A Christmas Carol (1843)
Charles Dickens
This evening my wife and I watched The Muppet Christmas Carol, which is my favorite version of
Dickens’ classic tale. I have a very
deep fondness for both this particular story and the Muppets, so the combination
of the two does not get old for me.
But I try to watch or read the story itself once a year,
whether or not it is the Muppets’ version of it. I’ve read the book multiple times and seen it
scores of times, and have even written my own variation on the idea entitled “AChristmas Accounting” (the link here will not work for too much longer, but
when I find a new home for the play, I hope to remember to update the link).
It is a story that is timeless and meaningful to all
generations, and it is a story that we should continue to retell. There is a Doctor Who episode in which the
Doctor encounters Dickens, who asks him how long his books will last. The Doctor replies, as though the answer were
obvious, “Forever.” I hope he’s
right. There’s a lot that Dickens still
offers the world, and if the world will listen to him, he will continue to
offer it.
We should wonder at part of that. This is, I would argue, a distinctly
Christian novel, not meaning that it is a cheesy book written for Christians
(which is normally the sort of Christian art I talk about here), but that it
only really makes sense in a Christian worldview. It is at once refreshing that the world still
will stand for this sort of thing, as post-Christian as we are becoming, but
also worrisome that the world is missing the point.
