Caller “Don”(voice: Eric Stoltz) calls in on Christmas Day to the radio show of Dr. Frasier (played by Kelsey Grammer), who is blue over missing the chance to see his son for the holiday, fighting with his dad, and listening to a stream of depressed callers.
Don: Something happened the other day that sums up why we call this the season of giving.
Frasier: Well then, swaddle me in Christmas cheer!
Don: Okay. Well, you see, I was driving home from the gym, and I suddenly realized I had left my favorite old pair of sneakers on the roof of the car. So, I look back and there's this homeless guy, and he'd already picked them up, and he's putting 'em on. So I just thought, what the hell, and kept on driving.
Frasier: (increasingly sarcastic) So...your experience of the Christmas spirit would be that you DIDN'T slam the car into reverse, speed back there, and rip a pair of smelly old sneakers out of a homeless man's hand? Well Roz, this is special, I think we've got Santa Claus himself on the line!—“Miracle on Third or Fourth Street,” from the long-running TV sitcom Frasier, Season 1, first aired Dec. 16, 1973, written by Christopher Lloyd and directed by James Burrows
(If you have never seen this episode of the great series, I strongly recommend that you do so, whether on TV or, if you are as lucky as I was last night, with the boxed DVD set of the first season. Every minute features constant, surprising wit, as each member of the regular ensemble cast—not just Grammer, but David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, and Jane Leeves—is given a moment to shine. While mercifully skating free of sentimentality, and even featuring the kind of bent, cynical humor quoted above, the episode still manages to convey a pointed message about the connections to family that become frayed at times in the holiday—and the unexpected sources of generosity and grace that sustain our lives in spite of it all. The more I see the networks mangle their prime-time schedules—now including, no offense meant, Jay Leno on in the 10 o’clock hour—the more grateful I am for the oasis of humor provided for a decade by Frasier.)
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
This Day in Southern History (John C. Calhoun Issues Manifesto of States Rights)
For the second time in 30 years, a Vice-President of the United States, a native of the South, had written an anonymous brief against the administration of which he was a part.
Calhoun’s manifesto followed the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions written by Thomas Jefferson and his chief lieutenant, James Madison, which had insisted that the states could determine the constitutionality of the Alien and Sedition Acts.
Along with Clay and Daniel Webster, Calhoun was one of the legendary “Great Triumvirate” of 19th-century Presidential contenders who dominated the U.S. Senate. Of the three, he was the one with the fewest personal vices—Clay was a gambler, while Webster not only freely imbibed but took bribes to represent the interests of the Second Bank of the United States.
But, for all their private failures, Clay and Webster strove to keep the Union together, while as a sectional spokesman Calhoun not only formulated a doctrine that eventually tore the nation asunder but was the guiding light of a group of politicians that took up the cudgels of states rights after his death in 1850.
In fact, the entire elaborate theory of states rights that he advocated would be used more than a century later, when Southern politicians launched protests against Supreme Court decisions on civil rights.
With the South ending up on the wrong side of history in both cases, many historians have looked askance at Calhoun’s legacy, even as they acknowledge his extraordinary mind. In The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, Richard Hofstadter styled the South Carolinian “The Marx of the Master Class” and delivered a potent witticism at his expense:
Along with Clay and Daniel Webster, Calhoun was one of the legendary “Great Triumvirate” of 19th-century Presidential contenders who dominated the U.S. Senate. Of the three, he was the one with the fewest personal vices—Clay was a gambler, while Webster not only freely imbibed but took bribes to represent the interests of the Second Bank of the United States.
But, for all their private failures, Clay and Webster strove to keep the Union together, while as a sectional spokesman Calhoun not only formulated a doctrine that eventually tore the nation asunder but was the guiding light of a group of politicians that took up the cudgels of states rights after his death in 1850.
In fact, the entire elaborate theory of states rights that he advocated would be used more than a century later, when Southern politicians launched protests against Supreme Court decisions on civil rights.
