Book Review

Title: The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge

Author: Charlie Lovett

Published in 2016, The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge by Charlie Lovett is the story of the changes wrought in and wrought by Scrooge two decades after his ghostly adventures. It shows how the protagonist of A Christmas Carol (by Charles Dickens, published in 1843) creates a kind of butterfly effect to ripple social reforms in the world around him. The supernatural story is set in Dickensian England, twenty years after three ghosts paid a visit to Scrooge on Christmas eve to help make him a kind, humane, helpful man and to instill good values in him.

Lovett has made the spirit of giving the theme of the whole book, just like Dickens did. At the start of the book you have a quote by filmmaker Valentine Davies, “Christmas isn’t just a day; it’s a frame of mind”. And, it is in that spirit of giving that you have the altered Scrooge wishing everybody “Merry Christmas” in the middle of June. Lovett says he started by parodying the first paragraph of Dickens, which starts “Marley was dead to begin with”. Lovett starts with “Scrooge was alive to begin with”. Lovett starts with a sense of hope and continues bringing hope through the book. Dickens starts with a bleak picture and through darkness, he brings light and hope.

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge fears the ghost of his former partner Marley and the three spirits. In Lovett’s book, Scrooge looks forward to seeing them. It is to help free Marley from his ghostly and shackled existence, Scrooge embarks on his second adventure with ethereal beings. Again in A Christmas Carol, Marley had helped Scrooge and in The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge, Scrooge helps Marley, Bob Cratchit, his former clerk and current partner, his nephew, bankers, the rich, the poor and the world. He helps bring out the need and to help mankind in others and make this world a better place.

The sequence of the ghosts is pretty much the same as in A Christmas Carol. I will say one thing of this book that one has to be familiar with Dickens’ creation to really appreciate Lovett’s sequel. First the spirit of Bob Marley initiates Scrooge in what he is to expect and then come the spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Future… except in Lovett’s book, Scrooge directs and accompanies the spirits to the persons who need to be awakened to make the changes. Unlike in Dickens where Scrooge went alone with the spirit, two men and the ghost embark on an adventure together.

The two books can be regarded as a set. Lovett has actually taken the sense of social reform a step further than Dickens and said how the reforms were being started and continued. Both the books end with a note of hope. They are good if you read them together or present them as a set to someone for Christmas.

Lovett has actually captured the Dickensian spirit of reform to make the world a better place more effectively than the Hollywood movie Scrooged (1988), for which again you need to have read Dickens’s Christmas Carol. Scrooged is set in a more modern world context but the dialogues are weak and I would give it an adult rating for some of the dialogues, violence and disturbing content.

Lovett’s book is not only in the spirit of Christmas, reform and Dickens but it also is one which the whole family can read together… from age eight to eighty, a rare occurrence in present day literature. Perhaps, they can even make a movie of The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge one Christmas!

Book of the Week

 

Title: Rip Van Winkle and other stories
Author: Washington Irving

First published in 1819, Rip Van Winkle is a story about a man who fell asleep for many years and woke up to find the world had changed. The other stories in this collection, like the title story, are characterised by a tongue-in-cheek humour and a touch of the macabre. They are all stories of migrants from different cultures to a land that gave them a new home.

Rip Van Winkle is a story of a man who helped everyone except himself. To avoid his wife’s haranguing, he escaped to the Catskill mountains (New York), fell asleep under the effect of some moonshine made by Dutch faerie folk playing ninepins (bowling)and woke up after a couple of decades to find a changed world, where his wife had died, his son had replaced him as the village lounger and the American war of independence had been fought. He finds shelter in his married daughter’s home.

The Legend of the Sleepy Hollow is the story of Ichabod Crane, the tall, lanky crane-like village school master, with a strong belief in the supernatural. He disappears in the Sleepy Hollow while returning home from a party where his proposal had been rejected by his sweetheart. The New England village folk believed that he has been killed by the headless horseman who is supposed to haunt that area. The horseman, who carried his own head under his arm , threw it at the school teacher. The next day they find a broken pumpkin where Crane had disappeared with all his effects. In the epilogue, the author says Crane’s rival married his sweetheart and could not help smiling everytime anyone spoke of Crane. A suggestion has also been made that Crane left the village and became a lawyer!

The Spectre Bridegroom is set in Germany where a bridegroom is killed on the way to his wedding. His friend, who tries to tell the bride’s party of his friend’s death, is mistaken for a ghost of his friend! It is a comedy of errors and the friend carries away the bride at the end.

The Pride of the Village is story set in a small English village, the story of a girl disappointed in love. Like in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Ubervilles, the affair starts with the girl being the may queen. She does not suffer as much as Tess. When she is dying is the arms of her parents, her loved one comes back to her.

The last story, Mountjoy, seems to be a comment on private education where learning is unmonitored and sometimes aimless. This is again set in New England and talks of a family that lived in France. Though three of the five stories are set in America, by the banks of the Hudson river, the current day New York, they capture the hope of the multi-cultural migrant community that created a new world in America.

I found the first three stories very gripping. It reminded me of some of Roald Dahl’s stories in a collection called Kiss Kiss, only the horror is less horrific. The stories have a macabre humour and a tongue in cheek suggestion in the epilogue to rationalise the legends.

Irving’s description of the characters are sketched with few words and incidents which leave a strong imprint in ones mind. His characterisation of Crane with his lanky appearance, green eyes, belief in ghosts and spirits and fondness of food and women’s company is very realistic as are his other characters. You can almost hear his thin voice and laugh at his housewifish outlook. He wants to propose to a girl not only over her own worth but on the worth of her father who has a prosperous farm and a good spread at the table.

The flavour of the times are well captured by Irving. When Rip returns to his village, he is still a loyal subject of the King of England but the people he encounters have lived through the American revolution! Rip changes his world view to suit the needs of the times as he had never had strong political affiliations and lives out his life as a well-loved legendary figure.

Irving has woven Red Indian lore into his stories too to add authenticity to his legends. Catskill mountain. Historically, Catskill mountain was named after either Dutch or Mohican traditions or persons. It is not very clear. Irving has played with these legends to create a misty aura around the story. There is a statue of Rip Van Winkle in a park in New York. Irving did create a legend!

These are stories about common people anywhere in the world. You can see multicultural values built into these legends. They absorbed traditions of cross-continental cultures and created a new myth from them. That many Americans, unless they were native Indians, emigrated with their own cultures to find acceptance in the wilds of America is borne out by the multi-cultural flavour of the legends created by Irving.

I enjoyed these stories very much and would say they make an excellent weekend read with their one world outlook. After all, they have created new legends.