ”people who have done good all their lives long will go to Heaven”), and one good thing for which a child should pray is, “Make me kind to my servants”.
He not only (almost certainly) had an affair with Ellen Ternan, but also told a friend that he would find it strange if his sons did not experiment sexually before marriage, and tried to attract some other friends down to a holiday at Broadstairs by promising to point out to them the house where the local prostitutes lived.
[ 26. November 2012, 20:26: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
mousethief, when you say in this production Scrooge sang a stanza of a hymn, what were the details? For example: Was it an empty church, he goes in, sings a stanza, leaves? [etc]
[transcribing from the mp3...]
Scrooge found himself near the open door of a church. He went inside, and for the first time as a man, he joined his voice to those of his fellow creatures in a Christmas hymn:
God rest you m... gentlemen, let nothing you dismay
Remember Christ your saviour was born on Christmas day
To save good souls from Satan's power when they had gone astray
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Afterwards, he walked about the streets...
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Dickens’s Christianity was both theologically and morally loose.
If it is morally loose to DO GOOD ALWAYS and be kind to one's inferiors, I'd say we could do with a hell of a lot more moral looseness in our churches today.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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PaulBC
Shipmate
# 13712
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Posted
mousethirf right on the mark ![[Votive]](graemlins/votive.gif) ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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"He has told you O mortal,what is good;and what does the Lord require of youbut to do justice and to love kindness ,and to walk humbly with your God."Micah 6:8
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Dickens’s Christianity was both theologically and morally loose.
If it is morally loose to DO GOOD ALWAYS and be kind to one's inferiors, I'd say we could do with a hell of a lot more moral looseness in our churches today.
Inferiors?
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Imersge Canfield
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# 17431
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Posted
Very inspiring and up-lifting thread.
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'You must not attribute my yielding, to sinister appetites'
"Preach the gospel and only use jewellry if necessary." (The Midge)
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
To a certain extent, making the book about just Christmas is to miss the point. Dickens is looking at the spirit at the center of Christmas: generosity to others and gratitude for what one has in life. Dickens hardly mentions Jesus, for he seems to have found the value of Christmas in those virtues instead.
There is much to Zach82's observation. The spirit of Christmas is not primarily a religious one--and so neither are the 3 Spirits who visit Scrooge. The legend is that Dickens saved Christmas with his story and that is debatable. But if the prevailing attitude at the time was that Christmas was just a religious celebration and nothing more, then its strength and viability would be directly related to the strength and viability of religion. Dickens, however, separated it from formal religion and focused on what I would call the true point of Christmas--Love. Love of others (as shown by reformed Scrooge's charitable contributions); love of friends and colleagues (his care of Cratchitt and wee sicko Tim); and love of family (Fred and his wife). This is what saves the celebration of Christmas
In fact, one of my favorite bits is Scrooge surprising his nephew by simply coming to be with him. Scrooge accidentally startles Fred's wife and the story adds that he had forgotten she was sitting in the corner and, if he had remembered, would never have done it on any account. He shows love to her as well even to the part of regretting that he has startled her.
Even today, around this time, it is always the fashion to start "keep Christ in Christmas" campaigns and insist that everybody get religious--but that has always seemed to me to miss the point. The point is Love. Rather than religious division, we need to keep Love in Christmas and, in so doing, we accomplish God's desire for what is God but Love? As Kris Kringle states in Miracle on 34th Street, Christmas isn't a day--it's a frame of mind. That is what Scrooge discovers and what, God willing, we all will discover.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Dickens’s Christianity was both theologically and morally loose.
If it is morally loose to DO GOOD ALWAYS and be kind to one's inferiors, I'd say we could do with a hell of a lot more moral looseness in our churches today.
Inferiors?
Don't go self-righteous on me. You know what I mean.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Even today, around this time, it is always the fashion to start "keep Christ in Christmas" campaigns and insist that everybody get religious--but that has always seemed to me to miss the point.
There is a scene when Scrooge thinks the Ghost of Christmas Present must support those pious people campaigning to close bakeries on Christmas Day, and the Ghost sternly insists they have nothing to do with him, for it would deprive poor people of a hot Christmas dinner.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hedgehog:
quote:
Originally posted by Zach82:
To a certain extent, making the book about just Christmas is to miss the point. Dickens is looking at the spirit at the center of Christmas: generosity to others and gratitude for what one has in life. Dickens hardly mentions Jesus, for he seems to have found the value of Christmas in those virtues instead.
There is much to Zach82's observation. The spirit of Christmas is not primarily a religious one--and so neither are the 3 Spirits who visit Scrooge. The legend is that Dickens saved Christmas with his story and that is debatable. But if the prevailing attitude at the time was that Christmas was just a religious celebration and nothing more, then its strength and viability would be directly related to the strength and viability of religion. Dickens, however, separated it from formal religion and focused on what I would call the true point of Christmas--Love. Love of others (as shown by reformed Scrooge's charitable contributions); love of friends and colleagues (his care of Cratchitt and wee sicko Tim); and love of family (Fred and his wife). This is what saves the celebration of Christmas
In fact, one of my favorite bits is Scrooge surprising his nephew by simply coming to be with him. Scrooge accidentally startles Fred's wife and the story adds that he had forgotten she was sitting in the corner and, if he had remembered, would never have done it on any account. He shows love to her as well even to the part of regretting that he has startled her.
Even today, around this time, it is always the fashion to start "keep Christ in Christmas" campaigns and insist that everybody get religious--but that has always seemed to me to miss the point. The point is Love. Rather than religious division, we need to keep Love in Christmas and, in so doing, we accomplish God's desire for what is God but Love? As Kris Kringle states in Miracle on 34th Street, Christmas isn't a day--it's a frame of mind. That is what Scrooge discovers and what, God willing, we all will discover.
Or, as per the quoted Christmas Carol - 'God rest ye merry, Gentlemen' - Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day.
That's what Christmas is about, not some Christmas movies 'Kris-Kringle-love-is-what-Xmas-is-all-about' sentimental mulch.
I speak as one whose front room is made to look like a grotto at Christmas, including a 7' tree with 200 lights on it - but if it weren't for Jesus it would be a very empty celebration indeed; even with the charitable work we do.
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"The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid."
G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Zach82
Shipmate
# 3208
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Posted
quote:
Even today, around this time, it is always the fashion to start "keep Christ in Christmas" campaigns and insist that everybody get religious--but that has always seemed to me to miss the point.
There is a scene when Scrooge thinks the Ghost of Christmas Present must support those pious people campaigning to close bakeries on Christmas Day, and the Ghost sternly insists they have nothing to do with him, for it would deprive poor people of a hot Christmas dinner.
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Don't give up yet, no, don't ever quit/ There's always a chance of a critical hit. Ghost Mice
Posts: 9148 | From: Boston, MA | Registered: Aug 2002
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Dickens’s Christianity was both theologically and morally loose.
If it is morally loose to DO GOOD ALWAYS and be kind to one's inferiors, I'd say we could do with a hell of a lot more moral looseness in our churches today.
Inferiors?
Don't go self-righteous on me. You know what I mean.
If querying the designation of other human beings as 'inferiors' constitutes 'self-righteousness', then i'd say we could do with a hell of a lot more self-righteousness.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Dickens’s Christianity was both theologically and morally loose.
If it is morally loose to DO GOOD ALWAYS and be kind to one's inferiors, I'd say we could do with a hell of a lot more moral looseness in our churches today.
Inferiors?
Don't go self-righteous on me. You know what I mean.
If querying the designation of other human beings as 'inferiors' constitutes 'self-righteousness', then i'd say we could do with a hell of a lot more self-righteousness.
Cute deflection from the gross inadequacies of your stated positions. Okay since you like being self-righteous and pretending you don't understand plain English, I will explain it in small words. I mean people who make a lot less than you, or who are on public assistance --sorry, help--, or are of a lower social class. Get it? Get it? Done being self righteous now? Care to defend your outrageous claim that his morals are loose?
No?
Didn't think so.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Gill H
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# 68
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Posted
Mousethief - I was lucky enough to see Patrick Stewart's one-man show. It's a show rather than a straight reading. The bit I will always remember is the Fezziwigs' party, where he managed to show Scrooge dancing in a ring with the other guests, purely through mime. He was giving his hand to the next dancer, then passing them - and then lowered his hand as if the dancer was a child. I really 'saw' the other dancers in my mind's eye.
Stewart's audiobook version is great too.
The Muppet version is wonderful - captures the spirit (ha!) perfectly.
And for Brits, the 'I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue' parody version is great fun.
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Mullygrub
Up and over
# 9113
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gill H:
The Muppet version is wonderful - captures the spirit (ha!) perfectly.
Indeed! I love it, too, and was dismayed when the DVD came out, sans this sweet little bit of fluff and pathos. Michael Cain's verse three gets me every time ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif)
(Actually, I'm doing a gig this week wherein I shall expose the masses to this song, lightly samba-ed up )
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Smurfs are weird. And so am I.
Posts: 634 | From: Melbskies | Registered: Feb 2005
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Hedgehog
Ship's Shortstop
# 14125
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
Or, as per the quoted Christmas Carol - 'God rest ye merry, Gentlemen' - Remember Christ our Saviour was born on Christmas Day.
That's what Christmas is about, not some Christmas movies 'Kris-Kringle-love-is-what-Xmas-is-all-about' sentimental mulch.
I speak as one whose front room is made to look like a grotto at Christmas, including a 7' tree with 200 lights on it - but if it weren't for Jesus it would be a very empty celebration indeed; even with the charitable work we do.
On the contrary, that "sentimental mulch" is what Jesus came to teach us. Celebrating Jesus without love is what would be a hollow and pointless celebration. But acting with love, even by those who have never heard of Jesus, is still touched by the hand and spirit of God. Love is the keystone.
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"We must regain the conviction that we need one another, that we have a shared responsibility for others and the world, and that being good and decent are worth it."--Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Posts: 2740 | From: Delaware, USA | Registered: Sep 2008
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Mullygrub
Up and over
# 9113
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Posted
And by the way,
quote:
Originally posted by venbede:
Why can't people read the book? Il n'y a pas de hors-texte.
quote:
Whoops. [snip] I wasn't reading the text. Apologies.
How refreshing. I'm glad to see that my previously developing opinion of you as an ungracious jerk was perhaps premature.
And ETA: what Mousethief said re: translation.
[ 27. November 2012, 02:20: Message edited by: Mullygrub ]
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Smurfs are weird. And so am I.
Posts: 634 | From: Melbskies | Registered: Feb 2005
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
plain English, I will explain it in small words. I mean people who make a lot less than you, or who are on public assistance --sorry, help--, or are of a lower social class.
I quite seriously can't think of anyone these days whose "plain English" would run to referring to such pople as "inferiors", but it does contribute a Victorian ambience for talking about Dickens - countless people would not have hesitated to use the term in his day.
quote:
Done being self righteous now?
Can't help it - it's my left-wing moral vanity.
quote:
Care to defend your outrageous claim that his morals are loose?
Mea culpa.
Genuine remorse and apologies for failing to do what I am always criticising others for doing, ie equating morality with sexual morality.
In the narrow sexual sense, there is an overwhelming case that Dickens was not only immoral but a hypocrite.
In the broader picture of morality as a whole, Dickens was, of course a moral giant.
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