Rereading A Christmas Carol

Well to jump start the Christmas season for myself, I re-read Dickens A Christmas Carol this week and enjoyed all the things about it that surprised me the first time I read it - that it is scary, that it seeks to convey a deeper meaning, that it has no carollers in it whatsoever.

Another thing about it, about everything Dickens really, is that the characters are suprisingly flat, most of them anyhow. It seems that Dickens characters, when they are bad, are exceptionally vile, and, when they are good, are righteousness personified. What is not flat is his use of metaphor, somehow he can make you feel as cold as Bob Cratchit and his single smoldering coal.

I struggle with is trying to imagine Scrooge and Bob and the ghosts as what they were intended to be, instead of Disney characters! I would like to see a modern retelling of the story to see how they portrayed, for example, the Ghost of Christmas Past, who is describle almost like a fiberoptic Christmas tree - glowing here and there, coming into and out of focus - and glowing on top like a candle.

So here are these 3 Ghosts (4 if you count Marley) and each one reflects his time - the past is youthful and reflective of summer, the future is a reaper suggesting death, and present, well he is a giant surrounded by piles of food, carrying a cornicopia as a torch. He is cheerful and pleasant, but he has two children - Want and Ignorance - who cling to his legs under his robe and who represent the less fortunate people for whom Scrooge has no patience and no pity. And for Dickens these children are the true scary part of the story:

"Beware of them both, and all of their degree but most of all beware this boy [Ignorance], for on his brow I see that written which is Doom"...
"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.
"Are there no prisons!" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

The spirit's retort has to be taken as a rebuke because this was Scrooge's excuse for not donating toward a charity at the beginning of the story. The conversation ends abruptly because the spirit's time ends and the Ghost of Christmas Future appears. Scrooges understand that at a sudden moment, it will be too late for him. He's already missed out on so much and has so little time to give.

I would think that a real life Scrooge would be depressed by seeing the life he could have had, but instead he is inspired and starts where he is. So that is interesting...and inspiring...just by itself.