presents

A Moronic Holiday Classic

by Charles Dickens

Extracted in its entirety from
The 5-Minute Iliad, by Greg Nagan
(Which makes a great gift)

Special Introduction to the Web Edition

It's a classic American story.  A young man overcomes the challenges of his childhood by dint of his own ambition and tireless work ethic.  After a brief apprenticeship with a brilliant mentor he goes into business with a close friend.   The two of them persevere in the fiercely competitive environment of their chosen profession, and against all odds they prosper beyond their wildest adolescent fantasies.   The friend dies prematurely and our hero carries on alone, boldly and unceasingly, scrupulously managing their firm's affairs despite the constant strain and the many sacrifices required of him.  And in the end...

In the end it's about as American as kidney pie or cricket.  Instead of seeing all his hard work rewarded and his many sacrifices paid back with interest, our hero is hounded by infernal forces, assaulted by supernatural terrors, and confronted with nightmarish hallucinations.  After such torment as would reduce even the strongest of men to gibbering terror, his spirit is broken.  He recoils at the history of himself, recants his success, and vows to give to the lazy and incompetent the very spoils he has sacrificed so much to accrue.  It's as if, at the end of Aesop's fable, the ant had been forced by some malevolent demons to surrender the fruits of his labor to the grasshopper.

Even Job got a little something in the end.  Even the Vengeful God of the Old Testament saw the injustice of the pains he'd inflicted on his protagonist.  Not so, Dickens.  Not so by a country fucking mile.

For this is A Christmas Carol.

I'm not about to propose that we dump the perennial Dickens classic for some Ayn Rand fable about the virtue of pursuing what you want at the expense of all the little things you could live without but would prefer not to.  On the contrary, I get so worked up just thinking about the phenomenal material success Dickens experienced from such an anti-materialist tract that I feel compelled to follow suit.  Moved by the Spirit of Christmases Past, Present, and Future, or some combination thereof, I have decided to share with my readers, at no expense to them, the complete and unabridged text of my own "Christmas Carol," as printed in my own book (The Five-Minute Iliad and Other Instant Classics: Great Books for the Short Attention Span, Simon & Schuster / Fireside, $12).

Of course, I'm not entirely un-American. Moron that I am, I'm not stupid enough to ignore this opportunity to remind you that "The Five-Minute Iliad" makes an excellent Christmas gift for friends who love books.  It's also great for friends who hate books.  I also won't ignore this opportunity to remind you what a simultaneously entertaining and educational gift it can be for students of all ages.  I'll remind you that it includes parodies of fifteen literary classics, including the Iliad itself, Paradise Lost, Dante's Inferno, Austen's Sense and Sensibility, Melville's Moby Dick, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, The Catcher in the Rye, and On the Road. 

Kirkus reviews noted that, "Even if you are not familiar with the parodied material, you are sure to enjoy Nagan's biting style and grotesque interpretations of the most sacred texts of Western culture."  Public radio's The Connection called it "a warp speed journey through world literature, with rest stops for belly laughs."  Wisconsin's Daily Cardinal wrote that "The Five-Minute Iliad does for literature what 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' did for the legend of King Arthur."  The Capital Times called it a "lunch hour lit degree."  If that's still not enough, you can see more excerpts and more reviews at 5MinuteIliad.com. 

I'll go a step further: if you buy a copy of the book as a gift and send me a copy of your receipt (or if you buy it through this Amazon link and forward me your email receipt), I'll send a friendly Christmas, Hanukkah, or other holiday card of your choice to the intended recipient, by snail mail or email.  Hell, I'll even send an unfriendly card, if that's what you want.  Email me for more information. 

And if this quick parody still isn't quick enough for you, you might want to download the two-minute audio version, A Yadda Yadda Christmas Carol.

A Christmas Carol
by Charles Dickens

"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!"

In the middle of the nineteenth century, London saw the climax of the Industrial Revolution.  This was Western Civilization's first big step toward television and diet cola and was therefore good.  Unfortunately, it required a lot of smokestacks and sweatshops and was therefore also bad.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812.  His father was imprisoned for debt when Charles was only twelve, and Charles was sent to work in a warehouse.  It was there that the little Dickens developed his hypothesis that child labor was a bad thing.   With no formal training, he went on to become a journalist, which allowed him to identify even more bad things about the industrial revolution.  He was so angry he began writing humorous newspaper sketches, and these established his popularity.   Eventually he began writing novels, many of which dealt with all the bad things he had identified, such as soot.  He wrote a godawful lot of them.  Finally he died.

It was the best of The Times, it was the worst of The Times; it was the special year-end edition and it contained no mention of Marley’s death, for he had been as dead as a doornail for many years.

Mind!   I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail.  My family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name being Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than  Pip, and so I called myself Pip, and everyone else called me Pip, except for one gentleman who insisted on calling me Chuckles.  So you will understand my regrettable ignorance regarding the deadness of doornails.

But certainly, Marley was dead as one.

Ebeneezer Scrooge, however, was not dead.  Quite the contrary, and to everyone’s irritation, he remained very much alive and carried on the business of Scrooge and Marley alone.  Scrooge was a cold-hearted, tight-fisted, miserly old fellow, whose principal pleasure it was to drive trusting and kind-hearted people into financial ruin.  (When this was not possible he was amenable to striking them with blunt instruments.)  He didn’t greet people on the street, attended no social gatherings, belonged to no fraternal organizations, never exercised, didn’t floss, and he refused to set out leftovers for the puppies that came whimpering to his door now and again seeking solace from the bleak and bitter London winters.

What were puppies to him?  Stinking little vermin-ridden bundles of filth, who consumed an inordinate amount of resources in order to produce only two commodities, both of which were manufactured in superfluous quantities despite their negligible value, to say nothing of their odour.  Puppies were an economic dead-end.

He was fond of saying so.

One Christmas Eve old Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse, admiring each shiny coin as he took it from the great glowing pile before him and dropped it into the pretty pink piggy bank beside him.  (Let it not be said that Scrooge did not love, for I do not know what else to call the sentiment he attached to that pig.  He called her Miss Ogilvy, and often stroked her ceramic snout with gentle affection.)  Through his office door he could see his clerk entering upon the third stage of hypothermia.  The clerk cast an imploring look at Scrooge.

“What’s that?” cried Scrooge.

“Beg pardon?” said the clerk.

“That imploring look—what was that?”

“Not imploring,” the clerk said, “never imploring, sir.”

“Very well then.”  Scrooge turned back to his counting.

“Yes, sir!” cried the clerk.  “Yes, it was imploring, I confess.  If you please, sir—it’s chafing again!”

 Scrooge did not even look up from his counting.  “There are men enough in London,” said he, “who would be happy to work on a shorter leash than that.”

“It isn’t the length, sir, I don’t object to the length, it’s a very liberal leash, sir, as you say, sir—only it chafes something terrible about the neck, sir...”

At that moment the door to Scrooge’s shop swung open, and a handsome young gentleman stepped in.   His face was flushed with holiday spirits, and he emanated goodwill.

“Merry Christmas, Uncle!” he cried.

“Off with his head!”  roared Scrooge.

The clerk only whimpered.  Scrooge rose from his desk and began rummaging for a blunt instrument.

The handsome young gentleman smiled at Scrooge indulgently, for he was full of love, forgiveness, and trust, having been raised by Scrooge’s loving, forgiving, and trusting sister, Fanny, who had been so very good and kind that angels had come down from heaven and kidnapped her many years ago.  He therefore took no notice of Scrooge’s apparently violent intentions, for he knew them to be merely another symptom of his uncle’s annual Yuletide paroxysm.  Besides, he was not only younger and handsomer than his uncle, he was faster.

“Uncle,” he said, “I’ve only come by as I do every Christmas Eve, to beg you—for my dear departed mother’s sake—to beg that you might join my family for Christmas dinner to-morrow.”

Scrooge only muttered, weighing a bottle of ink in one hand and calculating the probable effect of its impact on his nephew’s skull.

“Very well, then,” said the nephew, turning to depart.

“Merry Christmas, Fred!” the clerk declared in a spasm of holiday cheer.

“And a merry Christmas to you, Bob Crotchitch,” Fred replied, and he was out the door before Scrooge could take proper aim.

