Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.33 AVERAGE
3.33 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Really enjoyed this! It’s so funny and so intelligent!! Great social commentary but not expressly didactic. A real reel. And eclectic characters, including several strong and interesting women.
Now, I must reread Great Expectations. I disliked Dickens when I was 15, but I believe I have grown since then… thank goodness.
Now, I must reread Great Expectations. I disliked Dickens when I was 15, but I believe I have grown since then… thank goodness.
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
9th book of 2023.
3.5. I always imagined this to be a slog of a read, mostly because people call it Hard Times to read. I didn't find it any harder than any other Dickens book, which is to say, I found it fairly readable, if not, at times, a little verbose. Dickens's realism just doesn't connect with me in the same way. I found A Tale of Two Cities, like this, enjoyable enough but ultimately a little dry and predictable. I prefer novels like Great Expectations and David Copperfield that are flamboyant and have a wide range of interesting characters. I think Hard Times addresses some strong issues and portrait Dickens's time well, but I just prefer his other novels. I was especially interested in the beginning with the introduction of Sissy Jupe, hoping her to be the orphan-cum-hero of the story, but she is mostly forgotten until the end. I found Stephen a compelling character and his situation with his wife ahead of its time in some respects. Tom was another memorable and sad character. I think there's a lot of desperation in this book, which sometimes makes it a depressing read: drunkards, liars, thieves and gamblers make up this sooty, short, and bleak novel by old Charles.
3.5. I always imagined this to be a slog of a read, mostly because people call it Hard Times to read. I didn't find it any harder than any other Dickens book, which is to say, I found it fairly readable, if not, at times, a little verbose. Dickens's realism just doesn't connect with me in the same way. I found A Tale of Two Cities, like this, enjoyable enough but ultimately a little dry and predictable. I prefer novels like Great Expectations and David Copperfield that are flamboyant and have a wide range of interesting characters. I think Hard Times addresses some strong issues and portrait Dickens's time well, but I just prefer his other novels. I was especially interested in the beginning with the introduction of Sissy Jupe, hoping her to be the orphan-cum-hero of the story, but she is mostly forgotten until the end. I found Stephen a compelling character and his situation with his wife ahead of its time in some respects. Tom was another memorable and sad character. I think there's a lot of desperation in this book, which sometimes makes it a depressing read: drunkards, liars, thieves and gamblers make up this sooty, short, and bleak novel by old Charles.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Imagination or facts? Liberal arts or business? What makes life meaningful? What empties our well? This was a compelling read for me. The prose was rich and described vivid scenes and characters. The social meaning put in contrast the differences of being a business man and a human being. Dickens’ 19th century England blends empire, social class, gender and community in a vivid tale that helps the reader see today’s world more vividly.
Oh man, this book was so funny! Sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally.
This book is Dickens railing against the Industrial Revolution's preoccupation with valuing fact over imagination. While reading it, I had a sudden realization. Everyone is familiar with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, right? The 1800s had their own version of the same trope, the Domestic Affectionate Moral Girl, who exists for the same purpose as the MPDG (saving broody men (and women) from their broodiness), and has no agency or motivations of her own. She exists to extoll the virtues of the home, of doing one's Female Duty, of single-minded affection (but only when appropriate.). The DAMG is just as personality-free, and has no goals of her own beyond saving whoever it is she is attached too. Just as unlikely as the MPDG to exist. Think Beth March, or whoever the oldest Bennet sister was. Sissy Jupe, one of the main characters in Hard Times, is a particularly flat example of this character, so flat that when she fell into my literary lap I could suddenly see the trope laid bare.
This book is Dickens railing against the Industrial Revolution's preoccupation with valuing fact over imagination. While reading it, I had a sudden realization. Everyone is familiar with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope, right? The 1800s had their own version of the same trope, the Domestic Affectionate Moral Girl, who exists for the same purpose as the MPDG (saving broody men (and women) from their broodiness), and has no agency or motivations of her own. She exists to extoll the virtues of the home, of doing one's Female Duty, of single-minded affection (but only when appropriate.). The DAMG is just as personality-free, and has no goals of her own beyond saving whoever it is she is attached too. Just as unlikely as the MPDG to exist. Think Beth March, or whoever the oldest Bennet sister was. Sissy Jupe, one of the main characters in Hard Times, is a particularly flat example of this character, so flat that when she fell into my literary lap I could suddenly see the trope laid bare.
In truth, I probably wouldn't have picked this book up if hadn't been required reading. The title. The cover. The jacket description. None of them really appeal to me as a consumer. That being said, I'm glad I read it. It's certainly memorable and not in a "this is dreadful" kind of way.
While many of the characters in Hard Times echo or mirror those found in David Copperfield - the only other Dickens' book I've read - I still found them interesting. In this particular book, I must admit I liked Sissy immediately and found Bounderby and the adult Gradgrinds to be criminal from the beginning. That Dickens uses their over-the-top personality traits to categorize them in terms of social and political ideologies should not come as a surprise. From what I can see, he tends to do this often.
I don't want to spoil the book for anyone who hasn't read it yet, so I won't go into the plot. Instead, I'll say is that things pretty much appear just as they are. Subtly is not something Dickens seemed to worry himself with while writing this particular novel.
