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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens [Seasonal Show] (Patreon)

Published:
2021-12-23 16:45:18
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Dear Book Club Readers ---

Here's wishing a Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year to you!

I enjoy A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens as part of a yearly reading tradition, and, having just finished this year's reread, I would love to discuss it with you.

Before we dive into the show, I would like to express my deep thanks to you for making this such a great year. 

We have such a fantastic community here, built around sharing our love of literature, so thank you so much for being a part of the fun!

If you partake of the Christmas Carol reading tradition, then please do share your thoughts about the story too.

Audio Timestamps:

  • 0:00 a yearly reading tradition
  • 3:00 the history of A Christmas Carol
  • 6:20 Dickens the social novelist
  • 10:00 Dickens’ contribution to Christmas
  • 12:00 how the story became a bestseller
  • 13:30 how A Christmas Carol is a perfect story
  • 15:00 six lessons from A Christmas Carol
  • 16:00 how we keep the dead alive
  • 16:20 “Marley was dead”
  • 17:50 wisdom of ancestors in metaphors
  • 20:00 the anxiety of death
  • 23:00 catalysts for character change
  • 24:30 claiming stillness at this time of year
  • 26:30 being a Scrooge
  • 32:00 “I wear the chain I forged in life”
  • 37:00 fate vs free-will & empowering beliefs
  • 43:00 “mankind was my business”
  • 46:00 Benjamin Franklin’s scheme of virtues
  • 48:00 Aristotle on generosity
  • 50:00 abundance vs scarcity mindsets
  • 53:00 let there be music in your heart
  • 55:00 the musical vibration of life
  • 58:00 listening to music as a new year’s resolution
  • 1:00:00 is A Christmas Carol a Christian tale?
  • 1:03:00 transubstantiation, confirmation, heaven & hell
  • 1:09:00 the pagan background to Christmas
  • 1:12:00 the three ghosts of Christmas
  • 1:14:00 the ghost of Christmas Past
  • 1:22:00 the ghost of Christmas Present
  • 1:30:00 the ghost of Christmas Yet to Come
  • 1:35:00 takeaways from A Christmas Carol
  • 1:35:30 my holiday wishes to you

Questions for You:

1) Which of the ghosts resonates the most with you? The ghost of Christmas Past, Present, or Yet to Come?

2) Was Dickens' social purpose with A Christmas Carol effective? And what thoughts or feelings does the story leave you with?

And please let us know any part of the story that you most enjoyed!

Happy Holidays, and happy reading, everybody! 

Files

Previews only

Ep 49 - A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens)

If you're enjoying the Hardcore Literature Show, there are two ways you can show your support and ensure it continues: 1. Please leave a quick review on iTunes. 2. Join in the fun over at the Hardcore Literature Book Club: patreon.com/hardcoreliterature Thank you so much. Happy listening and reading!

Comments

Daisy

Just finished my first read of A Christmas Carol. I did find the language challenging due to my inexperience. Hoping to re read this every year and gain a better understanding each time. The one thing that resonated with me is having an abundance mindset instead of a deficient mindset and from gratitude flows charity and generosity. I intend to be more charitable and generous to others this year.

Daryl

Feeling a bit late to the party with this one, as it's my first read of A Christmas Carol, and this episode is 4 years old! But it's never too late to change something in your life for the better, and reading more in 2025 has been for me. I'm not sure which ghost resonates most with me, as I feel learning from my past mistakes informs the present, where I'm aiming to be a good person and make positive decisions to improve what happens in the future. Happy holiday to everybody in the book club!

Canadian Darlene
>>196326261

Hi Daryl. I too am late to the party but I’m sure Dickens is just glad we’re here. I know the story of course but the reading of it is so much better. This was my first read and not my last to be sure. A new tradition is born. It’s hard to choose a ghost but I’d have to say the events of Christmas to come are the most poignant for me. I agree with you that our past informs our present. And our present key to our future. Dickens is a marvel.

Clare Shepherd

I really enjoyed Ben's lectures this year and end with a Dickens Fest. I have read all of Dickens, but thought I hadn't read Bleak House, but I keep getting flashbacks to my last read, I binged on Dickens after o'levels in summer of 1961, the Summer of Dickens (The Summer love came later) . Anway, it's been a great, fun, yet a sore read. I'm not easily moved to ewrs, but the death of Jo, and Lady Deadlock both brought tears. I shall finish BH today, then read Christmas Carol. I'm trying to find time I read it every year, like Ben. Before January I wantvtob read, one of my Dickens biography, or maybe the se tions on Bleak House in each of the four, depending on time. My other reading project, having read entire Bible 5 times, and many quotes, I decided to try other holy books. I read the Koran are year ago on and am currently reading the Mahabharata, having read the Bagavad Gita. Finally, I am reading Ouida's Two Flags for fun.i think I'm it's the most purple prose that I have ever encountered.

