Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.33 AVERAGE
3.33 AVERAGE
Not Dicken's best work, but still, ya know, Dickens.
It's pretty much "Lets light some straw men on fire!" day in Dickens land. Presumably Hard Times was chosen as the title because "Let's Kick Some Deserving Fuckers In The Teeth" was already taken.
Still I don't know anyone I'd rather watch burn people and deliver teeth kicks then Dickens.
It's pretty much "Lets light some straw men on fire!" day in Dickens land. Presumably Hard Times was chosen as the title because "Let's Kick Some Deserving Fuckers In The Teeth" was already taken.
Still I don't know anyone I'd rather watch burn people and deliver teeth kicks then Dickens.
This novel actually really surprised me. Many reviews on Goodreads liken the title to the reading experience, one of pushing through long details and descriptions. Actually, this book has done the opposite for me. My reading of Victorian books has been few and far between. Middlemarch was a great novel, one which I am glad I read, and I recently bought a 16-book Dickens Collection in an attempt to get some more of his under my belt.
Having only read A Tale of Two Cities previously, I was aware that Hard Times was relatively similar. I admit, I picked it because it was short, and I wanted something to kickstart my Dickens reading again. I wasn't disappointed. A social criticsm on how basing our lives on facts are numbing and remove the humanity within us, Hard Times is Dickens' critique of Utilitarianism. Mr Gradgrind teaches his children, and his students, the importance of facts and how life should be based around them. Living like that, Louisa decides to marry her fathers friend, Mr Bounderby, to aid her brother, Tom, in maintaining his job.
Simulateously, you have the story of Stephen Blackpool, a working-class factory worker who is haunted by his drunken wife. Employed by Mr Bounderby, his only happiness in life is visits from his friend, Rachael. When fired, Stephen is helped by Louisa, and moves away. Tom, however, incriminates him as a thief, instead taking the money for his debts and drinking.
Louisa and Tom act in very different ways to their factual upbringing. Louisa strives to maintain her strict life, ignoring all fancys and emotions until Mr Harthouse arrives. Tom, however, descends into drinking and depression, a fall that is beautifully depicted by Dickens.
As my second Dickens novel, I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed Hard Times. While not as content-full as A Tale of Two Cities, the depth of Dickens' characters made the novel very enjoyable to read. It has definitely encouraged me to further my readings into Dickens.
Having only read A Tale of Two Cities previously, I was aware that Hard Times was relatively similar. I admit, I picked it because it was short, and I wanted something to kickstart my Dickens reading again. I wasn't disappointed. A social criticsm on how basing our lives on facts are numbing and remove the humanity within us, Hard Times is Dickens' critique of Utilitarianism. Mr Gradgrind teaches his children, and his students, the importance of facts and how life should be based around them. Living like that, Louisa decides to marry her fathers friend, Mr Bounderby, to aid her brother, Tom, in maintaining his job.
Simulateously, you have the story of Stephen Blackpool, a working-class factory worker who is haunted by his drunken wife. Employed by Mr Bounderby, his only happiness in life is visits from his friend, Rachael. When fired, Stephen is helped by Louisa, and moves away. Tom, however, incriminates him as a thief, instead taking the money for his debts and drinking.
Louisa and Tom act in very different ways to their factual upbringing. Louisa strives to maintain her strict life, ignoring all fancys and emotions until Mr Harthouse arrives. Tom, however, descends into drinking and depression, a fall that is beautifully depicted by Dickens.
As my second Dickens novel, I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed Hard Times. While not as content-full as A Tale of Two Cities, the depth of Dickens' characters made the novel very enjoyable to read. It has definitely encouraged me to further my readings into Dickens.
Hard Times is, like most of Charles Dickens’ work, driven by a profoundly humane impulse. Here as ever, Dickens wants to tell stories that are emotionally and intellectually involving, but also to demonstrate that decency can prevail over apathy and villainy. He wants to show his middle-class Victorian readers something of the conditions of the working classes, to cast light on the intricate social, political, educational, medical, geographical, legal, and architectural systems by which the cards were thoroughly stacked against the urban poor, and against himself in his own tough childhood. He is one of the founders of the modern social conscience, bless his heart.
The broadest target in Hard Times is an educational system based solely on the rote learning of facts. Early on we meet Mr. Gradgrind, who demands that his students, including his own children, commit a random treasury of technical esoterica to memory. He strives to save them from the distractions of emotion, self-expression, and entertainment, and comes off as a Victorian Mr. Spock without the madcap sense of whimsy. The second broadest target is the Victorian industrialist; our real villain will prove to be Mr. Bounderby, a gasbag who prides himself on his humble origins and holds his labor force in contempt for not having pulled themselves up to be factory owners like himself. To be exploited to the hilt, he might bluster, is no more than they deserve for their lack of initiative.
Now to a modern eye, the caricatures that Dickens offers seem pretty darn broad, but as the editor of my 1969 edition (a charmingly Marxist professor of the old school) is at pains to point out, the satire is not nearly as over-the-top as it seems in retrospect. Mid-Victorian regimentation of factory labor and education did such a fine job of parodying itself that the social critic had to strain to take things one step further. (The editor is disappointed only that Dickens does not call for the reader to rise up and cast off the chains of capitalism, but reasonably concedes that for him to do so would have really cut into his sales.)
But it is not the setting and situation that makes Hard Times a bad novel; it is the paper-thin characters that inhabit its mechanical contrivance of a plot. Most people know the principle of fiction writing that an author should “show, not tell.” In Hard Times, Dickens gets it backwards. He tells and does not show.
Let me show you what I mean. (See what I did there?) Here are three examples on facing pages 60 and 61, where I opened the book at random:
“Then I became a young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I know that very well.”
His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a great social distinction as to be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest, was only to be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the boast.
In the first paragraph, we hear Mr. Bounderby blustering about his childhood. This is fine and good. In the second paragraph, Dickens essentially inserts a footnote explaining what the dialog was meant to convey about his character. This is tedious, and just a little insulting.
Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these cogent remarks. He frowned impatiently.
Here, Dickens somewhat pompously tells us about how his character reacted, or “seemed” to react, before grudgingly giving us three words that show us what actually happened. The sad thing is that those three words, if left to their work, could have carried the weight of the passage very effectively on their own. They needed no introduction.
‘Go and be somethingological directly,’ [said Mrs. Gradgrind]. Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, and usually dismissed her children to their studies with this general injunction to choose their pursuit.
Here we go again: Mrs. Gradgrind makes an amusing malapropism that shows she isn’t well-educated. This is good character writing – and it is immediately ruined by a long, dull sentence that explains, and therefore ruins, the joke.
This constant barrage of explanation is, I assure you, not limited to pages 60 and 61. Throughout Hard Times, Dickens relentlessly explains his own jokes, heckles his own villains, and swoons over the virtues of his own heroes. The effect, as you would expect, is painfully tedious – “like having the intended message(s) hammered into you by a journeyman carpenter” as Maddy, who was book-clubbing the reading with me, put it.
When you are required to read a bad book, even if only by your own stubbornness, there is an unfortunate kind of literary relativity in which – because it is so untempting to pick up and so easy to put back down – the time required to plow through it can stretch out for weeks. Hard Times is actually one of Dickens’ shortest novels, but it took me an age to read. Well, 16 days. But it felt like an age.
In reviewing Barnaby Rudge, I said that “in reviewing Martin Chuzzlewit, I said that ‘Second-rank Dickens is better than the first rank of most authors.’ I'll stand by that. Third-rank Dickens might however be given a miss.”
In Hard Times, we have arrived at Fourth-rank Dickens.
The broadest target in Hard Times is an educational system based solely on the rote learning of facts. Early on we meet Mr. Gradgrind, who demands that his students, including his own children, commit a random treasury of technical esoterica to memory. He strives to save them from the distractions of emotion, self-expression, and entertainment, and comes off as a Victorian Mr. Spock without the madcap sense of whimsy. The second broadest target is the Victorian industrialist; our real villain will prove to be Mr. Bounderby, a gasbag who prides himself on his humble origins and holds his labor force in contempt for not having pulled themselves up to be factory owners like himself. To be exploited to the hilt, he might bluster, is no more than they deserve for their lack of initiative.
Now to a modern eye, the caricatures that Dickens offers seem pretty darn broad, but as the editor of my 1969 edition (a charmingly Marxist professor of the old school) is at pains to point out, the satire is not nearly as over-the-top as it seems in retrospect. Mid-Victorian regimentation of factory labor and education did such a fine job of parodying itself that the social critic had to strain to take things one step further. (The editor is disappointed only that Dickens does not call for the reader to rise up and cast off the chains of capitalism, but reasonably concedes that for him to do so would have really cut into his sales.)