While many of the characters in Hard Times echo or mirror those found in David Copperfield - the only other Dickens' book I've read - I still found them interesting. In this particular book, I must admit I liked Sissy immediately and found Bounderby and the adult Gradgrinds to be criminal from the beginning. That Dickens uses their over-the-top personality traits to categorize them in terms of social and political ideologies should not come as a surprise. From what I can see, he tends to do this often.
I don't want to spoil the book for anyone who hasn't read it yet, so I won't go into the plot. Instead, I'll say is that things pretty much appear just as they are. Subtly is not something Dickens seemed to worry himself with while writing this particular novel.
Bread and circuses…
In the industrial town of Coketown in the north of England, we meet the Gradgrinds. Mr Gradgrind is a school board Superintendent, a Utilitarian, a lover of facts and an enemy to fancy. Mrs Gradgrind is a woman dull to the point of near-imbecility and, out of laziness and disinterest as much as anything else, supports her husband’s child-rearing methods. Gradgrind’s primary guinea pigs for his Utilitarian experiment are his five children, especially the two eldest, Louisa and Tom. The school that Gradgrind superintends forcefeeds facts into the heads of children, and stifles any individuality or creativity. Into this learning factory comes Sissy Jupe, the child of a circus performer who has begged to be allowed to attend school so that she can be educated. But when Louisa and Tom are caught one day daring to peep into the forbidden circus, Gradgrind blames Sissy’s influence, at the suggestion of his great friend Mr Bounderby, and throws Sissy out of school.
Mr Bounderby is a self-made man who has dragged himself up from beginnings so inauspicious that it’s amazing he survived at all, much less going on to become a rich and powerful business magnate. We know this because Bounderby tells the story to everyone he meets. If he could rise from being abandoned by an uncaring mother, then so could anyone else if only they had his determination – such is his philosophy, justifying his cruel hard-heartedness to his employees and to anyone who has fallen on hard times. Bounderby, well on in middle-age, casts his lecherous eye on young Louisa before she has even left school and, as soon as she can be considered an adult, asks Gradgrind for her hand. Poor Louisa is one of those cold females Dickens excels in – damaged by her upbringing to the point where all passion, all emotion even, is buried so deep inside even she thinks it is dead. So she agrees to marry Bounderby.
These are the main characters whose story we follow through one of Dickens’ shorter and more overtly polemical novels. He has two main themes – the hardships of workers contrasted with the harsh, unfeeling selfishness of the new industrial magnates; and the need for children to be allowed to explore their imagination and have some fun, alongside fact-based learning. Written at roughly the same time as Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, a book he encouraged her to write and which was serialised in his periodical Household Words, both examine the new industrial world of the North and both are arguing for better conditions for workers, but that’s where the comparison ends. Gaskell’s characterisation is more realistic, perhaps, and her story is much bleaker – her characters are chiefly notable for dying (constantly) of poverty or industrial disease, whereas Dickens’ characters go through all his usual things – broken hearts, tragic misunderstandings, amazing coincidences, false accusations and redemption. Gaskell wins the prize for realism, but Dickens wins the more coveted prize for being entertaining!
There is some humour in the schooling of the children, as they repeat back meaningless definitions of nouns they have learned by rote with no depth of understanding. But it’s dark humour – Dickens’ low opinion of education shows up in many of his books, from the deliberate sadism of Wackford Squeers, to here, where Mr Gradgrind has the best of intentions but no understanding at all of childishness and the need for children to grow spiritually and imaginatively even as they absorb facts.
The story of the conditions for workers is darker. Here our humble hero is Stephen Blackpool, an employee in one of Bounderby’s mills. Through his wife, we see the damage that alcohol can do, to all sectors of society, of course, but always more harshly to the poor. Stephen is caught between two forces over which he has no control – the employers and the new unions, beginning their long, unfinished battle for power. While Dickens is very sympathetic to the plight of the workers, whom he shows as decent and honest, he has little time for the union leaders, showing them as self-seeking demagogues, stirring up the men to justify their own existence, and with little true concern for the workers whom they exploit as much as do the employers. While there is little doubt (in most quarters!) that (some) unions have been a force for good overall, helping workers to win better pay and conditions over the century and a half since Dickens was writing, I’m sure we can all think of examples of the kind of demagogic union leader Dickens portrays here. So while I felt the portrayal was unfairly one-sided, it still bore a lot of credibility. And in Stephen we see an early example of how the unions persuade friend to turn against friend, if any man dares to refuse to follow the herd.
