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"Marley was dead, to begin with."
Published: 12/18/2009 6:03 PM
Last Modified: 12/18/2009 6:03 PM




I've always loved the fact that Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" opens this way -- three solid declarative words, followed by a seemingly casual phrase of explanation.

It is a bit of genius as well -- if you begin by saying someone is dead, then good heavens, what's to come? Ghosts and more ghosts, obviously -- as evidenced by the full title of this short book: "A Christmas Carol in Prose, being a Ghost Story of Christmas."

Much of what we think of when we think of Christmas comes from Charles Dickens, as writer Les Standiford showed in his 2008 book, "The Man Who Invented Christmas." And one of those traditions is that of the ghost story -- maybe more of an English tradition than an American one.

But it's one that Dickens upheld. His five Christmas books -- "A Christmas Carol," "The Chimes," "The Cricket on the Hearth," "The Battle of Life" and "The Haunted Man" -- all fall under the category of ghost stories.

Henry James' most famous ghost story, "The Turn of the Screw," opens with a group of people telling stories that were "gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be."

One of the most famous creators of ghost stories, M.R. James, wrote his tales specifically to read on Christmas Eve to his colleagues at the university were he worked. The Canadian writer Robertson Davies did something similar, ultimately collecting his stories in the collection "High Spirits" -- although, unlike the two Jameses, Davies preferred his ghost stories to have a sense of humor to them -- the climactic moment of "The Cat that Went to Trinity," for example, is a wonderful mix of hilarity and horror.

But "A Christmas Carol" remains the ultimate Christmas Ghost story. And, for those wanting a good edition to read aloud from for generations to come, the Everyman Library has come up with a volume that collects all five of Dickens' Christmas stories ("A Christmas Carol and Other Christmas Books," $18).


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ARTS

James D. Watts Jr. has lived in Oklahoma for most his life, even though he still has people saying to him, "Don't sound like you're from around these parts." A University of Oklahoma Phi Beta Kappa graduate, Watts has received the Governor Arts Award, Harwelden Award and the National Conference of Christians and Jews Beth Macklin Award for his writing. Before coming to the Tulsa World, Watts worked for the Tulsa Tribune.

Contact him at (918) 581-8478.

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