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Zero to Well-Read
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
01:12:50
Jeff and Rebecca revisit Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, a story so familiar it’s often mistaken for simple. They consider its moral stakes, its enduring influence on readers and society, and why Scrooge's redemption still resonates.
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- [00:01]
A
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B
Welcome to Zero to well, read a podcast about everything you need to know about the books you wish you'd read. I'm Jeff o'. Neill.
- [00:39]
A
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky. Hang on to your nightcaps, friends and get ready. We're going to take a good long look in the mirror today because we are talking about A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, big classic, more influential than.
- [00:52]
B
I had any idea, shockingly so. And we're going to talk about all that that gets into it there. We've got a couple of things to announce, Rebecca, before we get into first of all, we are doing this episode because we asked listeners to get us to 150 ratings on Apple. Kind of a Christmas challenge if you were not really in the spirit of a Christmas carol, frankly in hindsight. But you came through in in flying colors because now we are just a handful short of 500. So thank you so much to all of you for rating and reviewing the show and sharing it there. If you haven't yet and you want to get us over the edge of 500, that would be very nice appreciation thing that you could do here in the new year. Got a couple things to announce. We are launching a couple things just sort of soft launching them now. So in the new year we're going to have an associated newsletter with zero to well read. Vanessa Diaz, who's our managing editor at Book Riot, is going to help us with that. But there's going to be a send for each episode. It's going to come out on Tuesday so the same day that new episodes comes out. And it's going to be kind of a further reading highlights from the show, other things Vanessa finds our favorite quotes, have some images you can see, pictures of first editions or author portraits to really round out your experience of having a moment with this book and this author around that particular episode. Also there's a Patreon, so we're going to host a free newsletter on Patreon. But also in the new year there are going to be a couple of Patreon choices. Rebecca, would you like to tell people what they're going to be now? You can sign up for them now, but really in the new year we're going to get rolling on populating those things.
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A
Yeah. So if you want to sign up for the free newsletter, you do that by clicking the Patreon link in the show notes or go to patreon.com 02 well read. There's a little join for free button up in the right hand corner. And then also you will see these paid choices. For $5 a month you get access to early ad free episodes. So you'll get access to what's coming out in the main feed on Tuesday. You'll get it on Thursday or Friday. At $10 a month, you join the office hours level, which in addition to the full ad free early episode, you'll also get a bonus episode where we're gonna do some extra conversation about that week's book. And that extra conversation will be different depending on what the book is and what's appropriate for it. But we'll go a little bit further in depth or maybe we'll talk about interesting stuff that we had to leave on the cutting room floor of the episode. Facts that didn't quite make it in. You know, we're trying to keep the main feed somewhat contained because some of.
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B
These are two hour episodes About Midnight's Children. We just couldn't all fit it in.
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A
I mean there really is like we could have done another hour about Midnight's Children. So if you want to get access to that bonus content and sneak peeks to the reading list because lots of folks are asking are you going to tell us what you're reading next? And the sneak peeks to the reading list are going to be available for members of the newsletter and the Patreon only. So check that out. Patreon.com 02 well read again. You can get the newsletter every week for free, so there is a totally free option to engage. We just want to be able to stay in touch with y', all, keep you posted about what's happening on the show. And it does give you a little bit more of a direct line to us as well.
- [03:53]
B
Yeah, the first newsletter send will be with our January 6th episode, but we're getting the infrastructure in place now. We've programmed really through May of next year. There could be some flux back and forth depending on how things go. But really excited about what we're going to be talking about in the new year and the chance to talk about more amazing books and authors that sustain us. So you can always send us an email at zero to, well read bookriot.com and if you have a chance to rate and review wherever you're listening. That's super appreciated and helps us continue doing the show. Okay, Rebecca. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It's kind of like, it's so ambient that you kind of don't notice it. And I think for both of us coming back to notice it, think about it, read about it, and then read it. Kind of shockingly influential and maybe second only to Hamlet. Of the books we've covered in sort of the influential ranking and maybe in a daily basis, maybe the most influential book we're likely to read anytime soon.
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A
Yeah, that was really surprising and funny that you mentioned Hamlet because Dickens mentions Hamlet on the first page.
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B
You start looking through sort of the canonical works and you start seeing them everywhere. Of course, Hamlet is primary amongst those.
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A
Yeah, it's. But A Christmas Carol is like all over the place. It's just in the water this time of year. Whether you're a Muppets Christmas Carol person or you're watching Scrooge or like Little Red references to the ghosts of Christmas past, Ghost of Christmas present, somebody saying, God bless us, everyone. Somebody saying, Merry Christmas. Because Dickens did not invent that phrase, but he really did a lot of work to popularize it. And this is just one of those stories that if you were raised in the us, if you were raised really in the West, I think you have been exposed to A Christmas Carol certainly in like, you know, general Christian infused cultures. Whether you're a practicing Christian or not, it's unavoidable. It was really fun to go back, I think. I read this like 10 years ago and it was really fun to go back with these eyes and read it for like, what's going on here? How does this story work? What is Dickens doing? And then to put it in larger cultural context, because I knew that it had been around for a couple hundred years, but I had no idea how influential it was at the time that it came out. Want a secret to free holiday gifts? Free. Yes. Really? It's TikTok slash and free. You pick one to three products, share your unique link with friends, and watch the price drop in real time all the way to zero. That's a free items with free shipping. Ready to try.
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- [07:42]
B
Yeah, and probably of the books we'll ever cover needs the least plot summary. But let's do a little real quick. So if you're the kind of person that doesn't know what it's about, I'd like to know how you're living. Shoot us an email at 02. Well, read that you've never encountered, even through the bare bones, maybe international. Different cultures for sure. But I'd be certainly curious to hear for someone who doesn't know at all the plot, like what they how they encountered or don't encounter a Christmas girl. So of course it's Christmas Eve. Ebenezer Scrooge. It's contemporary, I should say, with Dickens. So this is 1843. We're going to talk a little more about the writing. And Dickens himself, we should say, is contemporary with the writing of it. 1843 in London. And Ebenezer Scrooge, who is a miserly businessman. And with a name like Ebenezer Scrooge, could you be anything other than a miserly businessman? We're going to talk about Dickens names here.
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A
The introduction in the edition that I read, which was a great Penguin Classics edition, notes that Scrooge sounds both like screwed and gouged. And I was like, that's a great reading.
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B
Unbelievable stuff. So, shockingly, he is a miserly businessman. He's at work in his London's office and his business seems to be business, as far as I can tell. Rebecca, he's a business person, right?
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A
He does business, something with money and books and people owe him for things and he's got to keep track of the accounts and he has employees who are keeping their accountant pennies over there.
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B
Or whatever the Specificity of his actual job is so beside the point. He just, he does business. He keeps his office extremely cold because he is miser and doesn't want to spend money to warm it. And it's only colder out in sort of the bullpen area where his clerk Bob Cratchit is working. And he gets a series of emissaries. This is something I noticed this time the most famous is the visitations by the ghosts. But it's foretold by three real world emissaries that come to him asking things of Scrooge. And they, they go, I think in this order. Is it, is it. Is his nephew first? I can't remember.
- [09:33]
A
I think it's the people asking for donations first.
- [09:35]
B
Yes. So sort of a local Good Samaritan organization is going around saying, you know, at this time of year, like to collect for those less fortunate than us. And Scrooge says, are the prisons closed? Are the poor houses? Oh my God, it's like. And, and the people say that the two fellas say, well, some would rather die. And Scrooge says, well then the better to lessen the surplus population. Which about the. The worst thing you can say, just let them die cold hearted.
- [10:02]
A
Yes.
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B
Yeah. So that happens first. And then his nephew comes and invites him to Christmas dinner. Very young, poor, but very jovial sort of person. Scrooge gives him the old heave ho.
- [10:14]
A
He gives him the old bah humbug.
- [10:16]
B
Bah humbug, which is only mentioned a few times, but also along with Merry Christmas, one of the introductions into really familiar lexicon that we get from A Christmas Carol. And then the last, of course, is Bob Cratchit, who comes really meekly and humbly just asking for Christmas Day off. Scrooge eventually gives it to him, but not without making feelings terrible about it. And then Scrooge goes home. And then when he goes home, Rebecca, that's when the real sort of plot starts. You want to take it from here?
