Bueno de Mesquita mal anders
The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge
Over the roughly century-and-a-half since Dickens's A Christmas Carol was first published, many hardy souls have attempted sequels. (Dickens himself steadfastly avoided so following up his fictions, for reasosns of his own, but that is quite another matter.) These authors have tried to detail what happened in Scrooge's life after his meeting with the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, as opposed to the relatively summary way Dickens dealt with the issue at the end of the story. But Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Ph.D., Senior Fellowat the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in his new novel The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge (Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2001), has conceived "with tongue lodged in cheek, but not too firmly," an ingenious variation. With keen intellect and superb narrative skill, he has wrought a Platonic courtroom dialogue, as it were, of what happened after the repentant miser's DEATH -- in the Court of Heavenly Justice, before the Judge of All, long after Scrooge's demise and well into the twentieth century. His trial is to decide if his reformation was genuine, rather than a Faustian put - on - thus, if he is to go to heaven or hell. Dr. Bueno de Mesquita adroitly fixes Ebenezer Scrooge's lifespan as 1774 - 1857, and shows by his equally adroit scholarship that A Christmas Carol may be a more complex piece of literature han we had hitherto thought, saturated as we are by Alistair Sim and other film renditions. In his Preface, the author points out that "I hope to raise our awarenessof how quickly and unjustly we may judge others," and that Scrooge's story had "similarities to the life of Faust. Scrooge lived an exemplary life until he was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come."
Mr Scrooge, in other words, may have been a private man, but a generous one. The basic problem is that Charles Dickens's depiction of him early in the tale (as perceived by most) has obscured his subsequent humane deeds. But we must remember that Scrooge, when a boy, had been cruelly abandoned by his father (though his kind sister Fan eventually brought him back home). In later life he maintained a solid, if imperfect, friendship with his business partner, Jacob Marley -- who, in turn, proved the substantiality of this relationship by procuring for Scrooge his one chance to escape eternal damnation, with no hope of gain for Marley himself. There is also Eppie, a character borrowed from George Eliot's Silas Marner; she, along with her mother Molly, staunchly advocates Scrooge's hope of heaven.
Though confident that he has been a good man, Scrooge still is timorous about "knocking at Heaven's gate," and spends well over a century wandering through eternity, much in the manner of Jacob Marley. (This pennance in itself might argue in Scrooge's behalf against the claims of his heavenly adversaries that he is a cold, selfish egotist.) Tiny Tim, now grown, (though still a cripple), is Scrooge's lawyer in the afterlife. Professor Blight, lately of Oxford, is his prosecuting attorney and Mr. Hiram Dewars II is a key witness agianst him. These latter two, though their names are of Bueno de Mesquita's contriving, represent business partners of Scrooge in the original tale. Dr. Bueno de Mesquita also re-examines the relationship between Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit, suggesting that Scrooge's clerk cared more for himself than for his son, who, in this tale, becomes the image of the Scrooge Dickens created. It is also worth noting that Dr. Bueno de Mesquita makes a cogent argument that part of Scrooge's PR problem was that he, though a Gentile, was in the business of moneylending, a profession that left him a victim of the anti - semitism then rife in England.
Bueno de Mesquita provides textual evidence that Scrooge, who had a high opinion of himself and feared death, struck a Faustian bargain with the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come -- to serve that Spirit's Master, the Devil.for a slightly longer life on earth. But his dear friend Eppie, risking her own eternal salvation, breaks the Courtroom's ice by giving Scrooge the opportunity to save himself -- and her. Can Scrooge rise to this test? Well, Mr. Charles Dickens, humanly flawed though he may have been, is still Scrooge's Creator, and waits in the wings.
--Kenneth Mintz
Over the roughly century-and-a-half since Dickens's A Christmas Carol was first published, many hardy souls have attempted sequels. (Dickens himself steadfastly avoided so following up his fictions, for reasosns of his own, but that is quite another matter.) These authors have tried to detail what happened in Scrooge's life after his meeting with the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come, as opposed to the relatively summary way Dickens dealt with the issue at the end of the story. But Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, Ph.D., Senior Fellowat the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, in his new novel The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge (Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press, 2001), has conceived "with tongue lodged in cheek, but not too firmly," an ingenious variation. With keen intellect and superb narrative skill, he has wrought a Platonic courtroom dialogue, as it were, of what happened after the repentant miser's DEATH -- in the Court of Heavenly Justice, before the Judge of All, long after Scrooge's demise and well into the twentieth century. His trial is to decide if his reformation was genuine, rather than a Faustian put - on - thus, if he is to go to heaven or hell. Dr. Bueno de Mesquita adroitly fixes Ebenezer Scrooge's lifespan as 1774 - 1857, and shows by his equally adroit scholarship that A Christmas Carol may be a more complex piece of literature han we had hitherto thought, saturated as we are by Alistair Sim and other film renditions. In his Preface, the author points out that "I hope to raise our awarenessof how quickly and unjustly we may judge others," and that Scrooge's story had "similarities to the life of Faust. Scrooge lived an exemplary life until he was visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come."
Mr Scrooge, in other words, may have been a private man, but a generous one. The basic problem is that Charles Dickens's depiction of him early in the tale (as perceived by most) has obscured his subsequent humane deeds. But we must remember that Scrooge, when a boy, had been cruelly abandoned by his father (though his kind sister Fan eventually brought him back home). In later life he maintained a solid, if imperfect, friendship with his business partner, Jacob Marley -- who, in turn, proved the substantiality of this relationship by procuring for Scrooge his one chance to escape eternal damnation, with no hope of gain for Marley himself. There is also Eppie, a character borrowed from George Eliot's Silas Marner; she, along with her mother Molly, staunchly advocates Scrooge's hope of heaven.
Though confident that he has been a good man, Scrooge still is timorous about "knocking at Heaven's gate," and spends well over a century wandering through eternity, much in the manner of Jacob Marley. (This pennance in itself might argue in Scrooge's behalf against the claims of his heavenly adversaries that he is a cold, selfish egotist.) Tiny Tim, now grown, (though still a cripple), is Scrooge's lawyer in the afterlife. Professor Blight, lately of Oxford, is his prosecuting attorney and Mr. Hiram Dewars II is a key witness agianst him. These latter two, though their names are of Bueno de Mesquita's contriving, represent business partners of Scrooge in the original tale. Dr. Bueno de Mesquita also re-examines the relationship between Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchit, suggesting that Scrooge's clerk cared more for himself than for his son, who, in this tale, becomes the image of the Scrooge Dickens created. It is also worth noting that Dr. Bueno de Mesquita makes a cogent argument that part of Scrooge's PR problem was that he, though a Gentile, was in the business of moneylending, a profession that left him a victim of the anti - semitism then rife in England.
Bueno de Mesquita provides textual evidence that Scrooge, who had a high opinion of himself and feared death, struck a Faustian bargain with the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come -- to serve that Spirit's Master, the Devil.for a slightly longer life on earth. But his dear friend Eppie, risking her own eternal salvation, breaks the Courtroom's ice by giving Scrooge the opportunity to save himself -- and her. Can Scrooge rise to this test? Well, Mr. Charles Dickens, humanly flawed though he may have been, is still Scrooge's Creator, and waits in the wings.
--Kenneth Mintz
posted by svencho @ 17:17
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