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Reviewed by Rich Follett for Readers' Favorite
Humbug by Sarah Whelan masterfully transforms Ebenezer Scrooge’s narrative in A Christmas Carol from the third person to first person point of view. The result is that Scrooge’s misanthropic and miserly nature is deconstructed for readers who will no doubt view the time-honored tale in a fresh new light – truly, a miraculous accomplishment. As Scrooge reflects at the end of his life upon the people, circumstances, and events that shaped him, he gradually becomes a far more sympathetic character whose faults and regrettable choices seem increasingly akin to our own: “But for the grace of God,” as the adage proclaims. Whelan’s genius extends far beyond her inside-out rendering of Scrooge’s complex psyche to include extraordinary attention to detail concerning the period language and social mores of Victorian England. Her prose is scholarly and yet somehow easily accessible; another in a series of authorial master strokes.
As Scrooge is systematically separated by death or circumstance from every person for whom he has ever felt affection, we cannot help but stand in awe of the fact that he survived at all, much less opened his heart to a late-in-life metamorphosis. Underpinning Whelan’s riveting and original interpretation of Scrooge’s experience is a completely plausible and utterly mind-bending alternative take on the nature and significance of his relationship with Jacob Marley, which frames Scrooge’s retreat from humanity in a deeply human and emotionally affecting light. Sarah Whelan’s Humbug is brilliantly crafted with absolute faithfulness and reverence to its source material and is such a worthy and enlightening companion to Dickens’ beloved tale that it is nigh on impossible to imagine one ever having existed without the other.
