That’s no normal sentence LMAO. Let me translate:

A boy, whose nose was thin—a sign of winter taking its toll, and as stripped of flesh as a dog’s gnawed-on bone would be—crouched by Scrooge’s door to sing him a carol. However, right after he said the first stanza of “God rest ye, merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay—”, Scrooge grabbed his cane so menacingly, the boy immediately fled, leaving his doorstop barren and alone in the heavy fog and even heavier frost.

You could probably understand that just fine. I’ve said the same thing, but language evolves and Dickens is difficult to understand.

Honestly, if it’s going to take you hours to read through and the reading process isn’t fun for you, you may as well watch one of the many movie adaptations out there. It’ll take less time and you’ll get the same/a better amount of understanding. (This isn’t meant as an insult; reading should be enjoyable, and I didn’t find Christmas Carol enjoyable to read, either. The Muppet Christmas Carol is a favorite childhood movie of mine, though.)

The hell are you on about mate? Books that are almost two hundred years old are not simple, they spoke differently to is so you have to translate them even if written straightforwardly.

Easy is Twilight, Harry Potter, See Spot Run. A hundred and eighty year old book is not quite literally one of the easiest books, hell even figuratively it wouldn’t be.

Do you have this issue with more modern English? Dickens isn’t difficult but I can understand it being difficult if it’s your first interaction with dates writing

A Christmas Carol is his most accessible book by far

Dickens was writing nearly 170 years ago for a radically different society. They spoke differently, were educated differently, and responded differently to things. His plots are moving, and his character creation is unparalleled (half his characters seem to be there simply because he thought 'I love the idea of an overly tenderhearted butcher who’s poor because he’s always giving things away but also likes to chop up dead animals and I have THE BEST name for him.") It doesn’t make you dumb, and although A Christmas Carol has been adapted for kids a lot, it wasn’t written for kids.

It sounds like this is an assignment. What if you looked for an audiobook?

A Christmas Carol is the easiest Dickens novel, not the easiest book. It takes a long time to get used to his prose if it’s new to you.

I wouldn’t say it’s “quite literally one of the easiest books to read”. You can try looking for an audio version, maybe it will be easier to comprehend for you.

Yet, it your main issue is in the words themselves, than not so sure that will help out.

It takes a lot of practice to get used to reading older English like Dickens so don’t feel bad. It can sometimes help to listen to an audiobook first to get a grasp on how the cadence should sound. But yeah, you’re not stupid trust me. I have a BA in English and had to reread Heart of Darkness three times before I could fully understand what was going on.

Aww…i love Dickens’ writing so much. Now i wish i were reading a Dickens right now.

Who on earth told you that was easy? It’s really really not.

And yeah I don’t understand the sentence.

It’s really not hard if you just parse what’s being said. It’s like riddles but much easier to solve. You just need to get into the metaphor. What looks like overwritten prose there is just atmosphere buinding. The cold is biting the boy’s nose like a hungry dog - so imagine him with a red nose, probably a drop of snot hanging there that he’s not aware of because he’s numb with cold, and so on…

Dickens’ isn’t easy to read! I tell students to slow themselves down for Dickens, but that it’s worth it!

Books from Charles Dickens’ era are characterised by heavy descriptors and metaphors, this English is often considered ‘posh’ and Victorian novels take an avid reader to get accustomed to.

Having said that, when I was first learning English, I got very attached to this era of books and while it did help my English and made me advanced as a reader and writer, I suffer from eccentric-speak and people think I sound too ‘formal’ 😅 —

This is not an ‘easy book’, if you prefer less purple phrases/prose, look for more modern books, things that are tailored to young adults for example.

For starters you have typos in your example sentence.

The owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of

“God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!”

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.

—————————-

Basically we have an description of a Christmas Caroler’s nose as he peeps into a keyhole and sings him a Christmas Carol, which causes Scrooge to attack him with a ruler, which makes the singer run away and leave the keyhole empty (only the fog and frost).

“Congenial frost” is a particularly interesting word choice since most people wouldn’t find frost pleasant, mimicking Scrooge’s personality at this point and desire to be alone.

My advice is don’t get too caught up in analysis if that is tricky for you or understand every last sentence. Did you understand there was a Christmas Caroler? That Scrooge chased him away? Then that should be sufficient to move forward in the story.

If you’re not familiar with literature from that era, you probably would have trouble with it. Sure, A Christmas Carol seems simple because everyone knows the story from movies and TV, but that doesn’t mean the original story is necessarily easy to read. The passage you posted is a wonderful bit of prose, and very poetic, but the construction of the sentences is not something that you would see in most modern novels. If you’re worried about your ability to read and comprehend books, maybe pick up something more modern and see if you have the same trouble.