This newsletter will appear on Christmas Eve Day, so of course it’s going to be about Christmas, despite the obviousness of the choice. In fact, I’m going to be even more obvious and write about Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843), but I do promise to try to get a little deeper than the holiday specials. I urge my students to follow the advice of science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, whose motto was “Ask the next question,” which is the question that most people wouldn’t think to ask. So the question for today is, why is there a tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas? After all, there is no rationale latent in the holiday itself, as there is for the Halloween-All Soul’s holiday period. It’s a Victorian tradition, although preserved as late as Robertson Davies’
December 24, 2021
December 24, 2021
December 24, 2021
This newsletter will appear on Christmas Eve Day, so of course it’s going to be about Christmas, despite the obviousness of the choice. In fact, I’m going to be even more obvious and write about Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843), but I do promise to try to get a little deeper than the holiday specials. I urge my students to follow the advice of science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, whose motto was “Ask the next question,” which is the question that most people wouldn’t think to ask. So the question for today is, why is there a tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas? After all, there is no rationale latent in the holiday itself, as there is for the Halloween-All Soul’s holiday period. It’s a Victorian tradition, although preserved as late as Robertson Davies’