A Season of Superlatives

During the season in which I write this, it is almost impossible to avoid Charles Dickens’ inky thumbprint on our culture. There is a pervasive odor of artificial nutmeg and ersatz figgy pudding, of forced magnanimity co-opted into the service of commerce, of brain damage as a portal to redemption. Ebenezer Scrooge is held up to us as the example of how It Is Never Too Late To Change, even though the unfortunate man has evidently been subject to a psychotic break. Cheap food (rye ergot and dodgy mushrooms) will have that effect, so perhaps he had only himself to blame, after all. If we can’t chortle ourselves into a serious coughing fit, epithets like “Scrooge” are thrown at us. I made the mistake of saying what a relief it was that the local classical station took a break from the annual caterwauling of its Yuletide castrati to celebrate Beethoven’s birthday, and I got slammed. “Come on—enjoy Christmas!” was the comment. “Why start now?” was my reply. In his favor, I’ll admit Dickens was an indefatigable and prolific novelist and magazine editor—who did it all with a steel dip pen. He gave bundles of money to charity. He was also guilty of such behavior that would now occasion him being “called out” (as it seems all men today must be). But Dickens wrote one book for all seasons, that may be dipped into at any time of year—if only for the first l