The Thammasat University Libraries owns different editions of one of the best-loved works by the British novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. A carol generally means a song written for a Christian religious holiday. A Christmas Carol, a short novel by Charles Dickens, was published in London in 1843. It describes how a rich man named Ebenezer Scrooge learns to care about other people and help the poor. Although Scrooge starts out as greedy and uncaring, he changes his attitudes. Since the book discusses caring about the poor and suffering, and offers the possibility that people who are not interested in them one day may decide to help, this is an encouraging book. Its setting at Christmastime in London has made many readers associate Christmas as a time of charitable giving, instead of being generous to poor people all year round. A Christmas Carol is good to read anytime, and not just during the Christmas season. Part of the reason that Dickens was sensitive to the lives of underprivileged people was that his own father was sent to prison because he could not pay his debts. As an eleven-year-old, Dickens had to leave school and work in a factory. There his job was pasting labels onto pots of boot polish. Even after his father was let out of jail, Dickens had to continue working at the factory to help his family. From these early experiences, he felt deeply for such characters in A Christmas Carol as Bob Cratchit, an office employee whose boss, Scrooge, pays him very little and makes him work too much. Dickens had visited some places in England where child laborers suffered even more than he had at the factory, for example tin mines in Cornwall where children worked under bad conditions. He also visited schools in London established for homeless, hungry street children. He thought about writing a pamphlet to discuss the difficult lives of these children, but in 1843 he decided that by writing a fictional story, he might influence more people.

In an earlier comic novel, The Pickwick Papers (1837), also in the collection of the TU libraries, he had described a lonely and mean person looking after a church who becomes more generous after he is visited by demons showing him the past and future. The same thing would later happen to Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Dickens used the English language beautifully and memorably. Some of the dialogue in A Christmas Carol is unforgettable, such as when Scrooge angrily expresses his opinion about Christmastime:

If I could work my will,’ said Scrooge indignantly, ‘Every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!’

When two charitable gentlemen visit his office, asking for a donation for the poor and destitute, Scrooge angrily asks:
“Are there no prisons?”
“Plenty of prisons…”
“And the Union workhouses.” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“Both very busy, sir…”
“Those who are badly off must go there.”
“Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”
“If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Soon Scrooge changes his attitude, after he is visited by the ghost of his business partner Jacob Marley.  Appearing to him as a warning, Marley explains what may happen to Scrooge after he dies if he continues to be greedy and unfeeling. Marley explains that Scrooge will be visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. They will try to convince him that once he had a better attitude about humanity, people are at risk and suffering today, and if he does not change, things will be bad for him. When Scrooge wakes up on Christmas day, he has new ideas and generously decides to treat his employees, neighbors, and family better.

Reviewers in Dickens’ time enjoyed the book. Athenaeum, a London literary magazine, called it

A tale to make the reader laugh and cry – to open his hands, and open his heart to charity even toward the uncharitable … a dainty dish to set before a King.

The reviewer was quoting from a famous English nursery rhyme, Sing a Song of Sixpence:

    Sing a song of sixpence,

    A pocket full of rye.

    Four and twenty blackbirds,

    Baked in a pie.

    When the pie was opened,

    The birds began to sing;

    Wasn’t that a dainty dish,

    To set before the king?

A Christmas Carol is such a lively and dramatic story that as soon as it was published, it was adapted for the theatre. The first film version, Scrooge or Marley’s Ghost, was released in 1901, 115 years ago. Since then, there have been many adaptations onscreen, ballets, musicals, and other ways of telling Dickens’ story. The TU Libraries own a CD set recorded by the British actor Anton Lesser.

A Christmas Carol in Thailand

In 2010, as part of the Bangkok International Festival of Dance and Music, a ballet interpretation of A Christmas Carol was presented at the Thailand Cultural Center by the United Kingdom’s Northern Ballet Theatre. The Nation described the production as

musical theatre and ballet rolled into one.

On its website, the ballet company noted how pleased they were to be invited to the very prestigious festival where in 2005 they had performed a ballet version of Peter Pan. After their arrival in the Kingdom, the company offered an update:

The dancers arrived last night after a good flight. Some ventured out while some had an early night after their long journey. Today they have a free day to explore the sites and relax by the pool or in the Spa.

After the final performance, they added:

The company were back to the theatre this morning for class and then our second and final performance of A Christmas Carol. …The matinee was once again very well attended and it was interesting to observe that in both performances the audience was made up of 90% Thais which was quite unexpected. The performance was received very well by the audience who were very appreciative at the end with cheers and even some standing! After the performance, the dancers were soon on their way back to the hotel for their last night in Bangkok leaving the Technicians to dismantle everything that they so painstakingly put together only 2 days ago.

The Bangkok Community Theatre has also featured its own stage version of A Christmas Carol and in 2014, the British Club Bangkok screened a classic film version of A Christmas Carol starring the Scottish actor Alastair Sim as Scrooge. Despite the excellence of many adaptations, the original book as written by Dickens is perhaps the most enjoyable. One Thai reader named Palm posted on the website goodreads.com about reading part of A Christmas Carol. Even though his English was not perfect, his enthusiasm was clearly expressed:

I think that this story is a very long story but it was also not hard to read. It had many story in one book. My favorite chapter was the very first chapter. That chapter was the only chapter that i understand. So i think that it is the best. This story is like all about ghost. I think that if the story is shorter it would be better, so it is easier to read, but less interesting. The more interesting the book is the more you want to read it. And my favorite part in the first chapter was when Scrooge met the Ghost (Marley)

Contemporary influences.

Last year the magazine Ad Age, about the advertising industry, suggested that Thai TV commercials are

the modern-day equivalent of a Charles Dickens novel. They’ve got pathos, injustice, plot twists and moments of grace.

Some of these advertisements are so sad that the magazine calls them sadvertising. Among the Thai TV commercials that cause viewers to cry and smile, in the way that A Christmas Carol does, include ads for Thai Life Insurance, Tesco Lotus, TrueMove H mobile operator, CP Foods, and Vizer security cameras.

(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons).