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pgchuis 's review for:
Hard Times
by Charles Dickens
This read as though Dickens had a number of points he wanted to make (the dangers of education based on fact, to the exclusion of imagination and religion; the dangers of unionization, even though clearly something ought to be done about poor working conditions; the difficulties the poor have in obtaining a divorce etc) and set out to create a novel around them.
Louisa was not a developed enough character to carry the story and (as the introduction to my edition points out) there is no hero. The scene where Mr Bounderby is confronted by his mother and revealed to be a complete fraud in his Monty Pythonesque tales of the poverty of his early years is fantastic and the bank robbery plot is mildly interesting. I also enjoyed Mrs Sparsit, and Bitzer kept me guessing.
But... Mr Slearly's lisp made the sections he appeared in almost unreadable and Stephen's accent made it hard work getting through his speeches. I did feel that poor Stephen deserved a happy ending, but sadly it was not to be. The chapter where Louisa confronts her father and he, she and Sissy get all emotional together was rather over the top for modern tastes, but presumably played well to a Victorian readership. I was outraged that the Gradgrinds thought Tom deserved to avoid justice. Why did Dickens write this? Did he think the middle class deserved to escape the consequences of their criminal actions? Was it just an excuse to reintroduce the circus again at the end? I had no sense at all of the internal workings of the Bounderby marriage during the year or so it lasted. Did they have sex? Did they ever speak together in private? What did they talk about? Did Louisa hope to have baby?
Disappointing.
Louisa was not a developed enough character to carry the story and (as the introduction to my edition points out) there is no hero. The scene where Mr Bounderby is confronted by his mother and revealed to be a complete fraud in his Monty Pythonesque tales of the poverty of his early years is fantastic and the bank robbery plot is mildly interesting. I also enjoyed Mrs Sparsit, and Bitzer kept me guessing.
But... Mr Slearly's lisp made the sections he appeared in almost unreadable and Stephen's accent made it hard work getting through his speeches. I did feel that poor Stephen deserved a happy ending, but sadly it was not to be. The chapter where Louisa confronts her father and he, she and Sissy get all emotional together was rather over the top for modern tastes, but presumably played well to a Victorian readership. I was outraged that the Gradgrinds thought Tom deserved to avoid justice. Why did Dickens write this? Did he think the middle class deserved to escape the consequences of their criminal actions? Was it just an excuse to reintroduce the circus again at the end? I had no sense at all of the internal workings of the Bounderby marriage during the year or so it lasted. Did they have sex? Did they ever speak together in private? What did they talk about? Did Louisa hope to have baby?
Disappointing.