Steve Horan

This past weekend I attended our local showing of A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis MN, which has been running for 45 years during the Christmas season. This year was a new adaptation and it was brilliant. The night before I reread the Dickens classic as I do every year. A wonderful tradition.

Steve Horan

My favorite lines in A Christmas Carol are between Scrooge and his nephew Fred when Fred comes to invite Scrooge to his Christmas party. “What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.” “What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough.”

hardcoreliterature
>>74255430

I love that! Such a snappy call-and-response. A good example of how well the story lends itself to musical adaptations. I find myself singing this dialogue in my mind!

Caroline P

Great listening thank you. I read this every Christmas to. Last year I illustrated a sentence out of my daily December pages. It was huge fun. My favourite bit is the Christmas pudding! And I can’t help but shed a tear when Tiny Tim says the happiest line at the end… but that is for tomorrow night. I have tissues!

Caroline P

Ps my favourite picture was the dancing.. but at a picture a day they were not good … no time to faff about with perfection.. but it was so good choosing a sentence (or two) to draw

Andrea Soløst

Thank you, Ben, for your talk on A Christmas Carol. I couldn't remember the last time I read it now, so I decided to read it when I saw your post yesterday. Started last night and finished it this afternoon. And wow, so much has happened since the last time I read it, making me see it from a totally different perspective! What you said about procreation and fear of death as driving forces really struck a chord with me. The last couple of years I have regularly been hit by waves of death anxiety that I haven't really experienced before. I hadn't really been thinking much about death before I had a child myself four and a half years ago. And maybe especially because I am a single mother, the thought of dying, leaving him behind, can be really overwhelming at times. However, when I manage to break out of the anxiety, it always gives me a motivation to live life to the fullest, both with my son and without, and to enjoy and appreciate the now and everyday moments. It seems to me that children are naturally able to be in the moment and enjoy life the most, maybe because they are not aware of death. At one point, growing up, we realise that our own life also will come to an end, and from then on the self-conscious struggle to find a meaning, a purpose and the right way of life becomes part of life, often obstructing life itself, I think. I took a walk outside after I finished reading tonight, enjoying the snowy silence. A Christmas Carol made me think about death anxiety, what constitutes a meaningful life and how many of us constantly do the work of the ghosts to examine our own path through life. Of course, the social part of A Christmas Carol is very important too, and a very interesting part indeed, but this time reading it was a very personal journey for me. Merry Christmas to you all and thank you all for making me feel welcome and included in this community <3

David Wisehart

This is my first time reading A Christmas Carol. I once played Marley's ghost in a high school production, chains and all, but had never read the source material before today. What struck me in reading the novella was Dickens's vivid depiction of the afterlife, which echoes Dante. Dickens tells us that Scrooge and Marley were money-changers, which I take to mean bankers. Or, as Dante would say, usurers. In Dante's Inferno, the usurers are weighed down by purses hung about their necks. Likewise, Marley's ghost is weighed down by purses and other tools of his trade: "The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel." Dickens is borrowing Dante's idea of "contrapasso," where the punishments in the afterlife reflect the sins of life. Or, as we might say, the punishment fits the crime. Dickens's use of the word "shade" for Marley's ghost (“You’re particular, for a shade," Scrooge says) evokes not only Dante but the katabasis scenes of Homer and Virgil. I suspect Dickens had Dante's scenes in mind while writing his own. In any case, I really enjoy the sense of recognition I get when making connections between great works of literature.

Par

Merry Christmas and thank you.

Bill Freeman

Ben – While this was a fantastic guide to “A Christmas Carol,” it was so much more. A true <i>tour de force</i> of your reflections on a life well-lived. There is such richness here, reflected in the comments above. Allow me to share a few thoughts in response to your podcast. Gratitude – Living in gratitude. This has been the most significant self-discovery of the past decade of my life. There is such much to be grateful for in life. For a while now, I have been intentionally living in that space. This orientation changed my relationship with my spouse. Instead of looking at “what was missing,” I changed my orientation to welcome and be grateful for what he brought to me and to us – and to express, to him, that heartful gratitude every day. And you know what happened? Our relationship grew and grew tremendously. Indeed, we feed that which we acknowledge. Recall the Buddhist fable of “the two wolves.” Religion is not spirituality. It is beautiful to hear you speak this insightful distinction. As I previously shared, I was a Roman Catholic seminarian for ten years. I was ordained a deacon working in a parish and left three months before priesthood ordination. I learned this insightful distinction: religion is not spirituality. In fact, they are galaxies apart. And what is commercialized as religion is a cheap, plastic knockoff. There is enormous freedom in this realization. Time. “A Christmas Carol” is a time insight. I am deep into Proust and believe that time is a (if not the) central theme. Time is omnipresent: past-present-future is self-contained and self-referential. Your statements about “heaven” and “hell” are so true. Even the arch-conservative John Paul II stated, "Heaven and hell are states of consciousness." A wish for you. Ben, I have never said this to anyone, let alone even thought of it ABOUT anyone, but you should have children. You should marry, stay married, live deeply in love, and have children. Your wisdom and goodness need to be individuated in children. Father them in your wisdom; send them as agents into a world so desperate in need of strength and help. Happy New Year.

Anonymous
>>74463365

It was pleasing to read this, Bill. Your mention of gratitude is particularly apt, as I imagine that is the main lesson Scrooge learned from his ordeal. As you say, it has the power to transform our relationships and to make us far happier than we might otherwise think possible.

Caroline P
>>74268160

Hello Don, yes we still make Christmas puddings and setting it alight is the best bit of Christmas. My Christmas pud was a globe this year. It looked like a hostile planet when I lit it and blue flames danced about. Small family dispute about what to have with it..Proper custard, brandy butter, cream, crème Fraîche, Icecream or nothing.

hardcoreliterature
>>74268063

That's so cool! Ah, the Christmas pud - it makes me very hungry. Luckily, I was able to indulge a little over the last few days :)

hardcoreliterature
>>74329704

Thank you for this incredibly insightful response, Andrea. One of the reasons I love rereading A Christmas Carol each year is because it really reflects how much my life has changed since the last reading. I've heard a few mothers talk about how significantly their attitude towards death changed after having a child. The urge to protect one's child is most likely the strongest that urge we will ever feel - it overrides everything. I find myself in the stage of life where I am consciously preparing for, and looking forward to, fatherhood - but, knowing myself to be very high percentile for neuroticism and anxiety, I am positive that I will be incredibly stressed and overwhelmed for most of it. I love what you've written here - I have to quote it: "At one point, growing up, we realise that our own life also will come to an end, and from then on the self-conscious struggle to find a meaning, a purpose and the right way of life becomes part of life, often obstructing life itself, I think." Merry Christmas, Andrea, and a wishing a very happy and healthy New Year to you and your family! Thank you so much for being such a cherished member of the community :)

hardcoreliterature
>>74334422

Such a great role! And how wonderful that this was your first reading, David, but you still came at it with an intimate knowledge of one of the key characters having played him yourself! Great insights about the reflections of Dante, Homer, and Virgil. A Christmas Carol, like a healthy handful of Dickens' masterpieces, reveal the writer to have studied the classics with a great amount of passion!

hardcoreliterature
>>74463365

Thank you, Bill - for your kind words, your insights, and for being such an incredibly valued member of the community this year :) I love your writings here - there isn't a stray word, and each line is beautifully wrought and crisp with lived experienced. You have a powerful book emerging from you before our very eyes. As for fatherhood - you've picked up on the fact that I'm in a stage of my life where this is forefront in my mind :)

Pablo
>>74463365

Profound comments and personal insights here Bill. Your thoughts have lead me reflect; thanks for sharing 🙂

Kathy Meyer

I feel in the company of giants here. You folks are such profound thinkers and are so incredibly well read. I have been an avid reader and have read and taught some of the great books, but that was some years and a brain injury ago. I am So happy to be trying again. Anyhow, there is a mythical allusion at the end of A Christmas Carol that struck me: “I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stocking. I confess, I needed to look this up. Laocoön being the Trojan priest of Apollo who was killed along with his two sons for having warned his people against the Trojan horse. I believe they were killed not so much for the warning, but for attempting to escape the fate of their fellow Trojans. I confess, this was a moment in my reading where I was jolted “awake” out of my prior sentimental response to Scrooge’s awakening. So many seminal ideas entered my mind about the ghosts, Scrooge’s redemption, but ending with a wondering if the term had completely lost its mythical roots by this time. What do you think?