- [10:43]
A
He's walking up to his front door, got a big door knocker on it. And the door knocker transforms into the face of his dead business partner, Jacob Marley, who we are told is dead as a doornail. Then. And it is like the book opens that Jacob Marley is dead as a doornail and Dickens really wants us to know that Jacob Marley is dead. And we are certain.
- [11:04]
B
It's a really funny part.
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A
It is really funny, the book. This is much funnier than I remembered. Dickens has some moments, but Jacob Marley is dead. He's super dead. We're all sure that he's dead.
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B
You need to make sure he's dead. Because if you don't believe that he's dead, what's about to happen isn't gonna be as cool.
- [11:20]
A
Right? And this is where the Hamlet's father mention happens of like, this is not a Hamlet's father's ghost situation. Like, he is super dead. And Jacob Marley's face appears in this door knocker and tells Scrooge that he's going to be visited that night by three spirits. Doesn't tell him why, but three spirits are going to visit you. It's like, buckle up, bud, you're gonna have a weird night. They're starting at 1am and then Scrooge goes into his dark house. It is cold, it is dark, he likes the darkness. And he goes to bed and he has a psychedelic trip of a night. Like the bells are chiming. He does not know what's happening. And then at 1am, the bed curtains are pushed aside and there is indeed a spirit. He is visited by three spirits. They are the Ghost of Christmas Past, the Ghost of Christmas Present, and the Ghost of Christmas yet to Come. And this is like a cosmic this is your life. Scrooge has to face how lonely he was as a child, how, honestly, terrible abusive his parents were. He's confronted by the with the Ghost of Christmas Present, by how people he knows today talk about him when he's not around, what people really think about him. And then the Ghost of Christmas yet to Come shows him that if he doesn't change his ways, he's going to die miserable and alone. And so this is a. A scared Straight kind of moment for Ebenezer Scrooge.
- [12:46]
B
Yeah. And it's not really said, but also, I guess implied that even miserable and alone and with his grave is bad enough, but he could also wander the afterlife as like a ghost. Like he could become sort of a Marley esque figure. I'm not really sure, but that's, I think in the background of like there is sort of a purgatorial existence. We'll talk about how this is outside of the Christian tradition and it doesn't really map neatly on to any divinity story here. So then why it's important, Rebecca and I was thinking about this and I think outside of sort of the Gospel, right, The Bible, the New Testament, the actual Nativity story, this is the most famous Christmas story in English, right. There's really no competition. And it's not even close, right?
- [13:32]
A
No, it's not even close. And it's been that way since the very beginning. It was published December 17, 1843. There were 5,000 copies in the first print run. They sold out in that first week in the run up to Christmas Eve. And the book has never been out of print since. And it started as a social manifesto. Like Dickens is writing to try to call attention to the state of the poor, to try to encourage more acts of charity to be the opposite of Scrooge. He wants the readers to have the same kind of awakening that Scrooge has had about what we owe our fellow man. And you know, how that might have consequences, how our behavior now towards our fellow humans might have consequences for the rest of our lives. And then also the afterlife that he imagines. Just a huge hit. Like, it's impossible to do any kind of ballpark estimate on the total sales of this book. It's been in the public domain for, like, more than a century. It was being bootlegged within months of the original publication.
- [14:36]
B
And the copyright laws are super fascinating to think about in the context of this because there's lots of imitators overseas. He famously had a difficult time getting copyright in America, so people were just printing it. And I think probably did much to further the dominance of the Christmas Carol and its widespreadness because people were just. It didn't cost them anything. They could sort of take it and go. And then subsequent public domain. One reason it gets made is that it doesn't cost anyone to buy the underlying IP because it's in the public domain. One of those kind of interesting places where the law and business intersects with the cultural footprint of something.
- [15:08]
A
Yeah. It's also part, at the time that he's writing it of a real revival of English Christian traditions that are happening in the early to mid-1800s that focused on the ideas of Christian charity. So this is not like a biblical Christian Christmas story at all. But it's infused with Christian values of a certain kind. It offers moral instruction and a real kind of moral instruction that we don't encounter much in fiction anymore. And it did result in a rise in charitable giving at the time. So a huge. And it, like, imagine that, like, imagine someone writes a book today that becomes a bestseller and people start really doing moral inventory on themselves. And there's a trackable increase in charitable donations or, like, say, volunteerism because of one book. Like, it's because of. And a work of fiction, too. Like, this is not a nonfiction, everybody pay attention to this global crisis kind of manifesto. It's a. It's a work of fiction that invites you to imagine something and people. It worked. People imagined it like it is. It is bananas to think about a book having this kind of impact today.
- [16:17]
B
And it did have. There's a certain Swiss army element, Swiss army knife element to the message where a lot of different people can embrace it like make Britain great. You could be a socialist, you could be a social reformer. This is not about the state should take care of everyone. But it's also not everyone should be on their own. So it can kind of be read through multiple lenses. But the central idea is give to the poor. And we agreed before this we are not going to do a full Dickens, full court press on Dickens for this episode. That's best left to one of the, you know, bigger, chunkier works right across Station Tale Two Cities, something like that. But it's important I think to know that Dickens himself has no small experience with being poor in debtors prisons. His family gets into terrible trouble. He spent a long time as a kid working in a boot black manufacturing facility where he just put labels on bottles like 12 hours a day for.
- [17:11]
A
While his father is in debtors prison. So this is a really present thing for him not just in the culture but in his own experience.
- [17:19]
B
I don't know that there's a grimmer phrase in the English language than debtors prisons. That's like the saddest, most mean spirited possible idea you could have.
- [17:26]
A
Yeah. And it really makes Scrooge's response to those good Samaritans in the early book come into stark relief where they're saying won't you help us help these people? And he's like well aren't the debtors prisons there for them? Like, like to have to be able to have any outlook on the world where you're like send someone to prison and that will help them in any capacity is really grim. Very dark stuff.
- [17:50]
B
I think to again there's no. We didn't have Google Trends in 1843 to see an increase in the. In the manifestations or searches for a Merry Christmas. But in doing some of the reading about people who studied the literature in the time it was part of a movement but it was also carrying the banner for a revival of English Christmas. Like Rebecca said the phrase Merry Christmas was around but it wasn't sort of the ubiquitous phrase that the default phrase when you encountered someone in December was in the English speaking Christian world at least that you might say and you know from it was sort of an archaic greeting that was brought into everyday language. The first major I think the. The thing that strikes me again that I never really thought about how is. This is the first great secular Christmas story. This is not. There's no. Christ isn't mentioned. The. The world of the supernatural that Dickens gives us here does not map on to any version of Chris Judeo Christian afterlife. For example, famously, there are no ghosts and judicial Christian afterlife. There are demons and angels, but you don't get, you know, people don't visit you from heaven. You. Well, famously, Dante's. You got to go. Go there to see.
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A
Right.
- [18:55]
B
Or you got to go. But they don't come and they don't map neatly on to any given. You know, the name Christ isn't mentioned. There are no churches in here. There are no. There's no scripture in here. And I can only imagine at the time how revolutionary that would have been. And one of the reasons it's endured, I think, is it does have a. It has the underlying sort of charity give, you know, give unto the poor kind of stuff. The very, like, barefoot Jesus on the ground giving away stuff element, but without all of the other, I don't know, Anglican, Catholic, organized religion trappings that come alongside of it.
- [19:32]
A
It had, at the time, it had wide appeal, and it didn't alienate anyone. And I think that's one of the primary reasons it continues to endure, is that you can be a person who just sort of culturally observes Christmas y and you're fine with what happens in A Christmas Carol. Because while there is moral instruction, what does it mean to be a good person that's not presented as inside the framework of a particular religion or religious practice? And that's. I don't. I don't know if Dickens was thinking about it strategically that way or he was just that good, but it's a pretty impressive feat to pull off.
