I love the opening paragraphs of A Christmas Carol--it reminds me of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, both of which I referenced for a recent paper I wronte on comedy and horror (see http://www.panix.com/~kestrell/weallfalldown.html). I'm intrigued how comedy and horror both use a lot of distortion of meaning to create a mood and a sense of disorder. Mess with a person's sense of meaning and you significantly mess with that person's entire worldview. I thnk in many ways horror and gothic fiction--or in the case of Lemony Snicket, mock-gothic fiction--uses wordplay to establish a mood where it is always Anything-Can-Happen Day (I had the chance to view one of my favorite movies ever last night, Angel Heart; love love love Mickey in that one, such a bad boy...).