So, given the time of year ‘t is, as I write this, I’ve had several versions of A Christmas Carol playing(1).
I just clicked on something (older meaning, not the new-ish one). What Scrooge experienced was in fact what so very many people these days report as NDE’s (near-death experiences), with the accompanying change in view point and consciousness many of these folks also report.
Question: did Charles Dickens invent this phenomenon? Did NDE’s start happening as wish fulfillment after watching / reading(2) the story? Or did Dickens hear a report of some such and use that as inspiration?
Probably we’ll never know. Probably no connection, except to think about.
Have to admit, though, that in a lot of ways I envy Scrooge his upliftment in consciousness. To be Happy All The Time, By Choice. Wow! How cool is that?
‘T is a little bit sad that we, in our culture, remember Scrooge before this transformation rather than after. “He’s a real Scrooge” refers to a person of sour disposition, beyond tight with his money and no fun at all, and not to the New-and-Improved Scrooge, the Happy-Happy person, spreading joy where ever he goes and uplifting all the world around him.
Why is that?
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(1) It’s a toss-up for me, whether the Alistair Sim or the George C Scott version is my favorite, at the moment. How ’bout you?
(2) The book is still the best version of the story. By far, by far. Seems to be a rule of story telling that no video version can rival the original book version. On the other hand, books written after the movie are almost always horrible; the one exception (I *think*) is the book that came out after the original Battle Star Galactica hit TV. On the other hand, that first series was so horribly written the book could hardly not have been better. 🙂 BTW: the second series, done by SyFy channel, was beyond excellent, that very rare thing: exceptional television.