- [20:13]
B
Yeah. And it brings Christmas into the urban environment. You think of London, 1843. We're beginning to industrialize. We're not quite there yet, but it's starting to happen. We're at the end of the first part of the Age of Enlightenment. A lot of. A lot of things are happening, including a skepticism of organized religion or spiritual thinking at all. But then you can see, like, literally, Scrooge is seeing ways of celebrating Christmas that are secular. Like, that's literally what happens throughout the book. He's like, that is cool to see people coming together, enjoying each other and eating a bunch of food. It's also interesting to notice what's not there. There's no Santa Claus. There's no Christmas trees. There wasn't Even electricity at this time. So we certainly didn't have any lights. We don't have stockings by the fire. Like this predates so much of what has become sort of standard target Christmas, for lack of a better term. I think if you have affection that it's kind of surprising if you have.
- [20:59]
A
Affection for like the Louisa May Alcott Little Women flavor of Christmas morning. You will find a lot to appreciate in the representations especially of Christmas present here that as the spirit takes Scrooge around, they see Bob Cratchit's family, they see what's happening at his nephew's house and that they're playing games and it's really lively and they. They go kind of all over the place in a much more wide ranging way than I remembered from my last reading. But Scrooge sees all of these. That the uniting factors are people coming together and that it's warm, that it doesn't have to be fancy, but that there is something about gathering together, being generous and appreciating the things that you do have.
- [21:42]
B
Yeah. So changing it from a secular. Excuse me, a divine, sacred, church oriented village farm festival to an urban, civic, secular, seasonal event. And I couldn't help but think about this. So John Stuart Mill wrote utilitarianism just 20 years later. So utilitarianism, the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Kind of undefeated as a simple way of understanding how to be in the world, frankly. I know there's all kinds of wrinkles you could do, but just as a. He and Stuart Mill would have certainly have read Christmas Carol 20 years before. And I can't. I. You can draw a straight line from Ebenezer Scrooge giving away so much of his things so that people are a little bit happier. And it doesn't. He is still happy and yet they are happier. It's like utilitarianism almost 101. It's utilitarianism with snow covered Victorian roofs. I was watching Home Alone with the family the other night. Oh, and a couple things that struck me like Home Alone as a cultural phenomenon. I think it's the closest thing in my lifetime to A Christmas story that went bananas. I don't know if who out there was listening. Who was around in 1990? I was 12.
- [22:47]
A
It was viral before we called things viral.
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B
Yeah, it was in theaters till June. Rebecca, do you remember this? You're a little younger, but like, that was a huge hit. And also you can see some similar structures to it. Not for nothing, the creepy neighbor is named Marley.
- [23:00]
A
I have never climbed blocked that.
- [23:02]
B
Yeah, I don't think I would have if I hadn't just been thinking about it. And I watched it this week with my kids and you know, he's this older, kind of initially scary person that's there to impart a word of wisdom and perspective. And it also has this fable like quality. It has this bittersweetness to it that's very similar. And Kevin doesn't really appreciate what he has. He's this cold, isolated, goes up to his room and he gets a version of what his life is like without the people in his life. It is very much like A wonderful life. But. But A Christmas Carol introduces us to this non Christian supernatural element embedded in some subsequent Christmas stories. I think is really fascinating. Do we get A Wonderful Life in Home Alone Without Christmas Carol? I don't think we do. I don't think they show up in those same ways.
- [23:44]
A
Yeah. One of the things you have in the notes as well related to this is that this is the introduction of this idea that like Christmas is kind of melancholy and sweet and that there's maybe an underlying sadness. And I don't like. We listen to a lot of the Sarah McLachlan Christmas album in my house. This is the vibe like it's I'll be home for Christmas is gonna make me cry every time. You know, like that this is a complicated time of year, that it's weighty, that there is something really complex about a big celebration and family and gifts and warmth and food, but also the end of the year. And this is the dark season of.
- [24:23]
B
The year and the passage of time. Right. Like you can't go even if the was good. I mean, this is the thing that strikes me every Christmas. Like even I have lots of wonderful Christmas memories, but they're also gone. You cannot access them. Like it's. It's the real nostalgia part, the pain part of nostalgia is pain plus or a memory plus pain essentially. Like that. Like that's the part that's baked into this. Now there's this other melody. You can do things into the future and you know, through the years we all be together. But you also can't go back. You can't go back to those moments with Mr. Fezziwig, which is one the of. Of, you know, probably Scrooge's warmest moments when he's talking, when he's with the ghost of Christmas Past and He's working for Mr. Fezziwig. And Mr. Fezziwig is a. A version of Scrooge that he didn't understand. He Maybe should be emulating which he's a boss. And you've got a great quote about boss that we should talk about a little bit later. But it's a version of it where it's like, it's, it's. It's nice and it's great, but also he misses him. And Fezziwig is gone. And you know this. The love of his life is gone and you can't get it back. And I think it adds. I've always thought it adds gravity to the holiday season that other holidays don't. Like. No one gets nostalgic about the Fourth of July. Like, it's weird even to say that about Halloween or Thanksgiving, but Christmas has this. And I'm not sure that it doesn't have. Either Dickens is tapping into something that was there, or he surfaced it and brought it to the. It's reflective. Like, the reflective season is super interesting.
- [25:46]
A
And there's this, like, real underlying tension, especially for Scrooge here, about generosity and what it means to give things away. And we think. We think about that this time of year, but probably largely because Charles Dickens has made us think about it for the last almost 200 years. But Scrooge has lost a lot of things. He lost the love of his life because he kept telling her that, like, they just didn't. He needed to make more money before they could get married and she wasn't going to wait around forever. He has lost, like, friends. He's very. He's lost his business partner who was the one person who did hang around because. Because as we know, Marley is dead as a doornail. And that it captures a real dynamic that people experience for when you have lost something, you might be afraid to give away anything else. And this is really a lesson for Scrooge, especially the ghosts of Christmas. The ghost of Christmas yet to come of if you are trying to hold on to everything the rest of your life, you're not going to have anything. You may have material wealth, but what good does it do you? And that generosity is generative in other ways. Like, to paraphrase Fred, when he comes in to invite Scrooge to Christmas dinner, Scrooge is like, well, what good did Christmas ever do for anybody? And Fred says, well, there's, you know, I've gotten a lot of good from doing things that didn't profit me at all. And that prompt to like to think about what it is to like to live with an open hand and that it will come back around or like, you know, in today's parlance, we might talk about like an abundance mindset versus a scarcity kind of mindset. But that's like is wait, did Charles Dickens, Dickens invent the abundance mindset versus the.
- [27:27]
B
I have also. Did he invent the hurt people, hurt people discourse? Dickens invented it all. We all live, we all live in Gogol's overcoat. We all might live in Dickens.
- [27:39]
A
If you're out there looking for a topic for your master's thesis in Victorian literature. That's right, there you go.
- [27:48]
B
We did some Dickens. I don't, we don't want to do all this. We talked about when he was 12, his father went to debtors prison. He is the oldest of eight children born in 1812. So when he writes this, he's only 30. He's not even 30 at this point. And notably he loved the theater and wanted to be an actor. And he especially loved this early sort of master clown, which is a weird thing to say, but I think it, it matters. If you read Dickens, he is maybe second only to Shakespeare in the western canon, the great creator of character. I think he's the best namer, but second only in creation of character. He would, he, he writes these, these slightly outsized characters in a slightly outside version of England and London. But they become so memorable and indelible drawn that you can, you know, the Artful Dodger or Miss Havisham, like just the words, you probably have some sense of who they are. And that's Dickens. At the same time, he's a reporter, he works in Parliament, he starts publishing stories and really by the time he writes this Pickwick Papers in 1837, we could do a whole thing about the Sam Weller phenomenon and the Pickwick Papers. It sounds like, sounds wild to talk about. There's like merch around this one character, but really from there he's on one of the great heaters of all time for decades dies at the age of 58 in 1870. And always engaged with charitable work. You see, you can see in Great Expectations, you can see in David Copperfield, you certainly see an Oliver Twist. It almost becomes a cliche for Dickens to like look at people who are downtrodden, look at the poor, look at the, the forgotten, look at the people in the gutter and see what they do, how they got there and what could be done about them. He also invented Rebecca. You have here the reading tour. He would go on these epic multi year reading tours in America and abroad and through the countryside. And one of the ways he made money, because copyright was so hard to enforce and frankly, he seems like he got bad publishing deals. I was looking at the math around Christmas Carol. He should have made a lot more money.
