Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva

With dinner so late these days, we all need a light repast to sustain us. “Tea, now? In the afternoon?” asks Dickens, and Maria Beadnell replies: “Haven’t you heard? It’s all the rage. The era is well documented, and when Silva weaves certain historical details into her story, she tends to spotlight them. Inevitably, he hurts his leg, and Dickens gives him a crutch.ĭickens published “A Christmas Carol in Prose” in late 1843, in time for the holiday.

Inspired in part by his notorious affair with the young actress Ellen Ternan, which actually would not begin until 1857, the character Eleanor Lovejoy is provided with a mute, tiny son named Timothy. After providing a glimpse of his wife, Catherine, and the children, Silva shuffles them offstage and brings on a young woman who becomes Dickens’s romantic preoccupation during the few weeks in which this story takes place. She convincingly portrays Dickens’s restless energy, especially its manifestation in anxiety, his yearning for public approval, and how his narcissism could burn those drawn to his flame. She nicely captures the spirit of Dickens’s favorite escape from his desk or from fights with his wife, his long midnight walks around London: “Fog hovered in the hat brims of cabdrivers, rolled into stairwells to blanket snoring beggars, crept down the Thames bridge by bridge.” Clearly she thinks it’s funny, for example, to have Dickens step in “a steaming pile of dog excrement.”īut the book rises above farce when Silva lavishes her attention on moments that sparked her own imagination.

Dickens and His Carol” is a novel for those who think they love Charles Dickens because they enjoyed film adaptations of “A Christmas Carol.” Samantha Silva’s confession that “the book is, most of all, a fan letter - a love letter” may explain why it reads at times like a treatment for a holiday comedy. DICKENS AND HIS CAROL By Samantha Silva 276 pp.

Mr. Dickens and His Carol by Samantha Silva