# Why Is "A Christmas Carol" So Readable? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 16, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556 "2009-12-16T23:55:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/1 "2009-12-16T23:55:54Z")
I mean, in comparison to most of Dicken’s other stuff. I tried to read “Martin Chuzzlewit” a few years back-I gave up-the prose was just too weird. In contrast “A Christmas Carol” is so well written, it makes perfect sense to a modern reader. Was this because ACC wasn’t one of those paid by the word things that Dickens had with his publisher? In any case, i always reread ACC at Christmas time-it is such a great story! God belss us every one!😃 ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/2 "2009-12-17T02:58:06Z")
Maybe because we’re so familiar with it? We know the story so well we can appreciate the details without losing the thread of the story? I think that’s what happened when I read LOTR. I first read it in HS, and I found it confusing and difficult to follow. When I re-read it a few years later, I appreciated it much more. _Great Expectations_ and _Hard Times_ are shorter. I think they’re easier to appreciate. I tried reading _The Pickwick Papers_ recently but I just could not get into it and I gave up. Maybe it’s just that ACC really is a masterpiece. After all, he wrote a few more Christmas books that he thought would be as great or better than ACC. They were successful at the time, but nobody reads them now. Maybe they’d be worth a serious tv adaptation now. _Cricket on the Hearth_ was given the full Rankin-Bass treatment, including songs. Just the idea makes me go “Yeccch”! ---
**Author:** ![kelly5078](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6f9a4e/32.png) [@kelly5078](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kelly5078)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/3 "2009-12-17T05:16:09Z")
It’s incredibly rich in memorable scenes. Also, nobody can draw a character better than Dickens, and he never did it better than in “A Christmas Carol.” For me, even after 1001 movie adaptations, going back to the original is always rich delight. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/4 "2009-12-17T06:09:56Z")
> [@ralph124c](#): > > I mean, in comparison to most of Dicken’s other stuff. > I tried to read “Martin Chuzzlewit” a few years back-I gave up-the prose was just too weird. In contrast “A Christmas Carol” is so well written, it makes perfect sense to a modern reader. > Was this because ACC wasn’t one of those paid by the word things that Dickens had with his publisher? I don’t know whether Dickens was paid by the word, but most of his novels were originally published serially, and he sometimes had more than one novel in progress at once; whereas _A Christmas Carol_ was (I think—correct me if I’m wrong) published all in one piece. I don’t know whether that explains anything or not, but it might account for ACC being more focused. > [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > Maybe because we’re so familiar with it? We know the story so well we can appreciate the details without losing the thread of the story? That may well be part of it. > [@](#): > > _Great Expectations_ and _Hard Times_ are shorter. I think they’re easier to appreciate. So is _Oliver Twist_, which I had to read as a freshman in high school and was surprised at how accessible it was. > [@](#): > > I tried reading _The Pickwick Papers_ recently but I just could not get into it and I gave up. _Pickwick_ does get better later on. It was his first novel, and he didn’t really hit his stride until at least 100 pages in, about the time Sam Weller appears. > [@](#): > > Maybe it’s just that ACC really is a masterpiece. Yeah, maybe so. I think he was at the top of his game when he wrote it. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 1:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/5 "2009-12-17T13:02:59Z")
_Chuzzlewit_ is difficult, and arguably _Pickwick_, but I think the other Dickens is very, VERY readable. _Tale of Two Cities, Oliver Twist_ and _David Copperfield_ aren’t hard. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/6 "2009-12-17T13:20:40Z")
I’ll agree. I love _A Christmas Carol_ – and I don’t think it’s because of its being well-known. Dickens was really into the story, and it’s a wonderful mix of sentimentality, wit, personal recollection (it;'s been persuasively argued that the Crachit’s Christmas is based on Dickens; own experiences), and indignation (Dickens rails against several abuses of the poor in the book – all of them “live” issues at the time. One of them makes it into the current Zemeckis film). He was definitely writing from the heart, and it shows. Some of his other works are equally readable. He wrote four more Chistmas books, but none as good as Christmas Carol, with the later ones pretty hard to slog through. I’ve read _A Tale of Two Cities_ a couple of times. But I agree that _The Pickwick Papers_ is, in my experience, dreadful. But I never got as far as Sam Weller. And it’s not just his early words. as I mentioned, the later Christmas books are awful. And I had to read _Hard Times_ for a class, and hated every moment of it. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/7 "2009-12-17T15:19:27Z")
I’ve had mixed experiences w/ Dickens myself. _David Copperfield_,\* A Tale of Two Cities\*\*, and the (ISTR) excerpted version of _Great Expectations_ that I read in high school were all extremely accessible and enjoyable, to the point of being page turners. Yes, the trademark Dickens long sentences were there, but nothing terribly difficult to handle. On the other hand, when I tried to read _Oliver Twist_ it was just a bit too sappy for me. Currently I’m in the middle of _Bleak House_, and it’s been hard going compared to _ATOTC_ or _David Copperfield_. There’s nothing wrong with it, and it’s not difficult to follow or understand. I think the plot is just a trifle pedestrian compared to the other Dickens I’ve read. I’m planning on working my way through as much of his work as I can while I’m here in Russia (unless I can get my paws on a copy of Gibbon’s \*Decline and Fall \*in English), and _Christmas Carol_ is next on the list. (Orthodox Christmas comes later, so I’ve got some extra time to polish off _Bleak House_. ;)) - Not to be confused with that long overlooked classic, \*A Sale of Two… \* ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/8 "2009-12-17T16:25:45Z")
I think various people have already nailed the fact that ACC wasn’t serialised, hence the brevity and the brilliance. Not that he isn’t a fine storyteller in the longer form of course. I really only chipped in here to say that my wife was born across the street from the real Dotherboys Hall. (In Bowes, Co. Durham for those interested) and yes, when the wind and rain whip in from the moors you can really appreciate how well Mr. Dickens captured that grey, bleak, harsh existence. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [December 17, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/9 "2009-12-17T16:50:18Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I don’t know whether Dickens was paid by the word, but most of his novels were originally published serially, and he sometimes had more than one novel in progress at once; whereas _A Christmas Carol_ was (I think—correct me if I’m wrong) published all in one piece. I don’t know whether that explains anything or not, but it might account for ACC being more focused. For the novels first published in serial form, Dickens was paid per instalment. However, because each instalment needed to fill 32 pages of text, thus rendering them the same length, one might argue he was paid a fixed sum for a fixed number of words produced per month. _A Christmas Carol_ first appeared in one piece, a novel written over period of 5 or 6 weeks. With a clear idea in his mind of the story’s construction, the author was better able to produced a more focused work. When writing the serialised tales, Dickens sometimes didn’t know himself how the story would end. Plotting stories in this way inevitably led to some loss of focus. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2009, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-a-christmas-carol-so-readable/521556/10 "2009-12-19T19:14:23Z")
I’ve only read a few things by Dickens, and find that the readability varies widely. _Nicholas Nickelby_ is notoriously unreadable, but I found _Oliver Twist_ and _Great Expectations_ to be like modern literary novels once I was use to the old-fashioned language. I often find that I have to give old books more of a chance. A few chapters into _Uncle Tom’s Cabin_, I almost put it down because it seemed to be hammering on and on with the plantation patois. But I persevered and it turned out to be well worthwhile; the story turns out to be a page turner.