- [29:43]
A
Well, also, spreadshulture has always been with us because the first edition of A Christmas Carol is like leather bound and it has gilt edges and it has illustrations and it like, it had a pretty high price tag, but those are expensive elements to produce in a book. So the profit margins were very low. And then like, shortly after it comes out, there's a bunch of copycat publications and there are just full blown illegal bootleg copies of it because. Because it was expensive. Because this is like a deluxe. Like, people would be on TikTok today showing off their deluxe edition of Christmas Carol. A lot of folks couldn't afford it, so other publishers start churning out illegal copies of it at cheaper price points.
- [30:26]
B
Christmas Carol with a Z. Actually, you didn't even need to do that in that. You could just call it A Christmas Carol.
- [30:31]
A
You could just call it A Christmas Carol. And then Dickens, like, you know, pushes his publisher to sue some of these folks who are violating the copyright by making these copies of it. They win in court, but his publisher goes bankrupt and he's left with the legal expenses. So he like. It takes Dickens a long time to make money on this. And he did not have nearly as much in the bank from A Christmas Carol as you would have expected because, like, all this stuff around it. But reading about the first edition, I was like, oh, this is. This thing we're doing with like fourth wing is really not new.
- [31:05]
B
Not new at all. And so, yeah, he. The word celebrity wasn't invented yet, but it was invented. It started coming into the first mention, I think is 1850. And Dickens was maybe the first cultural celebrity. Yeah, Austin was a more popular writer decades before, but she largely worked anonymously. She died later. It was a different situation. She didn't go on these big tours. Like, there's this famous scene that I've always thought about where Dickens comes to America. It's the middle of the publication of one of his books and people meet him on the dock asking what happens? And it's like wild. If the Duffer brothers were just out there with like, Stranger Things spoilers and. And there's no equivalent to it really. It's so hard to think about if you're trying to think of a modern analog. The only one that's close is Stephen King. It's like Stephen King on steroids into where he fits in the culture. Are we ready to talk about our first exposure? Anything else you want to do on Dickens real quick, what was yours first?
- [31:57]
A
I cannot remember a time when I did not know this story. And I'm also kind of. Yeah, I. I'm also sure that I didn't read the whole. The whole text of it until, like, probably college or early adulthood. I don't remember doing that, but I think I don't remember sitting down to read it in whole for the first time because I have always known the story, like, in some form. It was. There are so many versions of it. There are kids versions. I'm sure that my parents, like, told me some kids versions of it. We watched Scrooged in my house growing up. Like, that was. And that's a 1989 adaptation with Bill Murray, like, kind of a translation of the story. But it's just in the water. Like, it was just in the cultural water growing up in the 80s. I think it's still in the cultural water today. Maybe.
- [32:46]
B
Definitely.
- [32:47]
A
Yeah. Maybe not. Like, we don't have monoculture anymore, so maybe not quite as much, but. Yeah, I don't. I don't remember the first time that I encountered this idea, do you?
- [32:56]
B
I don't really either. I think it was probably the 1983 Mickey Christmas Carol movie. I'm sure. I know I watched that. I was young, and I would be young enough to have absorbed it without having remember seeing it. That's the age where. Where you can remember things, but you don't actually remember watching them. Like, it's just kind of installed on your firmware as you're. As you're booting up your neural network and memories are forming. I thought I had read this, but in reading it, I'm not sure that I. Oh, really? Maybe I read it when I was a long time ago, and then subsequent retellings have sort of washed it away. And the thing you were talking about for is the one that made me wonder was in the Ghost of Christmas Present, he takes them beyond just the London neighborhood of things Scrooge knows, to the mines, to the lighthouse, to the. Like, further and further out away from the central core of London to show, like, there's two dudes on a ship in the middle of the sea, and Christmas to them is just sort of turning to each other and talking about Christmas's past. And I feel like I would have remembered that. Yeah, that wasn't. Or maybe. Maybe an older Jeff struck. Struck on it more, but I'm not sure that I had. But I think it tells you something that you see in US adaptations that Pick and choose. That was the only thing that was really surprising. That's like, oh, I can't believe they didn't have X or Y or Z or there's all you start to look at sort of a cloud of adaptations. And in general, taken together, they captured the big ideas. And I guess as we get into what it's like to read this, the big ideas and the writing is not complicated.
- [34:22]
A
No, it's very straightforward.
- [34:24]
B
This is not, not. Well, I was about to spoil some things we're going to talk about in the future. It's not Hamlet, you know, it's. It's just not one of these never let me go we talk about, we've talked about before. I think this actually comes up on an episode that's not out yet. Books that answer questions and books that ask them. And this is more of a book that answers questions. We, you and I tend to be more interested. The books that answer questions or sort of ask them and sort of walk through them and think about them without sort of. And the answer to life is X. This is a little bit more than the answer to life is X. And I think that's one of the reasons people like it. I think there's room for that. But it doesn't lend himself to like you wouldn't do like a whole semester studying A Christmas Carol, which you certainly could with some of the other.
- [35:05]
A
Yeah. And I think it works like this is tricky to pull off this kind of moral instruction without sounding preachy. And I think it works because there are those moments of the ghost showing Scrooge, these moments from his past, this vision of what his future could be like. And it invites the reader in an unspoken way to do that for yourself. What are people saying about me in rooms that I'm not in? How will I be remembered when I die? Like if I died tomorrow, would people be sad? Or would somebody say, well, I'll go to the funeral as long as there's free food. What is my legacy going to be? And that Dickens was able to pull that off at the time, but that it endures is the real illustration and testament of, of like the level that he is working on. And it is straightforward. A book like this should be straightforward. If you're trying to tell people, hey, you got to pay attention to what's happening in the world around you. People are suffering. If you have extra, you should give some to the people who are suffering. You need to make that accessible and warm and as non judgmental as possible. And Dickens does all of that. Meet the computer you can talk to with Copilot on Windows. Working, creating, creating and collaborating is as easy as talking. Got writer's block? Share your screen with Copilot Vision to help spark inspiration and use Copilot voice to have a conversation and brainstorm ideas. Or maybe you need some tech help with Copilot Vision. Copilot sees what you see. Let Copilot talk you through step by step guidance so you can master new apps, games and skills faster. Try now@windows.com copilot think your lashes have hit their limit? Discover limitless length and full volume with Maybelline's Sky High Mascara. The Flex Tower Brush bends to volumize and extend every single lash from root to tip and the lightweight bamboo infused formula makes lashes feel weightless. Now in eight bold shades so you can take your lashes to new heights every day. Visit maybelline.com to shop Sky High Mascara now. No matter what's on your plate or your mind this holiday season, the UPS store wants to help with our pack and ship guarantee. We're helping gifts arrive safely to the guarantee More they know me so well. Picture perfect gift. We're helping guarantee more smiles with our pack and Ship guarantee. If we pack it and ship it, we guarantee it your items arrive safe or your money back. Stop by your local the UPS Store for holiday help shipping holiday gifts. Visit the upsstore.com guaranty for full details. Most locations are independently owned. Products, services, prices and hours of operation may vary. See center for details. That even the ghosts don't judge Dickens. They don't or don't judge Scrooge. They don't tell him anything about himself. They let him come to his own conclusions. Conclusions.
- [37:49]
B
Yeah. So in terms of a reading experience, it's. It's. We haven't said this. It's quite short. I think I read it in 70 minutes.
- [37:56]
A
Yes, it's like 100.
- [37:57]
B
Linger on it. When Dickens used to read it aloud, I guess it took about three hours. Which sort of tracks for that. The, you know it's a 200 year old. Well not quite 200, 150, 160 issue. Old work. It feels old, but it's. You're not going to run against phrases or words you don't really understand. There's only one thing that I was confused by actually now I think about it is Bob Cratchit is walking home Christmas eve and does 20 slides with the boys. Do you remember this moment?
- [38:21]
A
I did remember that. I did not know.
- [38:23]
B
What was that? I don't know in the Muppet Christmas Carol, there's a moment of like sliding around on ice. And I'm wondering if there was like a slick section of sidewalk or slow hill I couldn't figure out. And I looked around for it. No one was helping me there.
- [38:36]
A
But.
- [38:36]
B
But beyond that, everything's going to be familiar. You're not going to have any trouble with language.
- [38:40]
A
There's not a lot of vocabulary. That's hard.
- [38:43]
B
So much dialogue, as you say here, it's quite funny. Dickens is quite witty. That's really enjoyable. And then the moments of the uncanny still kind of work. I feel like the moments of pathos, they are on the nose. But I gotta tell you, I guess my nose is ready because they hit me. They still hit me. To look at the Cratches or Fezziwig or the young Scrooge, like there is sort of a elemental fable like quality that it is not super sophisticated. Maybe it's sophisticated. It goes around simplicity to come back to sophistication, but it's not complicated. But also, you know, neither is the smell of a Christmas tree or cookies. Like, they still work. So I think there's a Christmas morning.
- [39:22]
A
Scene that the ghost of Christmas Present shows him in. The Cratchits home is just indelible. And one of the Alzheimer's, like that they're all. It's very merry. They're all together. Like it's warm in the house. Everybody's working on cooking something. They're waiting for dad to come back. Back with Tiny Tim from wherever he has been. It's like, it's just lively and there's stuff happening and mom is worried about the pudding that she's made. And I did remember when I was reading this that like, I was way older than I should have been when I figured out that pudding here was not like jello pudding.
- [39:55]
B
That pudding Americans, we have a horrible time as a kid understanding what they're talking about with the pizza.
- [40:00]
A
Pudding is dessert. And like, now, as the baker in my household, I got it of like, the dinner is over and you are delivering this dessert that you have baked and you're worried, like, is it good enough? Is it too simple? Is it going to turn out? Is the whole thing going to cave in when I take it? Like, I'm guessing she makes some kind of souffle basically because she's worried that it's going to crash.
- [40:19]
B
I think it's a regular old steamed pudding and if you don't get it right, you turn it out and just collapse a mess. Just a Mess. Yeah.
- [40:26]
A
But that scene is just so warm and lovely. And I hope that every reader and everybody listening to this has some equivalent holiday memory to call upon. Or it's your dream of what a holiday moment could feel like.
- [40:42]
B
I still think this is for a lot of people, especially as it gets sort of corporatized and commodified. The elemental scene of a secular holiday. Christmas tradition is a bustling house with a lot going on. And there's a warm, frenetic liveliness, a conviviality, I guess would be the single best word. And it's not sitting around staring at each other. There's stuff to do, but we're all kind of doing it together. And it's not the journey, it's not the destinations, the journey. The meal is important, especially when you're super poor, to have a goose and everything. But it's the making of it and the togetherness of it. And it's warm in there and we've just come in from the cold. I think that still works. Rebecca, I don't think that's gone away.
- [41:28]
A
Yeah, I think it's gotten older. Like a make Christmas great again push. It's as people are imagining times like this and that it wasn't about, you know, having been standing out in the cold on the day after Thanksgiving trying to get access to the latest hot toy, but that you're coming together with the people that you love in a spirit of generosity, in a spirit of caring that no matter how little you have there, you can give something of yourself.
- [41:55]
B
Yeah, right. And the money can't buy happiness. You need to be connected to people. You need warmth. Like that's gone nowhere. That feels more relevant than ever. Maybe they call me jaded or call me old, but like, that feels like it hasn't aged a day. Yeah. In a lot of ways, current manifestations are more. Even more intense.
- [42:13]
A
Yeah. And just our responsibilities to each other. The ghost of Christmas past, who is telling Scrooge, like about his own mistakes and how he has ended up being a ghost. Being a spirit like this says mankind, was my business. The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive of my business. And he didn't realize that until it was too late. And he's telling, he's telling Scrooge, like, you gotta catch onto this now this is your shot.
- [42:46]
B
Yeah. I mean, essentially Scrooge has gotten it backwards. We think the ends of a Life are to have money in a business where that's a means to an end. Right. Which you do those things so you can have these other things and give away and be part of a social network in other kind of way. You made a really smart note. I thought here about having your own words and actions reflected back to us. I mean, really to see the truth of you through other people's eyes so often is in life. And Scrooge has the same. It's just exaggerated here. Like no one really tells him the truth of what he's doing because he is powerful and they are subject to him. But once you can sort of hide behind the curtain of a ghost or you intercept a text or a stray comment. One of the reasons where you hear someone say something about you that they don't mean for you to hear is powerful is because we believe the truth of that in a different kind of a way. And Scrooge is certainly there there. He hears other people talking about none of. I don't know what we think Scrooge thinks of people. People think of him at the beginning, I guess we think.
- [43:41]
A
I don't think he's ever thought about it.
- [43:43]
B
He's never thought about it. Right. He sort of is just happy with his. Or he is existing with his candle in the dark. He is so afraid of losing that he doesn't want anything so that it can't be lost. But to see that other people get away with. Revel in, benefit from being connected to other people, even if they don't have all the money in the world.
- [44:01]
A
Those moments where the spirits turn his own words back on. There's a little bit where he sees people suffering. And Scrooge turns to the spirit and is like, is there no help for them? And the spirit says, what? Are the prisons not open?
- [44:17]
B
Yes. Yeah. And also you have here too that. And I didn't really. I didn't really catch onto this. And I don't know in the history of sort of character, this is not something the Greeks would have thought about. Just to put it in context. It's like I can change. I am not subject. My. My intellect, my emotional. My emotional intelligence can change how I move through the world. I'm sure. I'm sure there are other places like this. But you have the quote. Why show me this if I am past all hope? And the implication there is. It's not too late for any of us.
- [44:52]
A
Yeah. And by the time the second spirit shows up, Scrooge has become the ideal student. He tells the ghost of Christmas present tonight. If you have ought to teach me, let me profit by it. And he's ready. Ready like that. It's a quick conversion for Scrooge into paying attention to what these spirits have to say to him.
- [45:09]
B
It wasn't quite a hot take. I think it's in my straight thoughts of, like, they sold past the clothe pretty hard. Like, if he goes home after the first ghost, I think we're good. Right. He's like saying, okay, well, and there's like two more ghosts. It's really, really selling past.
- [45:23]
A
You really want to make the point. Why do one ghost when you could have three?
- [45:27]
B
Come on. I guess I was thinking about the 1843 Ness of it all in terms of how to understand it and what it means. Meant in 1843, if you did not go into other people's homes, you had no idea how people lived. There's no tv, there's no movies and no photographs. And there's a straight line between Scrooge's isolation, unhappiness and miserless. That's more about just knowing what other people. What he could do. He's not like, choosing against it. He just even know it's possible because he's so literally, he's going up the room, his. The stairs in his own house on Christmas Eve, only lighting a candle. There's no lights. It's just him in the dark with one candle. The smallest unit of, like, being alive is what Scrooge has. Has done. And as he just sort of pulls back the curtains of what other people are doing, like, it's such a revelation to him because there's no mass media. He has no way of knowing. And sort of. There's just a little bit of, like, going to other people's rooms and being there for a minute is a revelation to him. It's kind of that simple in a way.
- [46:24]
A
Yeah. And that people are like. Yeah, the people are living with, like differently than he is. With warmth and with light and with some joy. It's really the eye opener. Yeah.
- [46:34]
B
So he's describing Fezuk's party here. This is the quote. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief, but no one seemed to care. On the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily and enjoyed it very much. And the latter soon beginning to mingle in the sports. Got pillaged by the young brigands. And most, most ruthlessly, what I would have not given, given to be one of them. So sort of a scene. As soon as he sees people have a good time, that's all it takes.
- [46:57]
A
Yeah.
- [46:57]
B
Just this is possible and this is how you can be I. Another reason I'm not sure that I actually did read this or didn't sink it at all, is the ghosts are much stranger than most contemporary representations.
- [47:08]
A
Kind of trippy.
- [47:08]
B
Of the mar. Like, the ghost of Christmas Past has a hat on that, if you take it off, shoots like a beam of supernova light into space. And Scrooge is, like, continuing. And like other representation, it's like a white, bright thing, but I don't think it captures the weird old baby strangeness of that. Of that thing. And here's the Ghost of Christmas presents Description 4. As its belt sparkled and glittered now in one part and now another. And what was light one instant and another time dark? What is that? I have no idea. So the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness. So it's becoming, like, blurry. And you can't see it being now one thing with one arm. Arm, and now with one leg, and now with 20 legs. Now a pair of legs without a head, and now a head without a body, of which dissolving parts no outline could be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. Like, what is that? Rebecca is weird. That's weird.
- [47:59]
A
It is weirder than you remember, for sure.
- [48:01]
B
Yeah. Okay. We talked about the other scenes, the minds. Here's the quote. This is from the ship at sea. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had his kinder word for one another on that day. Day than on any other day in the year, and had shared some extent its festivities and had remembered those he cared for at a distance and had known. They delighted to remember him. So even the people who have to work on the boat have people they can remember and think fondly of and know in their heart that that person may be thinking of them similarly, somewhere, wherever they are. A lot of stray thoughts for this, because it is. It has. They just sort of connects with so many parts of culture. Rebecca, why don't you go through a few?
- [48:40]
A
I mean, I. I just. You don't want to be on Dickens shit list.
- [48:43]
B
Absolutely not.
- [48:44]
A
The descriptions of people are sharp and he's not pulling any punches. And like, you, you just. You don't want to be described by Charles Dickens. Like, just try to not be perceived by him in general, but you really don't want to be on his shit list. I was really thinking about the image of when Marley comes to him. Scrooge sees that Marley's chains are made of, like, cash boxes. And it's clear. Like, Marley is in a prison of his own making. Like, this spirit is trapped in a prison of his own making. And I was trying to think about what the origin point of this archetype.
- [49:21]
B
Dante, the Inferno, maybe. Maybe there's some analog there.
- [49:24]
A
Like, yeah, characters in mythology and fiction that, like, that are trapped in chains of their own making or prisons of their own making. There are tarot cards where this comes up. Like, this is a thing and it's an old idea, but that Dickens makes it quite literal. The chains are made of the cash boxes.
- [49:43]
B
Yes.
- [49:44]
A
Was really interesting to me. And then like, on a couple funny what are they doing here Points like, why don't we have bed curtains anymore? This seems so cozy. Like Dickens, Scrooge is worried about people opening the bed curtains in the Ghost of Christmas yet to Come. He sees that if he keeps living the way he lives now, he's going to die and that people will be, like, pillaging his home before his body has even been buried. And one of the things going to take as his bed curtains with the rings still attached. Like, why don't we have bed curtains? I want those back.
- [50:18]
B
I saw your note here, and my only thought is that a couple things. One is it may be more relevant when you want to keep your body heat.
- [50:25]
A
Yeah.
- [50:26]
B
Like, it's like a little tent. But the other thing too is if you have a certain class and you have a bunch of servants, they're coming in and out of your room and you might just want to, like, have a private. You have a private space within that. Right. I just remember, like, you know, you go to a castle and like you go to Versailles or something. Something. There's the bedroom and there's like the chamber within the bedroom. And then there's like the private, like, just how public even the bedrooms were if you had servants.
- [50:47]
A
Every time I rewatch the West Wing and people are in and out of the President's bedroom at inopportune moments, I'm like, who's sleeping in full pajamas? Get the man some bed curtains.
- [50:56]
B
And they need some bed. That's a. That's a really good point. I like it a lot. Even to keep people dark. They're dark.
- [51:02]
A
Yeah. Just like, have. Get yourself some bed curtains. And then there's a. No. When we're seeing the flashback to the big party at Fezziwigs that the apprentices. At the end of the party, everybody, like, takes the decorations down, folks are going home and the apprentices stay because they have beds under the counter at Fezziwigs and I was like, where do they shower?
- [51:22]
B
Rebecca, I've got bad news for you about hygiene. In mid 19th century London, showers hadn't been invented yet. So we're maybe washing our pits every other week. Okay, maybe so. Nowhere is the answer. They weren't worried about that.
- [51:36]
A
I was afeared of that. But yeah, it just notable that it.
- [51:39]
B
Was like the real bad news here about what the streets were like in horse drawn carriage. London in the spring and in winter.
- [51:46]
A
That's a critical part of the tour of Pompeii that I will not forget. Quickly.
- [51:50]
B
Yes, yes, here are mine. This is, this is not original by any stretch of the imagination, but Dickens is the greatest character namer of all time. It's not particularly close. A fezzi one wig Cratchit. Scrooge. Ebenezer. Is Ebenezer Scrooge, the best named character of all time. And I think he is. I think it has to be. There's. Can you think of anyone close?
- [52:10]
A
There's this like onomatopoeic quality to all of the names or like almost Ebenezer geezer.
- [52:16]
B
Like what is Ebenezer like? Did he invent that word? Where does Ebenezer come from?
- [52:20]
A
Ebenezer is a name. It's a name.
- [52:23]
B
Ezzer I know is in the, in the Bible. Maybe it's a derivation of that that I think for any time you're reading something that's quite a bit older or historical fiction, it's easy to notice what is there. But I think it's also helpful to think about what's not there. What's not here? Christmas trees, Presents at all. Stockings, Santa Claus, Carols.
- [52:45]
A
Oh no, there are carols. There's a carol.
- [52:46]
B
I'm sorry, Modern Christmas like. No modern secular sort of Christmas carol stuff. That's interesting. Here's. Here's an unanswerable question. Why did Scrooge get this opportunity and Marley did not? There's no. There's no why Disc like this is not presented as something that normally happens to people that somewhere along the way they're going to get a chance to see.
- [53:08]
A
For like storytelling purposes. Somebody has to be the cautionary.
- [53:12]
B
No, I get that. But like most modern stories, there'd be some explanation of a wish or it just happens and he doesn't seem to deserve it. It. Right. It's not like we get no glimmer of. Well, you know what? We've got a. We've got a sinner here that if we just get him with the right message I don't know that it matters. I just think in modern storytelling there's so much over explanation of like the supernatural and the why. It's striking to see like so Marley has to go live and change forever and Scrooge doesn't and Marley. What's Marley's? It's just very strange. I don't mind it. But I did notice it did not occur to me. I think this is another dark moment that doesn't appear in other. I don't remember it appearing in any version I've seen. I think if I remember right, this is the ghost of Christmas Present saying that there's a couple of beings in his. You know, I guess one of the times he has less fewer than 20 legs. There's these other beings there that Scrooge is asking about. And this is the ghost of prison Christmas Present explaining who they are. He says. And they cling to me appealing from their fathers. This boy is ignorant Ignorance. This girl is want. Beware of them both and all of their degree. But most of all, beware the boy. For on his brow I see that written witch's doom. Unless the writing will be erased. Deny it, cried the spirit, stretching out his hand towards the city. Slander those who tell it to ye. Admit it for your own factious purposes and make it worse. Imbide the end. So I think this is fascinating. Right. Like I can't guess what Dickens is saying there. These are the sources of our unhappiness, of our sort of cultural and societal malaise and brokenness. Want like that there's not enough.
- [54:52]
A
Yeah.
- [54:53]
B
But the real bad one is ignorance. Because that leads to doom and that ignorance. And we're at the age of the end of enlightenment here. I don't find it interesting. I'm not sure what to do about it. But that's like an underplayed part. It's more complicated than the rest. So I think it gets cut when people are adapting it or trying to figure out what to do with it. Any takes on that it's really dark.
- [55:13]
A
And that Scrooge is engaged in a kind of willful ignorance up until this point. You know, like anybody who's saying like well people are poor, so let them go to debtors prison. Isn't that some kind of relief for them has to know, you know, that that's not actually a solution.
- [55:30]
B
Right, right. And that he plausible deniability is a more modern term.
- [55:34]
A
And. And that that's. That willful ignorance is the path to doom is really interesting. But I do think that's and this is maybe the most or the closest that Dickens comes to like rendering judgment in the text is also what like gives it some spikes, I think.
- [55:52]
B
Notable Quotes I mean this has God bless us everyone. Bah humbug.
- [55:56]
A
Which is only said twice in the text.
- [55:59]
B
Yeah, it's amazing. I will keep Christmas throughout the year, but sort of outside of the cliche stuff. Rebecca where where do you want to go?
