Mr. Dickens and His Carol (Silva)

Mr. Dickens and His Carol 
Samantha Silva, 2017
Flatiron Books
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250154040


Summary
Laced with humor, rich historical detail from Charles Dickens’ life, and clever winks to his work, Samantha Silva's Mr. Dickens and His Carol is an irresistible new take on a cherished classic.

Charles Dickens is not feeling the Christmas spirit. His newest book is an utter flop, the critics have turned against him, relatives near and far hound him for money.

While his wife plans a lavish holiday party for their ever-expanding family and circle of friends, Dickens has visions of the poor house. But when his publishers try to blackmail him into writing a Christmas book to save them all from financial ruin, he refuses. And a serious bout of writer’s block sets in.

Frazzled and filled with self-doubt, Dickens seeks solace in his great palace of thinking, the city of London itself. On one of his long night walks, in a once-beloved square, he meets the mysterious Eleanor Lovejoy, who might be just the muse he needs.

As Dickens’ deadlines close in, Eleanor propels him on a Scrooge-like journey that tests everything he believes about generosity, friendship, ambition, and love. The story he writes will change Christmas forever. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
Samantha Silva is an author and screenwriter based in Idaho. Mr. Dickens and His Carol is her debut novel. Over her career she's sold film projects to Paramount, Universal, New Line Cinema and TNT. A film adaptation of her short story, "The Big Burn," won the 1 Potato Short Screenplay Competition at the Sun Valley Film Festival in 2017. Silva will direct, her first time at the helm.

She graduated from Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, where she studied in Bologna, Italy and Washington, D.C. She's lived in London three times, briefly in Rome, is an avid Italophile, and a forever Dickens devotee. (From the publisher.)

Book Reviews
[T]he book rises above farce when Silva lavishes her attention on moments that sparked her own imagination. She nicely captures the spirit of Dickens’s favorite escape from his desk or from fights with his wife, his long midnight walks around London: “Fog hovered in the hat brims of cabdrivers, rolled into stairwells to blanket snoring beggars, crept down the Thames bridge by bridge.” She convincingly portrays Dickens’s restless energy, especially its manifestation in anxiety, his yearning for public approval, and how his narcissism could burn those drawn to his flame.
Michael Sims  - New York Times Book Review


This clever, original debut brilliantly imagines the writing of A Christmas Carol…Wildly moving, chock full of Dickensian atmosphere and written in a style as rich as a Victorian Christmas dinner.
Daily Mail (UK)


On its way to becoming a classic not unlike its subject matter.
Bustle


No writer in the history of literature so embodies the season of Christmas as Charles Dickens, a man who was alive to his fingertips from start to finish. Among his finest moments was surely when he wrote and published his mythic tale of Scrooge, Jacob Marley, and Tiny Tim, changing hearts and minds, then and now. Samantha Silva brings the great man, the Inimitable, to sizzling life in Mr. Dickens and His Carol. This man who brimmed with Christmases past, present, and future walks onto the public stage again in these pages, takes a bow, and enjoys the ringing applause.
Library Journal


Wonderfully Dickensian…With the wit and sprightly tone of a classic storyteller, Silva presents a heartwarming tale of friendship and renewal that’s imbued with the true Christmas spirit.
Booklist

Discussion Questions
1. Were you familiar with Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" before reading Mr. Dickens and His Carol? Did Samantha Silva’s novel change how you viewed the classic? Discuss the ways in which Silva referenced and departed from Dickens’ original story.

2. The city of London plays a key role in this novel: "A map of it was etched on [Dickens’] brain, its tangle of streets and squares, alleys and mews a true atlas of his own interior. The city had made him. It knew his sharp angles, the soft pits of his being. It was a magic lantern that illuminated everything he was and feared and wished would be true. It was his imagination—its spark, fuel, and flame."How does London inspire this story? Do you have a place that is similarly important in your life and imagination?

3. Clocks appear in many scenes, from Dickens’ beloved fusee clock to the clock tower in the square, where he first meets Eleanor Lovejoy. What do you make of these representations of time? How does Dickens’ view of time, and of his own history, change over the course of these pages?

4. When Dickens is suffering from writer’s block, Eleanor tells him: "Then let the specter of your memory be the spark of your imagination." What is Dickens’ relationship with memory, and with the past generally? How does his own life inspire "A Christmas Carol"?

5. Dickens is fascinated by costume, performance, and theater, and he dreams throughout the novel of going to India with Macready and performing Shakespeare. Why do you think acting holds such interest for him? How is it similar to and different from writing? What is the significance of his staged reading of "A Christmas Carol" at the end of the story?

6. In a couple of scenes, we see other famous Victorian writers, including William Makepeace Thackeray, discussing (and disparaging) Dickens’ novels. Thackeray, a satirist, criticizes Dickens’ "gushing displays of the heart," while for Dickens, "It was all heart, or nothing." How does Silva play with sentimentality and other "Dickensian" qualities in Mr. Dickens and His Carol? Discuss the writing style here and the effect it had on you.

7. Dickens’ relationship with Eleanor is complicated: "He didn’t understand the kinship he felt toward her, or gratitude maybe, or some ineffable affinity of nature and qualities." How would you characterize their bond? Is it at all romantic? Why or why not?

8. When Dickens learns that Eleanor is a ghost, he reflects: "How real she’d seemed, and if not, at least as true as anything he’d ever known. Maybe she’d sprung from his imagination, his own roiling conscience, but it didn’t matter now." Were you surprised by the twist? How did you interpret Eleanor’s existence?

9. The world of spirits and ghosts was a point of intense fascination in Dickens’ day. As Chapman says, "The public adore spirits and goblins in a good winter’s tale." Why do you think Samantha Silva wrote a ghost story in this day and age? What are some of your favorite modern ghost stories?

10. On one of his London walks, Dickens watches a magic show and reflects on "the truth at the bottom of every illusion, every fiction: our own great desire to believe." Do you agree? Discuss the various illusions, fictions, and beliefs within Mr. Dickens and His Carol.

11. In her author’s note, Silva writes: "I’m keenly aware that a good biography tells us the truth about a person; a good story, the truth about ourselves." What do you think she means? What did you learn about yourself from this novel?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)

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