Brilliantly simple and simply brilliant

Inspired by seeing the 1951 film version on television on Christmas Eve, I've just re-read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

It was written in 1843, and took Dickens a mere six weeks to complete, apparently because he was under pressure to deliver it in order to pay off an old debt. It never ceases to amaze me how an impending deadline can bring out the best in people. Of course, it helped that Dickens was one of the best writers ever but still.

Its popularity has ensured its familiarity and this tale of revelation, realisation and redemption seems almost too straightforward by today's storytellling standards. But in fact, it is the simplicity of the story that makes it the classic that it is.

Dickens has an exquisite turn of phrase and also displays a wicked sense of humour, even, or perhaps especially, when the tone is dark. Here, Scrooge is awaiting the second spirit.

"... he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much... All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light... and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion without having the consolation of knowing it."

Towards the end of the story, we meet the spirit of Christmas yet to come, who does not speak but simply points to what Scrooge should observe.

"The spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

'The house is yonder,' Scrooge explained. 'Why do you point away?'

The inexorable finger underwent no change."

The idea of a finger being inexorable is brilliant but is also so simple and so apt.

A Christmas Carol also proves that you don't need to write a lot in order to
create an impact. At just under 100 pages in length, it's short but emphatic in its message, something a lot of modern writers across all media would do well to imitate.

In the beginning

I've always loved words. Mind you, I wasn't always very good at them. Some of my first attempts were a bit amateurish, if I'm honest. Childish even. But then I was a child so that was probably acceptable.

For example, 'durden' was a favourite for some time. Not familiar with that one? I was trying to say that there was a bird in the garden. So that was probably my first attempt at communicating concisely, something which is very important to me. Of course, using the fewest possible syllables isn't always enough to get the message across and I think I soon grew out of that one.

Then, I moved onto my first spoonerism by asking if we were going to put our car in the big 'par cark'. Strictly speaking it's not even a true spoonerism - "you've hissed all my mystery lessons" is more like it, even if it isn't a genuine one from Reverend Spooner himself - but it certainly stayed in the family for many years.

When I started reading, a whole new world was revealed to me, even if I didn't always read things very carefully in my haste to devour the story. It was some time before it was pointed out to me that the big scavenging bird I was referring to as a 'vutle' was actually a vulture.

Since then I've become a lot more careful with my pronunciation - doing voice over doesn't leave a lot of scope for errors. But I am still partial to making words up, where appropriate of course. I wouldn't want to swiften your exit from my shiny new blog, after all.