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A review by samvanstokkom
Hard Times by Charles Dickens, Kate Flint
3.0
had to read this for my course 'The Literature of Childhood'. the narrative in this novel is very interesting but it takes me so much effort to read a 19th century novel like this. the writing style is just so unlike the styles i am used to. it's not a bad style, i quite like it actually, but it just takes 10 times longer to get through because of the old English, and i'm hardly ever as invested as i am in contemporary novels.
anyway i really liked the message in this book. i love that Sissy is the one who ends up with a successful, loving family while she was the one that represented all the 'bad' qualities like sentimentalism, sympathy, emotionality, imagination, and that Tom and Louisa grew up to be quite dysfunctional adults while their upbringing represented reason, fact, knowledge, and so on. Dickens clearly wanted to show that an upbringing like Tom's and Louisa's is not beneficial for children and I love that. this was my first Dickens novel and I actually quite liked this style. other than the fact that it takes longer to get through, i thought it was pretty funny at times, I laughed out loud a few times, and generally I just found his writing really satisfying. so yeah pretty good read!
anyway i really liked the message in this book. i love that Sissy is the one who ends up with a successful, loving family while she was the one that represented all the 'bad' qualities like sentimentalism, sympathy, emotionality, imagination, and that Tom and Louisa grew up to be quite dysfunctional adults while their upbringing represented reason, fact, knowledge, and so on. Dickens clearly wanted to show that an upbringing like Tom's and Louisa's is not beneficial for children and I love that. this was my first Dickens novel and I actually quite liked this style. other than the fact that it takes longer to get through, i thought it was pretty funny at times, I laughed out loud a few times, and generally I just found his writing really satisfying. so yeah pretty good read!