So as always with Dickens, plenty to think about and plenty that is still sadly relevant today. And of course his writing is always a joy to read. However, this book feels rather under-developed in comparison to his greatest novels. There are moments of humour, but none of the exuberance and wit that usually provide a welcome contrast to his more polemical elements. There’s a distinct shortage of the memorable characters he normally does so well – Bounderby is a great character, as is his awful housekeeper, Mrs Sparsit. But neither Louisa nor Sissy won my heart much though I sympathised with both, and the evil people (even Bounderby) aren’t as beautifully caricatured as, say, a Uriah Heep or a Fagin. The story is more straightforward, without much of the mystery and suspense that his best books contain. Overall, I enjoyed it – of course I did: it’s Dickens! - but I don’t think it comes close to his best. Well worth reading but perhaps not one I would recommend as a first introduction for newcomers to his work.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
In the industrial town of Coketown in the north of England, we meet the Gradgrinds. Mr Gradgrind is a school board Superintendent, a Utilitarian, a lover of facts and an enemy to fancy. Mrs Gradgrind is a woman dull to the point of near-imbecility and, out of laziness and disinterest as much as anything else, supports her husband’s child-rearing methods. Gradgrind’s primary guinea pigs for his Utilitarian experiment are his five children, especially the two eldest, Louisa and Tom. The school that Gradgrind superintends forcefeeds facts into the heads of children, and stifles any individuality or creativity. Into this learning factory comes Sissy Jupe, the child of a circus performer who has begged to be allowed to attend school so that she can be educated. But when Louisa and Tom are caught one day daring to peep into the forbidden circus, Gradgrind blames Sissy’s influence, at the suggestion of his great friend Mr Bounderby, and throws Sissy out of school.
Mr Bounderby is a self-made man who has dragged himself up from beginnings so inauspicious that it’s amazing he survived at all, much less going on to become a rich and powerful business magnate. We know this because Bounderby tells the story to everyone he meets. If he could rise from being abandoned by an uncaring mother, then so could anyone else if only they had his determination – such is his philosophy, justifying his cruel hard-heartedness to his employees and to anyone who has fallen on hard times. Bounderby, well on in middle-age, casts his lecherous eye on young Louisa before she has even left school and, as soon as she can be considered an adult, asks Gradgrind for her hand. Poor Louisa is one of those cold females Dickens excels in – damaged by her upbringing to the point where all passion, all emotion even, is buried so deep inside even she thinks it is dead. So she agrees to marry Bounderby.
These are the main characters whose story we follow through one of Dickens’ shorter and more overtly polemical novels. He has two main themes – the hardships of workers contrasted with the harsh, unfeeling selfishness of the new industrial magnates; and the need for children to be allowed to explore their imagination and have some fun, alongside fact-based learning. Written at roughly the same time as Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, a book he encouraged her to write and which was serialised in his periodical Household Words, both examine the new industrial world of the North and both are arguing for better conditions for workers, but that’s where the comparison ends. Gaskell’s characterisation is more realistic, perhaps, and her story is much bleaker – her characters are chiefly notable for dying (constantly) of poverty or industrial disease, whereas Dickens’ characters go through all his usual things – broken hearts, tragic misunderstandings, amazing coincidences, false accusations and redemption. Gaskell wins the prize for realism, but Dickens wins the more coveted prize for being entertaining!
There is some humour in the schooling of the children, as they repeat back meaningless definitions of nouns they have learned by rote with no depth of understanding. But it’s dark humour – Dickens’ low opinion of education shows up in many of his books, from the deliberate sadism of Wackford Squeers, to here, where Mr Gradgrind has the best of intentions but no understanding at all of childishness and the need for children to grow spiritually and imaginatively even as they absorb facts.
The story of the conditions for workers is darker. Here our humble hero is Stephen Blackpool, an employee in one of Bounderby’s mills. Through his wife, we see the damage that alcohol can do, to all sectors of society, of course, but always more harshly to the poor. Stephen is caught between two forces over which he has no control – the employers and the new unions, beginning their long, unfinished battle for power. While Dickens is very sympathetic to the plight of the workers, whom he shows as decent and honest, he has little time for the union leaders, showing them as self-seeking demagogues, stirring up the men to justify their own existence, and with little true concern for the workers whom they exploit as much as do the employers. While there is little doubt (in most quarters!) that (some) unions have been a force for good overall, helping workers to win better pay and conditions over the century and a half since Dickens was writing, I’m sure we can all think of examples of the kind of demagogic union leader Dickens portrays here. So while I felt the portrayal was unfairly one-sided, it still bore a lot of credibility. And in Stephen we see an early example of how the unions persuade friend to turn against friend, if any man dares to refuse to follow the herd.
So as always with Dickens, plenty to think about and plenty that is still sadly relevant today. And of course his writing is always a joy to read. However, this book feels rather under-developed in comparison to his greatest novels. There are moments of humour, but none of the exuberance and wit that usually provide a welcome contrast to his more polemical elements. There’s a distinct shortage of the memorable characters he normally does so well – Bounderby is a great character, as is his awful housekeeper, Mrs Sparsit. But neither Louisa nor Sissy won my heart much though I sympathised with both, and the evil people (even Bounderby) aren’t as beautifully caricatured as, say, a Uriah Heep or a Fagin. The story is more straightforward, without much of the mystery and suspense that his best books contain. Overall, I enjoyed it – of course I did: it’s Dickens! - but I don’t think it comes close to his best. Well worth reading but perhaps not one I would recommend as a first introduction for newcomers to his work.
www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com
Lesser-Dickens is still pretty good reading. I wish I loved anything as much as Dickens loves orphans. The sootier the better.