Thus stymied by his nephew, Scrooge hurled the bottle at the clerk.  It made a pleasing sound as it struck his head, and Scrooge looked on with satisfaction as Bob Crotchitch slumped to the floor.

Not long afterward, two portly gentlemen entered the offices.  They, too, were flush-faced and jolly, for they were good-hearted men with unblemished souls, unlike a certain someone with whom you are already familiar.   These portly and good-hearted gentleman were raising Christmas charity funds, and as they were more good-hearted than bright, they had come to solicit donations from the profitable firm of Scrooge and Marley.

“At this festive season of the year,” said one of them, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some provision for the poor and destitute.  Many thousands are in want of common necessities; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts.”

“Are there no prisons?” Scrooge asked.

“Plenty of prisons,” the sympathetic gentleman replied.  His companion nodded.

“And the Union Workhouses?” demanded Scrooge.

“They are still in operation,” the compassionate gentleman answered, “though I wish I could say they were not.”

“And the red hot pokers?”

“Beg pardon?” said the gracious gentleman.

“Run,” said his companion.

“Aha!” cried Scrooge, brandishing the poker from his furnace.  He chased the gentlemen from his offices and halfway up the street, catching each of them once or twice in the back.  When he returned to his office the clerk was picking himself up wearily from the floor, groaning pitiably and clutching his head with one hand.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting tomorrow off?” Scrooge asked.

The clerk nodded timidly, and Scrooge struck him emphatically with the poker.

Much later that evening Scrooge sat in a chair by the fireplace in his bedroom, supping at his gruel with Miss Ogilvy, when suddenly the fire roared up and his bed curtains fluttered violently.  There came a pounding from the lower floor, the sound of doors and shutters slamming open and shut, and then of heavy footsteps climbing the stairs.  He heard the steps continue along the hallway, toward his room.  And then, passing directly through the door as though it were no more substantial than a breath of wind, into the room there came a dread and ghostly figure.   He was bound head to foot in such a tangle of irons and chains that it seemed impossible he should have made it up to Scrooge’s room without having tripped and broken his neck on the stairs.

The ghost raised his arms and groaned horribly.  “Ebeneezer!”  he moaned woefully, “Ebeneezer Scrooge!  These chains that I wear in death, I forged in life!”

Scrooge admired the gentleman’s craftsmanship.  The chains were solid and well-wrought.

“They’re good chains,” he said.

“Ebeneezer!” groaned the ghost.

Scrooge cowered.

“Ebeneezer!”

“Yes...?” Scrooge answered meekly.

“Ebeneezer!” howled the ghost.

“What?” Scrooge asked.

“I just like saying ‘Ebeneezer,’” said the ghost, and he sat down beside the fire.

It turned out that the ghost was none other than Jacob Marley, dead Marley, Scrooge’s old partner.  Marley explained that because he had failed in life to do any good by his fellow man, and had indeed done nothing more generous for the human race than to leave it, he was cursed for ever to roam the earth and drag his chains, etc., and that Scrooge, being a bastard of a similar stripe, was destined to a similar fate.  Scrooge objected to this suggestion, and said as much.

“Would you avoid this dread sentence?” asked Marley, as though incredulous that Scrooge could find anything preferable.

“Yes, Jacob.”

“There is one hope for you, one chance, and it is in my power to give it you.”

“Tell me, Jacob!  Whatever it may be, tell me!”

“Three spirits will visit you,” the ghost began.

“Never mind,” Scrooge said.

The ghost shook and wailed.  “Then you will be cursed like me!”

Scrooge pursed his lip, and stroked Miss Ogilvy nervously.  “Very well.  I’m visited by three ghosts.  What then?”

“And then we shall see,” the ghost said, rising.  “And then we shall see...”

And with that he floated toward the window, cast one last, despairing look back at Scrooge and drifted out into the night.

Scrooge rushed to the window and gazed out after him.  The street was full of souls, all of them in chains, many of them persons of his acquaintance.

“Fancy that,” said Scrooge.  “I wonder who does their banking?”

He closed the window and went to bed.

He woke up some time later.  His bedcurtains were being drawn open by a ghostly hand.  The ghostly hand was connected to a ghostly wrist, which was affixed to a ghostly arm, and so on and so forth, none of it surprising insofar as Scrooge was being visited by a ghost.   And no ordinary ghost, but a ghost above whom glowed an otherworldly flame, a searing jet of white hot light.

Scrooge cried out: “Your head is on fire!”

“That flame you see is the light of human charity,” the spirit answered.  The voice was soft, sweet, and calm.

“A pretty enough distinction,” Scrooge grumbled.  “I can assure you that such allegorical niceties would be of little comfort to me, if my own skull were to burst into flames.  But I see you are a spirit, and perhaps accustomed to such things. Are you, then, the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?”

“I am.”

“And who are you?”

“That’s for me to know,” the spirit began, “and for you to find out.  Come, take my hand!”

Scrooge held forth a trembling hand.  The spirit smiled, and took it in his own.

Suddenly they were standing beside a long and wretched looking queue of men and women in leg irons, guarded by soldiers on either side.  A soldier took the first man in the queue and led him up a flight of steps onto a wooden platform, and laid his head down on a block, above which hung a mighty blade.

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done,” the man said.   “It is a far, far better rest that I go to, than—”

Alas, this interesting monologue was interrupted by the swift and sudden drop of the blade, after which the gentleman did not look likely to resume his reflections.  An old woman sitting nearby nodded and cackled hideously, without looking up from her knitting.

“Oops,” said the spirit, and in an instant Scrooge was back in his bed.  The world was dark and quiet.  Perhaps it had been a dream.  He lay back down to sleep.

He awoke some time later to find rich, bright light flooding through the gaps between his bed curtains.  He pulled them open to find his entire room transformed.  It was laid out like a king’s feast, the floor piled high with turkeys, geese, game, sucking-pigs, succulent partridges, glistening trout, caviar, fresh poultice, sautéed chevaliers, delicate faux-pas, sweetmeats, oranges, luscious pears, seething bowls of punch, and above it all there presided a merry giant, a great, broad man in a rich green robe with white trim.  He held a torch aloft, and beamed down at Scrooge.

“Are you... are you the spirit of Christmas present?” Scrooge asked nervously.

“I sure as hell ain’t the Easter bunny!” roared the giant.

“Well, sir,” Scrooge said, “I’m grateful for your visit, sir, insofar as my old partner Marley, or rather his ghost, has given me to understand that these visits—yours and your fellow spirits, I mean, sir—that all of this would somehow redound to my benefit—I mean my salvation, sir, as I have been given to understand: my rescue from sharing his fate, which, if you won’t be offended, sir, was not represented to me in a positive light, what with the chains and groans and whatnot, but—”

“Get on with it!” bellowed the spirit.

“Yes, yes, yes,” chattered Scrooge, “Yes, as I was saying, sir, good spirit, I don’t like to make trouble, sir, but the little fellow last night may have gotten things a bit cockeyed, for I can’t make head nor tail out of what he showed me, and after he showed me he only said ‘oops’ and then disappeared—and as I was saying sir, and I repeat that I don’t like to make trouble for anyone, and I really am extremely grateful for the trouble you and you spirit friend have gone to on my account....”

“Hush,” said the giant, “touch my robe!”

“Yes,” Scrooge said, “of course, only I felt I should tell someone, and I didn’t know if there was a proper authority to contact, or—”

“Come,” the giant said, and there was a bright flash of light

At once they stood in a vast, dank room full of young boys, all unwashed and wretchedly dressed.    They were seated on benches at a series of long tables running parallel from one end of this great stone hall to the other, eating morosely from small wooden bowls.

Suddenly one young boy rose from his bench and walked toward a big fat fellow who stood at the head of the room, guarding what appeared to be a cauldron.  The gentleman (I use the term liberally) stared down at the boy contemptuously as he approached, and only arched his eyebrows as the boy raised his empty bowl up before him.

“Please sir,” the boy said tentatively, “I’d like some more.”  There were murmurs throughout the hall.  Furtive heads rose from their bowls and glanced up at the scene taking place.

“Certainly,” the man said, “have all you like.”  And he ladled the boy several ladles full of slop.

“Thank you, sir,” said the boy.

“My pleasure,” said the man.

“Oops,” said the spirit, and once again Scrooge was back in bed.

At length he fell asleep again, and the next time he awoke he found his bed curtains already open.   There before him stood a curly-haired young man in topcoat and tails with a sequined vest.

“Are you the spirit of Christmas Future?” Scrooge asked.

“I’m going to make the Statue of Liberty disappear!”  said the spirit.

“I’ve already seen the spirits of Christmas Past and Present,” Scrooge said, “Didn’t they tell you?  Something’s gone wrong—”

“Never before in the annals of magic has such a feat been undertaken!”

“Please,” Scrooge said, “I’m certain we can have this all straightened out if only we can make the appropriate persons aware of the confusing state of affairs, but if you’re unwilling to discuss it, I’d appreciate if you could just ask me to take your hand, take me somewhere strange, show me something peculiar, say ‘oops,’ then get me back in bed and have done with it.  I’d be very much indebted to you, sir.”

“But I’m going to mystify you with the power of magic!” exclaimed the spirit.   “I’m the greatest magician the world has ever known!”

“I hardly see the relevance,” Scrooge said, and he went back to sleep.

He woke up yet one more time to find a spectral visitor in his bedroom.  It was a dark and forbidding creature that stood there, draped entirely in a black cloak that swallowed him up in shadow and concealed his every feature.

“Are you the spirit of Christmas Future?” Scrooge asked.

The hooded head nodded.

“You realize that it’s been one mistake after another so far?”

The hooded head nodded.

“I suppose we’ve got to go through with it anyway?”

The hooded head nodded.

“Not very organized up there, are you?”

The hooded head shook from side to side.

Scrooge held out his hand.  “Let’s get this over with,” he said.

Suddenly they were standing in a large and musty room with all its windows sealed.  A few tallow candles flickered uncertainly, illuminating the faded and cobwebbed furniture of the room and its only occupant: a ghastly old woman in a dreary yellow dress.  On closer examination it appeared to be an old wedding dress, faded and jaundiced by the years. 

“Come in,” the woman called out in a brittle voice.  The door at one end of the room swung open, and a handsome and well-dressed young gentleman entered.

“Good afternoon, Miss Havisham,” the young man said sternly.

“Good afternoon, Pip,” the lady said.

“You have misled me,” the young man said.  “You have let me believe it was you who were my secret benefactor.  You have taken advantage of my credulity.”

“The dickens with your credulity!” she exclaimed.  “Don’t you want to see Estella?  She’s back from Europe, and more beautiful than ever.”

The young man glowered, but he nodded.

“Call her,” Miss Havisham said, clutching the arms of her chair and leaning forward, “Call her!”

The young man went back to the door.

“Estella!” he shouted up the hall, “Estella!  Estella!”

A lovely young woman in fancy dress appeared at the end of the hall and moved gracefully toward him.

“Estella,” sighed the young man.

“Pip,” said the young lady.

“Love her,” rasped Miss Havisham, “love her!”

The cloaked spirit shook his head, and there was a blinding flash of light.

Scrooge was alone in his bedroom.

No more spirits troubled him that night.  They couldn’t have even if they had wanted to: there was no night left.  The first gray light of the breaking day streamed into the room.  Scrooge hurried to the window and threw it open; a rush of cold air swept over him.  It felt marvelous!  Rejuvenating!  He beheld a young boy pulling a sled along the street beneath the window.

“Boy,” Scrooge called out, “boy!”

The boy stopped pulling his sled—with some relief, as there was no snow upon the ground—and looked up at him suspiciously.

“What day is it?” he called down.

“Why, it’s Christmas Day, sir!”

“Christmas Day!”  Scrooge cried.   “It’s true, it’s Christmas Day!  The spirits did it all in one night!  I haven’t lost a single day!  Do you hear, Miss Ogilvy?  The office can open at its usual hour!”  He rushed to his desk, seized a thick bronze paperweight, and returned to the window.  “Stand still, boy!” he cried, and he hurled the paperweight straight at him.

The spirits returned the following Christmas Eve.  Having had ample opportunity to practice, they performed their ghostly duties without misadventure.  As a result of their intervention, Scrooge reformed his wicked ways and became good and kind-hearted, and a boon to whimpering little puppies everywhere.

But that’s a story for another day.

—  The End —

Home