- [56:05]
A
A good boss is priceless when he's thinking, when he's remembering. Fezziwig he said he has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service light or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks, in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count them up. What then? The happiness he gives us is quite as great as if it cost a fortune. And this is also Scrooge realizing he has been a terrible boss and doesn't deserve any of Bob Cratchit's generosity or pat, which he has received and sort of having that moment of perspective on himself. But this stays true. This message may be shocking to many millennials. If you are one, you might want to sit down right now. Loads of people are searching the following on Depop Low rise jeans, halter top, velour tracksuit, puka shell necklace, disc belt. You likely placed these in the dark of your closet in 2004, never to be seen again. But if you can find it in yourself to dust them off, there are a lot of people who will give you money for them. Sell on Depop, where taste recognizes taste. So good, so good, so good.
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B
Score. Holiday gifts.
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A
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B
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- [57:32]
A
I'm giving all the gifts this year with that extra 5% off when I use my Nordstrom credit card. Santa who join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock our best deals. It's easy. Big gifts, big perks. That's why you rack.
- [57:47]
B
This episode is brought to you by Jack Daniels. Jack Daniels and music are made for each other. They share a rhythm in the craft of making something timeless while being a part of legendary nights. From backyard jams to sold out arenas, there's a song in every toast. Please drink responsibly. Responsibility.org, jack Daniels and old number seven are registered trademarks. Tennessee whiskey, 40% alcohol by volume. Jack Daniel Distillery, Lynchburg, Tennessee. Yeah, let's see where else do we want to go. We've covered some of these before. This is, I believe, his nephew. But I'm sure I've always thought of Christmas time when it has come around apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin. So outside of the Jesus stuff, if any, anything belonging to can be apart from that as a good time. A kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time. The only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by one consent to open up their shut up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they were really were fellow passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. I mean, that's great.
- [58:52]
A
It's good stuff.
- [58:53]
B
Quite moving. It's really quite, quite moving. I also have here. Oh, I think this is yours. But I'd mark this oil. It is a fair, even handed, noble adjustment of things that while there is infection and disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. Do you think Dickens was fun at parties? Seems like he would be a good time.
- [59:13]
A
Yeah, I think he would have been a good time. And that, that this quote happens when Scrooge is seeing. I think it's when he's seeing what's happening at the Cratchits house that they're poor, they don't have much and it kind of blows his mind that they're having this lovely day like that they have nothing, none of the things that really matter to Scrooge or that he thinks matter, but that they have laughter and good humor and that that's really what it's all about for you.
- [59:37]
B
If maybe not if. Rebecca, what do you want to say?
- [59:40]
A
I mean, I think it's for you, especially if you're curious about the context for a story that, you know, if you grew up in the US and in Judeo Christian culture, you've heard versions of this forever. But to like, you know, get the original recipe is really interesting. If you're co with some moral instruction on the page or you're curious about how Dickens executed that. And then I like your note here also that this is a really good on ramp to Dickens. Like a lot of Dickens is very long because at least you see them.
- [60:09]
B
On the shelf, you're like, oh my God, that's an undertaking.
- [60:12]
A
Dude was paid by the word for quite a long time, so he had good incentive.
- [60:17]
B
What gets measured gets managed.
- [60:18]
A
Yeah, but if you want an on ramp that isn't not a 500 page. Big novel. I do think this is a good introduction and it will be validating. Maybe for like the language is not difficult. It's pretty straightforward. It feels Victorian. But it's not. Not a challenge to read it. And that might make you feel more confident to pick up one of the novels.
- [60:41]
B
I don't really have. We didn't really have a maybe not if I think it's just short enough that you were at all interested. It's worth 70 minutes of your time. Yeah. You can. Can get it for free. You know, you can get a. You could get a ebook or the library. They're all over the place. So the ask is pretty low. If you're at all interested. The immortal questions that art asks which are primary here. Here there are contenders. What is the good life? What do I owe my neighbor? How do I know what I know? Is this all there is? How to deal with a certainty of death? What else might there be? What's the deal with good and evil? Like sort of obviously one and two. What is the good life? And what do I know my neighborhood. How connected they are. I think maybe that's the most interesting. Those are. Are not separate questions in the world of Dickens.
- [61:19]
A
Yeah. That the good life is one in which you are like doing your duty to your neighbor and you're in community. How to deal with the certainty of death. Like kind of. But it's more that the presence, the reality that he will die forces a reflection on how to live. It's not so much a wrestling with the fact of death in itself. And I don't think this is not.
- [61:43]
B
About good and evil. It's not about good and evil.
- [61:45]
A
And it's not a. What else might there be be really like it's. This is not an existential query. It's really about how do you live on earth.
- [61:56]
B
Yeah, one, one of the. One of the. One of the things you get by making the supernatural elements non divine, non religious, not sort of heaven and earth. And how the universe is put together is it refocuses the import on the terrestrial corporeal lived mortal. Corporation oil. Whereas some, you know, if a lot of Christian stuff. It's like if someone comes from heaven or hell, it's very easy to solve for that. That makes sense. And maybe it would. It would. It would be instrumental to do so. This is a. This is turning back toward the human, you know, using these supernatural devices here. Are we sure this about art and writing? This might be one of the few that's not. Yeah, it's not about Art and writing. There's a little meta stuff in the beginning that he's doing, like, writerly flourishes, but it's really not about art and writing. Rebecca, could you get the most of the gist from watching the signal adaptation?
- [62:46]
A
You sure can. And you have, like, hundreds, literally, of adaptations to choose from. There are so many adaptations of A Christmas Carol that there's a separate Wikipedia page just to keep track of.
- [62:58]
B
Hundreds. Hundreds.
- [62:59]
A
And I watched A Muppets Christmas Carol for the first time this week because that was not in my Melinda millennial childhood. And even that, like, you really do get the gist. It is like, a lot of the text is straight up on the page. It's darker than kids stories that we would tell today, which, like, that's a separate conversation. But you can. You can't even get the whole gist of this from the Muppets.
- [63:21]
B
Yeah. A movie, musical, TV series or Muppets. All of them have been done. The Muppets musical movie. That's like three out of the four right there. Which people beloved. I find it the only flaw with Muppets Christmas Carol. And close your ears for Stan stands out there. The music is terrible. The songs are bad. Rebecca.
- [63:40]
A
It was fun.
- [63:41]
B
They don't rhyme. They don't even rhyme. They scan terribly. It's embarrassing. I'm sorry. Michael Kane's great. And the Muppets are elite.
- [63:49]
A
I mean, very famously. Brett Goldstein loves a Muppets Christmas Carol from Ted Lasso. So can, like, can we get him on remaking this with some new songs?
- [63:59]
B
Let's see. I. You have. You have some notes about other adaptations.
- [64:03]
A
There are so many adaptations, and obviously I haven't seen nearly all of them, but, like, if we can adapt Shakespeare into all kinds of times and settings, why don't we do this more with A Christmas Carol? Like, as I was reading this, I was thinking so much about, like, billionaire tech bros World hum up. Who could solve world hunger, like, without really feeling it in their bank accounts and are not. And, like, how much this made me want a version. Like, a modern version with Jeremy Strong who's like, so what, that they're lonely and poor? They have AI to keep them company?
- [64:39]
B
Yes.
- [64:41]
A
Like, who's going to do this for us?
- [64:44]
B
Yeah, because it's notable that Scrooge is wealthy, but he's not a lord. Right. Like, he has one employee.
- [64:50]
A
The.
- [64:51]
B
The scale of an individual's wealth would have been unfathomable to. I guess maybe. I don't. I don't even know how, like, the king of England's wealth in 1843 compares to how much money Elon Musk. I really don't understand. Maybe it's completely different. And there's land control, I understand, but there are. There. There are thousands of billionaires that have the ability not to change the world, but they could certainly transform a city and neighborhood and other things that are more than just giving out turkeys. Scrooge does what he can, but he can't change the world. World. Right. But there's some people that maybe could. Interesting. We do get modern adaptations. The abomination of the Will Ferrell Ryl Reynolds thing that appeared a couple years ago is there? It does, yeah. It's quite poor. It's quite poor. I'd take a sequel. Or you have. I'd take a sequel.
- [65:36]
A
Yeah.
- [65:36]
B
You would take a sequel. Unbelievable take for you.
- [65:39]
A
One of my stray thoughts was, what actually happens the next day? Like, we find out that, you know, Scrooge wakes up on Christmas morning. He sends a big turkey over to the Cratchit's house. But, like, does he tell somebody about these visitations? How do they react if he tells them? Even if he doesn't tell them, we are given to understand that Scrooge is, like, going. It's like Paul on the road to Damascus. He goes forward as a new man. So, like, what are they saying behind his back? Do people notice that Scrooge is not so Scroogy anymore? Like, I would love to see the aftermath of a Christmas card carol.
- [66:17]
B
I think that's a good one. Like, it's. It's a. It's a sweltering August day. Is Scrooge still, you know, light as a feather? Hard to say. We've done a lot of our supplementary stuff. Wrote it in six weeks. Would he have sold more copies if he had started in November? Right. We know more about the publishing season now. But on the other hand, we didn't have the Christmas book because Christmas hadn't been invented yet as we know it. So there's that.
- [66:41]
A
Dickens invented that. We've hit on that. Christmas Carol is responsible for popularizing the use of Merry Christmas and catchphrase. The catchphrase of Bah, humbug, which is, like, somehow becomes a catchphrase even when it only shows up in the text twice. This is also largely responsible for making turkey the bird of choice at Christmas. That goose was more popular at the time and more affordable. But, you know, Scrooge sends the Cratchits that turkey, and it becomes, like, a symbol of generosity and celebration. And then all sorts of little cultural influences and touch points. Like 40 years later, in 1889, Van Gogh tells his brother that he's been rereading Dickens Christmas books and says, there are things in them so profound that one must read them over and over again. Just everybody ends up reading A Christmas Carol. And if you pick up, like, I got the Penguin Classics edition, if you pick that up, or some of the other versions that have deeper introductions, you'll get to see those references to all of the writers at the time and artists who came after that were influenced by it.
- [67:46]
B
There's a movie called the man who Invented Christmas, starring Christopher Plummer as Ebenezer Scrooge, which is all. But it also has the, like, Dickens frame story. Like Dickens, people want to do this. And I think because the story of A Christmas Carol is now as interesting as A Christmas Carol itself, I think that title is probably overstating it, but not by a whole lot in terms of how we understand a modern, secular celebration of Christmas. The figure of Death with a cloak had been around since the 14th century, but it's not a coincidence. I don't think that the first use of the term Grim reaper was in 1847, just three years after the Ghost of Christmas Future here. So I think Dickens was taking that figure. Doesn't have a scythe in this version, but has everything but sort of the silence, silent, darkly cloaked. The Muppets Christmas Carol Ghost of Christmas Future has like this dark hole face thing that's quite.
- [68:39]
A
It's like a, you know, prototypical dementor, almost.
- [68:43]
B
Yes, yes. The Mickey Christmas Carol grave scene is terrifying. It scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, when I was five or six, and did not care for that at all. I have one hot take, and I said this a little bit before. I think Dickens invented that. Christmas is a little something sad. And that dynamic infuses most of the really good Christmas stuff. Home Alone, It's a Wonderful Life, White Christmas, have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas. It cut. You know, like they say in British Bake off, you need some. You need some sharpness to cut the sweet. And I think that Dickens did that, and that might be the single, like, genetic material that's manifested itself in. In ways that are hard to trace back to sort of the first example.
- [69:24]
A
I mean, even, like all the Hallmark holiday movies have this. There's something kind of melancholy about.
- [69:30]
B
Yeah.
- [69:31]
A
Like something in that dynamic before the people find each other. Like, it's.
- [69:35]
B
And I think it is. It's there in like the original Christmas story, right? Like it's macabre to think about, like we're selling the birth of celebrating the birth of this kid that eventually going to grow up, that we're going to set he's going to die for our sins. I mean, there's also an inversion of that, right? Because Tiny Tim is for this Christ like figure. You're like, no one's a purer soul than Tiny Tim. And you could see a version of this where Tiny Tim dies so that Scrooge may like, you know, have a reckoning or a resolution. But in this one Scrooge gets ahead of. He's like, I don't. You know what? Jesus, you didn't have to die. If we would just got our stuff together, you wouldn't have to die for us.
- [70:08]
A
Interesting. Related to that in the first version of it, in the first manuscript, Tiny Tim was named Fred. And like does this hit nearly as hard hard if he's not named Tiny Tim? And also in the first manuscript, Dickens did not reveal that Tiny Tim would live. And editors and like whatever the Victorian beta readers were like, you have to tell us what the fate of Tiny Tim.
- [70:30]
B
This book is not going to hit like you want it to. Even if Scrooge converts and Tiny Tim's crotch is there by the fire and everyone is weeping, you got to know.
- [70:39]
A
He'S okay in the long run.
- [70:40]
B
There's no red altogether. Like, I mean the whole world, there's. There's nothing, there's no one on one like for Rita likes go into the world and consume things and you'll get some Christmas carol cocktail party crib sheet. I have one for you here.
- [70:52]
A
This is incredible. I'm just going to clear out and let you do this.
- [70:55]
B
If you are looking for who first took the Christ out of Christmas, it's our pal Chuck D. Which I like to imagine is what his friends called Charles Dickens.
- [71:06]
A
Just that's it. A well done no notes, a final.
- [71:12]
B
Beat, a zero to well read score. Each one gets a score from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. Historical importance, readability, current relevance, essential questions, book nerd read, cred. O damn factor. This is a, this is a lopsided one because I think it scores super high on 1, 2 and 3 and almost zero on 4 and 5 because it's so familiar there. Historical importance like 9. How is it not a 10?
- [71:31]
A
It has to be a 9 or a 10. Yeah, it's hot.
- [71:33]
B
It has to be be. It has to be a 9 or 10. I mean, listen, it's not a 10 because we reserve that for like Shakespeare in the Bible. Right.
- [71:41]
A
And like home or.
- [71:42]
B
And the Greeks in the Greeks. Yeah.
- [71:44]
A
Yeah.
- [71:44]
B
So if you're not that. So it has to be a nine.
- [71:46]
A
Yeah.
- [71:47]
B
Readability. It's not a ten because it's not super modern modern. But it's like eight and a half or nine.
- [71:53]
A
Yeah, eight and a half is good.
- [71:55]
B
Current relevance of central questions.
- [71:56]
A
14, 10. 75.
- [72:00]
B
Yeah, 75. Book nerd recred. This is one I have no sense of. I don't think anyone cares if you've read Christmas Carol.
- [72:07]
A
I think the read cred is pretty low precisely because three gives you that.
- [72:11]
B
You know, I actually read the original. You get to do that, but there's nothing there to say. And you'll be surprised to hear that is exactly like a Muppet.
- [72:17]
A
You've got the gist. Yeah. Oh, damn Factor.
- [72:23]
B
I think it's hard to look at straight because it's so familiar.
- [72:25]
A
Yeah, I do too. This one's hard to be objective about. About. I could get to like a seven maybe on just. He's doing a lot of things. It is more complex than the cultural representations of it. It's funnier. Like there's more of gravy than the grave to you is hysterical.
- [72:42]
B
That's some Shakespeare stuff. Yeah, five or six is okay. I could get behind that.
- [72:46]
A
All right.
- [72:47]
B
All right. Anything else, Rebecca? I think we did it pretty well there.
- [72:49]
A
Yeah. I'm glad that we had an excuse to do this this year. So thank you again to all the listeners who rated and reviewed viewed the show that your gift to us this season was that we got to read A Christmas Carol and talk about it with each other.
- [73:02]
B
Yeah, you can go to patreon.com 02 well read for detailed show notes. You can find that in your podcatcher and click on it there for a free newsletter and membership options. You can also begin. We just spun up our Instagram and TikTok and YouTube. They are all at zero to well read podcast. So if you want to be ready for when we start posting stuff over there, it could happen any day. Who knows? Be ready over there.
- [73:26]
A
This podcast is coming to video video in 2026.
- [73:31]
B
Yeah, that's a real ghost of Christmas present moment for some of us. Email us at 02 well read bookriot.com 0to well read is a proud member of the Airwave Podcast Network. Rebecca. Thank you and for all listening, I hope you can find a goose, whatever that might mean for you in a family moment this holiday. Season. Here we have the Limu emu in its natural habitat, helping people customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
- [74:11]
A
Fascinating.
- [74:12]
B
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [74:16]
A
Limu is that guy with the binoculars. Watch. Watching us.
- [74:19]
B
Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com savings. Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts.