The reformed miser engages in "relentless philanthropy" in his born-again life. (No matter how outraged you might feel about revising Dickens, Bayard's book pales in that endeavor beside this season's TV movie A Carol Christmas, starring Tori Spelling in the Scrooge role, with William Shatner as the Ghost of Christmas Present and Gary Coleman as the Ghost of Christmas Past: "whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Ebenezer?!")Įbenezer Scrooge, dubbed "Uncle N" by the Cratchit children, also weighs heavy on Tim's mind. He's living in a London brothel, teaching the madam there how to read, and wandering the streets, trying to shake off the ghost of his recently deceased father, the kindly clerk Bob Cratchit.
The treacly souled boy is now a 23-year-old man, healed of his disability ("all that's left, really, is the limp, which to hear others tell it is not a limp but a lilt, a slight hesitation my right leg makes before greeting the pavement, a metrical shyness"). This book takes up Tim's story during the Christmas season of 1860 - nearly two decades after the events recounted in A Christmas Carol. Thank heavens, then, for Louis Bayard, who reinvents the plucky little cripple in his new novel, Mr. His righteousness is just too much for me to bear, even at Christmastime. His sweet creations - most of them angelic children - often curdled the page.Īnd let's face it: Tim Cratchit, with his feeble voice, withered little hand and chirpy "God Bless Us, Everyone," is like a sugar cookie coated in caramel and dunked in hot cocoa. Dickens was at his best when injecting his characters with darkness and wit. The same goes for The Old Curiosity Shop's Little Nell, Dombey and Son's small Paul Dombey and any other diminutive Dickens characters who unequivocally represent Goodness and Mercy with a straight face.
As a die-hard fan of Charles Dickens, it pains me to admit this: I never liked Tiny Tim.
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