With the South ending up on the wrong side of history in both cases, many historians have looked askance at Calhoun’s legacy, even as they acknowledge his extraordinary mind. In The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, Richard Hofstadter styled the South Carolinian “The Marx of the Master Class” and delivered a potent witticism at his expense:
“There is no record that he ever read or tried to write poetry, although there is a traditional gibe to the effect that he once began a poem with ‘Whereas,’ and stopped.”
In The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, William W. Freehling may have been even more pungent than Hofstadter, contrasting Calhoun with the hot-headed Jackson: “The terror of Calhoun was his shattering mind. He seized onto careless commonplaces, squeezing them in that vise of a mentality, turning living creeds into arcane absurdities.”
Both the anonymous nature of Exposition and Protest and the stated rationale for its states-rights doctrine—i.e., a means to avoid secession--testify to Calhoun’s delicate political dilemma. In certain ways, even he did not appreciate the volatile environment in which he found himself.
Calhoun’s position was far less enviable than it was in 1824, when he became the acceptable second choice of the two factions supporting the principal contenders for the Presidency, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He had joined the Adams administration after the contest ended up being decided in the House of Representatives.
But halfway through his term, disgusted at what he perceived as the “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay by which Adams gained the Presidency as well as the program of taxpayer-supported internal improvements pushed by Adams and Clay, Calhoun made overtures about supporting the candidacy of Andrew Jackson in the 1828 election.
That switch of allegiance was all the more surprising considering their past history. Six years before, Jackson had caused an international incident in Florida by a) executing two British subjects for inciting Indian attacks against the United States and b) attacking Pensacola and seizing two Spanish forts.
In The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay, 1776-1854, William W. Freehling may have been even more pungent than Hofstadter, contrasting Calhoun with the hot-headed Jackson: “The terror of Calhoun was his shattering mind. He seized onto careless commonplaces, squeezing them in that vise of a mentality, turning living creeds into arcane absurdities.”
Both the anonymous nature of Exposition and Protest and the stated rationale for its states-rights doctrine—i.e., a means to avoid secession--testify to Calhoun’s delicate political dilemma. In certain ways, even he did not appreciate the volatile environment in which he found himself.
Calhoun’s position was far less enviable than it was in 1824, when he became the acceptable second choice of the two factions supporting the principal contenders for the Presidency, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson. He had joined the Adams administration after the contest ended up being decided in the House of Representatives.
But halfway through his term, disgusted at what he perceived as the “corrupt bargain” with Henry Clay by which Adams gained the Presidency as well as the program of taxpayer-supported internal improvements pushed by Adams and Clay, Calhoun made overtures about supporting the candidacy of Andrew Jackson in the 1828 election.
That switch of allegiance was all the more surprising considering their past history. Six years before, Jackson had caused an international incident in Florida by a) executing two British subjects for inciting Indian attacks against the United States and b) attacking Pensacola and seizing two Spanish forts.
Then-Secretary of War Calhoun led nearly the entire Cabinet in wanting to repudiate Jackson’s actions. The one exception was Secretary of State Adams, who argued with the Spanish authorities that if they couldn’t police Florida, they ought to cede it to a nation that could. The subsequent Adams-Onis Treaty not only was a major annexation for the U.S., then, but saved Jackson’s career.
That background made the Calhoun-Jackson relationship at best ambivalent. Other matters would come up in the first year of Calhoun’s Vice-Presidency under Jackson that would embitter the two men, notably including Calhoun’s authorship of Exposition and Protest.
The difficulty Calhoun faced is one that politicians with national ambitions have struggled with from the beginning of the republic: how to achieve leadership of the Congress without losing one’s own base.
In Calhoun’s case, his home state had howled earlier that year at the Tariff of Abominations signed into law earlier that year by Adams. The plantation aristocracy, which was experiencing real economic pain, was beside itself at the thought that the high tariff—passed for the benefit of the New England states—would lead British trading partners to seek other markets, given the high price of American tobacco. Some in the state even pressed for an end to the Union.
If the state yielded to these radicals, Calhoun argued, it would only cost Jackson the election, he argued. Better to wait until after the inauguration, he advised, when a triumphant and sympathetic new President would produce “a better order” in which the duties would be lowered.
Calhoun argued that the "whole system of legislation imposing duties on imports,--not for revenue, but the protection of one branch of industry at the expense of others,--is unconstitutional, unequal, and oppressive, and calculated to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the Country."
Looking back to the original ratification process of the Constitution, he called for concurrent majorities to pass legislation—and for the right of a state to declare null and void within its borders federal legislation that was deemed unconstitutional or inimical to the state’s image.
Though his authorship remained officially anonymous, both Jackson and Martin Van Buren—the “Little Magician” from New York who had done so much to create the new Democratic Party around Jackson—became aware of his hand.
That background made the Calhoun-Jackson relationship at best ambivalent. Other matters would come up in the first year of Calhoun’s Vice-Presidency under Jackson that would embitter the two men, notably including Calhoun’s authorship of Exposition and Protest.
The difficulty Calhoun faced is one that politicians with national ambitions have struggled with from the beginning of the republic: how to achieve leadership of the Congress without losing one’s own base.
In Calhoun’s case, his home state had howled earlier that year at the Tariff of Abominations signed into law earlier that year by Adams. The plantation aristocracy, which was experiencing real economic pain, was beside itself at the thought that the high tariff—passed for the benefit of the New England states—would lead British trading partners to seek other markets, given the high price of American tobacco. Some in the state even pressed for an end to the Union.
If the state yielded to these radicals, Calhoun argued, it would only cost Jackson the election, he argued. Better to wait until after the inauguration, he advised, when a triumphant and sympathetic new President would produce “a better order” in which the duties would be lowered.
Calhoun argued that the "whole system of legislation imposing duties on imports,--not for revenue, but the protection of one branch of industry at the expense of others,--is unconstitutional, unequal, and oppressive, and calculated to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the Country."
Looking back to the original ratification process of the Constitution, he called for concurrent majorities to pass legislation—and for the right of a state to declare null and void within its borders federal legislation that was deemed unconstitutional or inimical to the state’s image.
Though his authorship remained officially anonymous, both Jackson and Martin Van Buren—the “Little Magician” from New York who had done so much to create the new Democratic Party around Jackson—became aware of his hand.
The clash between the President and Vice-President became public in 1830, and before the next election was held, Calhoun had resigned—the first Vice-President to do so.
Quote of the Day (Pauline Kael, on a Film—I Think It’s Fair to Say—She Disliked)
“The most expensive Rin Tin Tin picture ever made, with a gimmick the Rin Tin Tin pictures never stooped to: the dolphins here are dubbed with plaintive, childish voices and speak in English.”—New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, on Mike Nichols’ The Day of the Dolphin, which premiered on this date in 1973
Thursday, December 18, 2008
This Day in Military History (British Attack Fort Niagara)
December 18, 1813—Retaliating for American forces’ burning of Newark, Canada, approximately 500 British regulars, accompanied by 500 militia and Indians, crossed the Niagara River after midnight. The operation, planned by the new commander in Upper Canada, Lieutenant-General Gordon Drummond, was carried out with maximum discipline and secrecy, resulting in the seizure of Fort Niagara by sunrise—and leaving America’s northern frontier suddenly, shockingly vulnerable.
The War of 1812 is perhaps rivaled only by the Korean War as “America’s Forgotten War.” The average American (even, I’d bet, the average American historian), if he or she is lucky, won’t have too hard a time recalling America’s naval victories in the conflict.
But, after getting past Francis Scott Key witnessing the “banner yet wave” at Fort McHenry and Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, an American is likely to experience a fog descending on the brain when it comes to land operations. Believe it or not, there’s a reason for this: land battles were, by and large—and especially along the northern border—ignominious affairs for the United States.
Egged on by Henry Clay and other “War Hawks” in Congress, President James Madison entered a war with crucial American deficits in leadership.
Secretary of War John Armstrong was an incompetent rightly distrusted by the President, and owed his post to marital connections (he was the brother-in-law of Robert Livingston).
The leaders of unsuccessful assaults on Kingston and Montreal, Henry Dearborn and James Wilkinson, were also spectacularly unsuited to their positions: Dearborn by virtue of incapacity (the 250-pounder needed to be carried around in a two-wheeled device subsequently named after him), Wilkinson by virtue of treason (though some suspected as such, nobody knew for certain, until the documentary evidence turned up in archives years after his death, that Wilkinson had taken an oath of loyalty to the Spanish crown).
In this light, the actions of Brigadier-General George McClure were hardly unusual. Holding Fort George, the only American foothold on the peninsula formed by Lakes Ontario and Erie and the Chippewa River, he took fright first at an exaggerated estimate of enemy forces by a Canadian deserter, then became even further alarmed as his own army became rapidly depleted when many militia chose to go home to their farms rather than re-enlist when their terms of service were up.
Rather than let Fort George fall into British hands, McClure decided to deny them shelter in nearby Newark by putting the town to the torch.
Fourteen years ago, on vacation in Canada, I traveled from Toronto for a day of fine theater performances at the Shaw Festival. Monuments and plaques in the area in honor of Laura Secord and Sir Isaac Brock gave me my first real hint of how American’s neighbors to the north viewed the War of 1812—as a threat to their sovereignty. But only in writing this piece did I learn that the town I was visiting, now known as Niagara-on-the-Lake, was once called Newark, and that during the War of 1812 it fell victim to an American commander’s idiocy and cruelty.
McClure’s order, carried out by a group known as the Canadian Volunteers under the command of Joseph Willocks (who had once led the town in the Canadian legislature), was a huge mistake: inhumane (it left 400 residents homeless), militarily useless (though Newark itself was torched, Fort George was left with around 1,500 tents), and provocative (in Flames Across the Border: 1813-1814, historian Pierre Berton argues that it was this act, even more than the Americans’ accidental burning of the legislature at York, or present-day Toronto, that led to the retaliatory burning of Washington, D.C.).
General Drummond was generally regarded as a distinct improvement over his predecessor, Francis de Rottenburg. A native Canadian, Drummond had been heading a military district in northern Ireland when the war broke out. Taking command of the British forces in Fort George on December 16, he immediately planned to strike back.
Reading the account of the subsequent attack on Fort Niagara sounds like the Battle of Trenton in the American Revolution, but in reverse—another December crossing and assault on an unwary enemy, carried out in the wee small hours of the morning. Drummond made sure that the oars were muffled. Sentries were overpowered and killed without warnings being sounded.
Though McClure, clued in by an informer that a British assault was in the offing, had warned the fort’s commander, Nathaniel Leonard, to be prepared, the latter was miles away with family in Lewiston, likely suffering the aftereffects of too many spirits the night before. The garrison’s soldiers, after two days of nothing happening, had decided to do what seemed sensible but turned out to be anything but—get indoors to get out of the freezing cold.
Drummond’s order to use bayonets rather than guns meant that the Americans were utterly surprised. At the end of the brief battle, 65 Americans lay dead versus only six British.
More important, the American northern frontier now lay exposed. Within short order, the British had taken and destroyed Lewiston, then done the same to Buffalo and Black Rock.
The fate of the two opposing commanders in this campaign could not have been more different. Even before he had gone ahead with the burning of Newark, McClure had been stoutly opposed by at least some Americans who knew what he planned to do. But the ferocious British-Canadian counter-assault incited Americans to an outright fury against him. While marching down the main street of Buffalo, he was taunted and fired upon. With the militia pointedly refusing even to serve under him anymore, he yielded his post to a major general and slunk away.
Drummond had his share of failures as well as successes throughout the next year’s worth of fighting. But, like Andrew Jackson would do at New Orleans, he would impose martial law on his district (farmers wouldn’t sell food to the army) and successfully rally his countrymen against invaders. When he died in London in 1854, he was the senior general in the British army.
NOTE: A friend of mine knows of a portrait of Drummond by the painter Robert McInnes. He is interested in finding out more about the provenance of this painting, which is now in northern New Jersey. If anyone reading this post has any details on this, please contact me through this blog. Thank you.
The War of 1812 is perhaps rivaled only by the Korean War as “America’s Forgotten War.” The average American (even, I’d bet, the average American historian), if he or she is lucky, won’t have too hard a time recalling America’s naval victories in the conflict.
But, after getting past Francis Scott Key witnessing the “banner yet wave” at Fort McHenry and Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, an American is likely to experience a fog descending on the brain when it comes to land operations. Believe it or not, there’s a reason for this: land battles were, by and large—and especially along the northern border—ignominious affairs for the United States.
Egged on by Henry Clay and other “War Hawks” in Congress, President James Madison entered a war with crucial American deficits in leadership.
Secretary of War John Armstrong was an incompetent rightly distrusted by the President, and owed his post to marital connections (he was the brother-in-law of Robert Livingston).
The leaders of unsuccessful assaults on Kingston and Montreal, Henry Dearborn and James Wilkinson, were also spectacularly unsuited to their positions: Dearborn by virtue of incapacity (the 250-pounder needed to be carried around in a two-wheeled device subsequently named after him), Wilkinson by virtue of treason (though some suspected as such, nobody knew for certain, until the documentary evidence turned up in archives years after his death, that Wilkinson had taken an oath of loyalty to the Spanish crown).
In this light, the actions of Brigadier-General George McClure were hardly unusual. Holding Fort George, the only American foothold on the peninsula formed by Lakes Ontario and Erie and the Chippewa River, he took fright first at an exaggerated estimate of enemy forces by a Canadian deserter, then became even further alarmed as his own army became rapidly depleted when many militia chose to go home to their farms rather than re-enlist when their terms of service were up.
Rather than let Fort George fall into British hands, McClure decided to deny them shelter in nearby Newark by putting the town to the torch.
Fourteen years ago, on vacation in Canada, I traveled from Toronto for a day of fine theater performances at the Shaw Festival. Monuments and plaques in the area in honor of Laura Secord and Sir Isaac Brock gave me my first real hint of how American’s neighbors to the north viewed the War of 1812—as a threat to their sovereignty. But only in writing this piece did I learn that the town I was visiting, now known as Niagara-on-the-Lake, was once called Newark, and that during the War of 1812 it fell victim to an American commander’s idiocy and cruelty.
McClure’s order, carried out by a group known as the Canadian Volunteers under the command of Joseph Willocks (who had once led the town in the Canadian legislature), was a huge mistake: inhumane (it left 400 residents homeless), militarily useless (though Newark itself was torched, Fort George was left with around 1,500 tents), and provocative (in Flames Across the Border: 1813-1814, historian Pierre Berton argues that it was this act, even more than the Americans’ accidental burning of the legislature at York, or present-day Toronto, that led to the retaliatory burning of Washington, D.C.).
General Drummond was generally regarded as a distinct improvement over his predecessor, Francis de Rottenburg. A native Canadian, Drummond had been heading a military district in northern Ireland when the war broke out. Taking command of the British forces in Fort George on December 16, he immediately planned to strike back.
Reading the account of the subsequent attack on Fort Niagara sounds like the Battle of Trenton in the American Revolution, but in reverse—another December crossing and assault on an unwary enemy, carried out in the wee small hours of the morning. Drummond made sure that the oars were muffled. Sentries were overpowered and killed without warnings being sounded.
Though McClure, clued in by an informer that a British assault was in the offing, had warned the fort’s commander, Nathaniel Leonard, to be prepared, the latter was miles away with family in Lewiston, likely suffering the aftereffects of too many spirits the night before. The garrison’s soldiers, after two days of nothing happening, had decided to do what seemed sensible but turned out to be anything but—get indoors to get out of the freezing cold.
Drummond’s order to use bayonets rather than guns meant that the Americans were utterly surprised. At the end of the brief battle, 65 Americans lay dead versus only six British.
More important, the American northern frontier now lay exposed. Within short order, the British had taken and destroyed Lewiston, then done the same to Buffalo and Black Rock.
The fate of the two opposing commanders in this campaign could not have been more different. Even before he had gone ahead with the burning of Newark, McClure had been stoutly opposed by at least some Americans who knew what he planned to do. But the ferocious British-Canadian counter-assault incited Americans to an outright fury against him. While marching down the main street of Buffalo, he was taunted and fired upon. With the militia pointedly refusing even to serve under him anymore, he yielded his post to a major general and slunk away.
Drummond had his share of failures as well as successes throughout the next year’s worth of fighting. But, like Andrew Jackson would do at New Orleans, he would impose martial law on his district (farmers wouldn’t sell food to the army) and successfully rally his countrymen against invaders. When he died in London in 1854, he was the senior general in the British army.
NOTE: A friend of mine knows of a portrait of Drummond by the painter Robert McInnes. He is interested in finding out more about the provenance of this painting, which is now in northern New Jersey. If anyone reading this post has any details on this, please contact me through this blog. Thank you.
Quote of the Day (John Gutfreund, on Careers Made and Destroyed)
“Your f-----g book destroyed my career, and it made yours.”—Former Salomon Brothers. CEO John Gutfreund to Michael Lewis at lunch, quoted by Lewis in “The End,” Conde Nast Portfolio, December 2008/January 2009
(Lewis’ article begins as a droll piece on how his tell-all memoir of his time at Salomon Brothers, Liar’s Poker, became a how-to manual for those entering Wall Street rather than a signal for “The Great Reckoning” with the market’s greed, as he expected. Along the way, it includes a great quote from Gutfreund that describes the current state of the Street and the economy—“It’s laissez-faire until you get into deep shit.”
Then it takes a final surprising turn when, at the lunch to which Lewis has invited him, Gutfreund—forced to leave under pressure from Salomon Brothers a couple of years after Lewis’ book appeared—asks the rationale for the invitation. When the author tells him he thought it “might be worth revisiting the world I’d described in Liar’s Poker, now that it was dying,” perhaps for a 20th-anniversary edition, the former “King of Wall Street” answers, “That’s nauseating.”
If you’re like me, you’re torn--between annoyance at Gutfreund at being part of an era of reckless greed, and horror at Lewis for, in effect, turning over the corpse of this man’s career. A fascinating piece—and, if you’re a writer thinking about your responsibility for the way the lives of others turns out, a disquieting one.)
(Lewis’ article begins as a droll piece on how his tell-all memoir of his time at Salomon Brothers, Liar’s Poker, became a how-to manual for those entering Wall Street rather than a signal for “The Great Reckoning” with the market’s greed, as he expected. Along the way, it includes a great quote from Gutfreund that describes the current state of the Street and the economy—“It’s laissez-faire until you get into deep shit.”
Then it takes a final surprising turn when, at the lunch to which Lewis has invited him, Gutfreund—forced to leave under pressure from Salomon Brothers a couple of years after Lewis’ book appeared—asks the rationale for the invitation. When the author tells him he thought it “might be worth revisiting the world I’d described in Liar’s Poker, now that it was dying,” perhaps for a 20th-anniversary edition, the former “King of Wall Street” answers, “That’s nauseating.”
If you’re like me, you’re torn--between annoyance at Gutfreund at being part of an era of reckless greed, and horror at Lewis for, in effect, turning over the corpse of this man’s career. A fascinating piece—and, if you’re a writer thinking about your responsibility for the way the lives of others turns out, a disquieting one.)
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
This Day in Literary History (Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” Published)
Within eight days, this Yuletide ghost story of greed and generosity sold 6,000 copies, and by the following May it had gone through seven editions. And the author couldn’t complain this time, as he had in the past (and would again in the future), about the publisher: he’d financed the whole enterprise himself, including the gilt edging and hand-colored illustrations.
Believe it or not, the 31-year-old novelist, with four children already and a fifth coming in the following year, still didn’t make as much money as he wanted. A pet peeve of Dickens’ when he was visiting America in 1842—the lack of a copyright law—became an issue in this case even on his home turf, as a pirate edition came only a month after publication.
Even a successful lawsuit produced only limited results. Dickens put the offending firm out of business, but he was never able to collect from them. He ended up paying court costs of 700 pounds, leaving him with a profit by the end of the year between only 130 and 230 pounds.
This did not make the novelist happy. You’d have to look Charlie Chaplin and Irving Berlin to find two other wildly popular artists whose adult lives were so malformed by childhood poverty. He’d have to get busy again, which he promptly did: Another Christmas tale, The Cricket on the Hearth, was published almost one year to the day after A Christmas Carol.
You can trace the darkness gradually descending on Dickens in how he depicted Christmas over the years. A Christmas Carol and The Cricket on the Hearth were two of five Christmas novels he wrote from 1843 through 1848. But the season is mentioned in four other novels, including his first, the sunny The Pickwick Papers, and the last, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, when a murder occurs in the season.
In the wider sense, the comparatively disappointing lack of profits coming Dickens’ way after A Christmas Carol didn’t matter. The important thing was that Dickens—a novelist whose newest novels had been as eagerly anticipated as J.K. Rowling has been in our time—had reestablished himself as a publishing phenomenon, only months after his latest work, Martin Chuzzlewit, had annoyed American readers who resented the satire of their country.
By October 1843, monthly installments of Martin Chuzzlewit gave Dickens an idea of the changed public attitude toward him. It’s hard to know what precisely triggered the burst of creative energy that produced A Christmas Carol, but for six weeks Dickens wrote like a man possessed, during which he wept, and laughed, and wept again, and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner in the composition.”
Earlier this week, in a post on Louisa May Alcott, I alluded to Dickens’ theatrical propensities. Nowhere is that more prevalent than in A Christmas Carol. You can see how readily this work lends itself to theatrical or cinematic adaptation.
In a New York Times article last year, Anita Gates pointed out that the first and most famous of Dickens’ Christmas novels has been made into some three dozen feature films and television movies—and that’s not counting the times the plot’s been openly borrowed and transformed (A Diva’s Christmas Carol, starring Vanessa Williams) or parodied (a “WKRP in Cincinnati” episode, “Bah, Humbug!”)
I imagine that Dickens, an admirer-turned-critic of America, would snort at the notion that adaptations of his novel make it the most frequently performed play on U.S. stages. Twelve years ago, while in San Antonio for the holidays, I caught one of these productions, and I daresay that I could have gone to any major metropolis and seen it there, too.
Earlier in this post, I indicated that, though A Christmas Carol didn’t make Dickens as much money as he wanted, it wasn’t a total loss. Fifteen years after its publication, he had discovered how remunerative his own public readings of his world could be.
A seven-week series in London, followed by an even longer “Provincial Tour,” became such sensations that he would perform 500 of these between 1858 and his death in 1870. A Christmas Carol served as the centerpiece of this all-stops-out series that lined his wallet even as it taxed his strength.
Quote of the Day (George Bernard Shaw, on Accurate Observation)
“The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it.”—George Bernard Shaw
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