But it is not the setting and situation that makes Hard Times a bad novel; it is the paper-thin characters that inhabit its mechanical contrivance of a plot. Most people know the principle of fiction writing that an author should “show, not tell.” In Hard Times, Dickens gets it backwards. He tells and does not show.
Let me show you what I mean. (See what I did there?) Here are three examples on facing pages 60 and 61, where I opened the book at random:
“Then I became a young vagabond; and instead of one old woman knocking me about and starving me, everybody of all ages knocked me about and starved me. They were right; they had no business to do anything else. I was a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest. I know that very well.”
His pride in having at any time of his life achieved such a great social distinction as to be a nuisance, an incumbrance, and a pest, was only to be satisfied by three sonorous repetitions of the boast.
In the first paragraph, we hear Mr. Bounderby blustering about his childhood. This is fine and good. In the second paragraph, Dickens essentially inserts a footnote explaining what the dialog was meant to convey about his character. This is tedious, and just a little insulting.
Mr. Gradgrind did not seem favourably impressed by these cogent remarks. He frowned impatiently.
Here, Dickens somewhat pompously tells us about how his character reacted, or “seemed” to react, before grudgingly giving us three words that show us what actually happened. The sad thing is that those three words, if left to their work, could have carried the weight of the passage very effectively on their own. They needed no introduction.
‘Go and be somethingological directly,’ [said Mrs. Gradgrind]. Mrs. Gradgrind was not a scientific character, and usually dismissed her children to their studies with this general injunction to choose their pursuit.
Here we go again: Mrs. Gradgrind makes an amusing malapropism that shows she isn’t well-educated. This is good character writing – and it is immediately ruined by a long, dull sentence that explains, and therefore ruins, the joke.
This constant barrage of explanation is, I assure you, not limited to pages 60 and 61. Throughout Hard Times, Dickens relentlessly explains his own jokes, heckles his own villains, and swoons over the virtues of his own heroes. The effect, as you would expect, is painfully tedious – “like having the intended message(s) hammered into you by a journeyman carpenter” as Maddy, who was book-clubbing the reading with me, put it.
When you are required to read a bad book, even if only by your own stubbornness, there is an unfortunate kind of literary relativity in which – because it is so untempting to pick up and so easy to put back down – the time required to plow through it can stretch out for weeks. Hard Times is actually one of Dickens’ shortest novels, but it took me an age to read. Well, 16 days. But it felt like an age.
In reviewing Barnaby Rudge, I said that “in reviewing Martin Chuzzlewit, I said that ‘Second-rank Dickens is better than the first rank of most authors.’ I'll stand by that. Third-rank Dickens might however be given a miss.”
In Hard Times, we have arrived at Fourth-rank Dickens.
I enjoyed the slow nature of this book and being loped in the lives of all the characters. Personally, I thought that there were too many people and storylines to keep track of. All in all, though I liked the cozy vibes and atmosphere of the book.
Typical Dickens -- some social commentary, great caricature characters, intertwined events not revealed until the end; all the greatness (even the usual trait-names).
Unlike some of his other books, though, there is no absolute main character. No-nonsense Barnaby marries Gradgrind's daughter Louisa, who agrees to the loveless marriage to help her brother Tom pay his gambling debts. An abandoned child, a mysterious old woman, a nosy "upperclass" servant, slurring carnies, a bankrobbery, romance and intrigue...hilarity and seriousness all rolled together.
Unlike some of his other books, though, there is no absolute main character. No-nonsense Barnaby marries Gradgrind's daughter Louisa, who agrees to the loveless marriage to help her brother Tom pay his gambling debts. An abandoned child, a mysterious old woman, a nosy "upperclass" servant, slurring carnies, a bankrobbery, romance and intrigue...hilarity and seriousness all rolled together.
dark
funny
sad
medium-paced
Mi primer Charles Dickens. Ha supuesto una relativa sorpresa respecto a los prejuicios que me había podido crear por culpa de los trozos de adaptaciones cinematográficas que había visto por aquí y por allí. Me ha sorprendido sobretodo su sentido del humor y que es mucho más inteligente e incisivo de lo que me había imaginado.
Algo de lo que más me ha gustado es que no hay un único protagonista sino muchos personajes cuyas vidas se entrecruzan. Se agradece mucho que Dickens maneje muy bien las elipsis, vaya al grano y no nos lo cuente todo, porque todo esto ayuda a que el libro sea realmente ágil y, como se dice, enganche. Pero lamentablemente no todo es tan perfecto. Como me temía, hay algunas escenas (pero no tantas como me temía) excesivamente sentimentales que en mis orejas son tan insoportables como el sonido de uñas arañando una pizarra. Además, tampoco no puedo soportar que los buenos sean tan buenos y tan perfectos, tan de una pieza.
Tampoco es que el libro sea maniqueista, porque los malos sí que tienen muchos matíces y resultan incomparablemente más interesantes, como James Harthouse (mi favorito, pero, bueno, esto quizás sea también porque tengo una debilidad patológica por todos los personajes que sean mínimamente nihilistas, pero esta vez realmente me ha gustado que, aunque al final pueda llegar a sentir algo, no se redima del todo, tal como sería la solución más fácil).
Otra cosa que me ha sorprendido gratamente es que la crítica social no ha resultado tan ingenua como parecía en un principio, cuando toda la crítica era en plan "la industrialización es muy mala; ¡volvamos al campo!" Pero luego Dickens ya demuestra tener un mejor ojo clínico y es capaz de criticar la actitud de los empresarios hacia los obreros. Así, por ejemplo, retrata la actitud de algunos empresarios que se hacen siempre los mártires, porque los obreros, que son mezquinos por naturaleza, siempre quieren aprovecharse de su immensa generosidad.
Sin embargo, la mejor crítica, la más divertida, es la que dedica a tipos de personas concretas, como Mr. Bounderby, que siempre fanfarronea de sus orígenes extremamente humildes y de como ha sido un hombre que se ha hecho a sí mismo, porque claro si los otros obreros no han llegado a la posición que ha llegado él es porque no quieren, porque son unos vagos.
Resumiendo, me ha sorprendido positivamente y me ha gustado, sobretodo por la sátira que se advierte en muchos pasajes (que es realmente divertida), y porque es capaz de crear unos malos, complejos, interesantes y fascinantes. Me ha gustado como para volver a leer pronto algo más de Dickens, pero no me ha gustado tanto como para atreverme aún a leer un libro suyo donde predominen pobres niños desafortunados.
Algo de lo que más me ha gustado es que no hay un único protagonista sino muchos personajes cuyas vidas se entrecruzan. Se agradece mucho que Dickens maneje muy bien las elipsis, vaya al grano y no nos lo cuente todo, porque todo esto ayuda a que el libro sea realmente ágil y, como se dice, enganche. Pero lamentablemente no todo es tan perfecto. Como me temía, hay algunas escenas (pero no tantas como me temía) excesivamente sentimentales que en mis orejas son tan insoportables como el sonido de uñas arañando una pizarra. Además, tampoco no puedo soportar que los buenos sean tan buenos y tan perfectos, tan de una pieza.
Tampoco es que el libro sea maniqueista, porque los malos sí que tienen muchos matíces y resultan incomparablemente más interesantes, como James Harthouse (mi favorito, pero, bueno, esto quizás sea también porque tengo una debilidad patológica por todos los personajes que sean mínimamente nihilistas, pero esta vez realmente me ha gustado que, aunque al final pueda llegar a sentir algo, no se redima del todo, tal como sería la solución más fácil).
Otra cosa que me ha sorprendido gratamente es que la crítica social no ha resultado tan ingenua como parecía en un principio, cuando toda la crítica era en plan "la industrialización es muy mala; ¡volvamos al campo!" Pero luego Dickens ya demuestra tener un mejor ojo clínico y es capaz de criticar la actitud de los empresarios hacia los obreros. Así, por ejemplo, retrata la actitud de algunos empresarios que se hacen siempre los mártires, porque los obreros, que son mezquinos por naturaleza, siempre quieren aprovecharse de su immensa generosidad.
Sin embargo, la mejor crítica, la más divertida, es la que dedica a tipos de personas concretas, como Mr. Bounderby, que siempre fanfarronea de sus orígenes extremamente humildes y de como ha sido un hombre que se ha hecho a sí mismo, porque claro si los otros obreros no han llegado a la posición que ha llegado él es porque no quieren, porque son unos vagos.
Resumiendo, me ha sorprendido positivamente y me ha gustado, sobretodo por la sátira que se advierte en muchos pasajes (que es realmente divertida), y porque es capaz de crear unos malos, complejos, interesantes y fascinantes. Me ha gustado como para volver a leer pronto algo más de Dickens, pero no me ha gustado tanto como para atreverme aún a leer un libro suyo donde predominen pobres niños desafortunados.
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes