MR DICKENS AND HIS CAROL
Samantha Silva, Flatiron, 2017, $24.99/C34.99, hb, 288pp, 9781250154040
Charles Dickens, used to living the life of a successful writer in Victorian London, finds to his dismay that his most recent literary effort, ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’, is not selling well. His publishers suggest that he write a short Christmas book to recoup recent losses. Dickens declines, it being only a few weeks before Christmas. However, a clause in his contract makes refusal impossible. Very reluctantly he agrees.
This new burden seems like the last straw. Both his father and his brother ask repeatedly for loans he knows will never be repaid. His family now numbers six children and his wife plans a large Christmas celebration as well as improvements to their house. His children want more and better toys, he is expected to contribute to charities. It is all too much. When his wife leaves him taking the children he has what we would call his mid-life crisis.
Moving into cheap rooms he struggles to write a Christmas book and finally cobbles one together, full of struggles and pain. Yet he has met a mysterious woman who becomes his muse, guiding him to discover the finer side of human nature. Her son and other street children deepen his understanding until he starts anew and triumphantly completes the masterpiece we now know as ‘A Christmas Carol’.
Ms Silva deftly weaves fact with fiction developing a tale of a man who finds salvation in his writing, understanding finally what we might achieve as we accept human nature – our own as well as others – for the best it might become. With a light touch she presents the depth of meaning of ‘The Christmas Carol’ along with a detailed picture of Dickens himself and the London life and landscape of the time.
This is a book of many dimensions and a worthwhile read.
Valerie Fletcher Adolph 