Dickens' classic, satirical and realistic novel Hard Times was there in my syllabus, MA. I enjoyed it. The novel juxtaposes emotions against hardcore rationalism. This juxtaposition, however, cannot stand the test of time today (I say it with a weary heart). Dickens' writing might appear a little short to boring in today's context. For those who want to enjoy good language and some challenging narrative, the novel will still be luring.

“The only difference between us and the professors of virtue or benevolence, or philanthropy - never mind the name - is that we know it is all meaningless, and say so, while they know it equally and will never say so.”
Charles Dickens, Hard Times

One of Dickens' shortest works deemed as one of his best by some readers and critics.... deemed his worse by me. The almost sledgehammer-like satirising of the ills of industrialisation and utilitarianism, with the trials and tribulations of the Gradgrinds. Also a look at the practices, beliefs and education of the ruling classes and how it impacts on the lesser class residents of factory town Coketown (a fictionalised Manchester). Hard times had by all, does not a story make. 3 out of 12.

2009 read

To a greater or lesser degree, all novels are a composite of an author's imagination in creating characters & settings and that author's own worldview. Hard Times by Charles Dickens, a relatively brief but still complex novel, attempts to fashion the author's views on industrialization in the north of England during the 1850s, the stratified British class system & a mode of education with an emphasis on facts, while also fashioning memorable characters making the best of their lives at a difficult time.



As with many of Dickens' works, the names are distinctive, with Mr. Gradgrind & Josiah Bounderby chief among them. The mill workers are referred to dismissively as "Hands", the rivers & streams polluted by industrialization and the air heavily contaminated by the soot from factories & coal burning homes in an area just near Manchester.

There are so many things at play in this novel that at first, it seems the characters are merely caricatures & the themes rather heavy-handed, with Dickens very much on the side of the downtrodden, underpaid & often abused workers.

However, if one perseveres with Hard Times, there is ample chance that the book will begin to represent a much richer fusing of well-defined characterizations and an author's desire to represent the frailty of the underside of British life at the mid-point of the 19th century.



Countering the grime & tedium of life for the average worker in this novel is a school founded by Thomas Gradgrind, one based on the memorization of rules & data, steeped in facts that can't be questioned, to the complete exclusion of fantasy or poetry or one's individual imagination. Here is the enforced response to a description of a horse, given by a well-versed student named Bitzer:

Quadruped. Graminivorous. 40 teeth, namely 4 grinders, 4 eye-teeth & 12 incisors. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hooves too. Hoofs hard but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.

When another student, referred to as "Girl #20", who had grown up riding horses with a traveling circus company gives a much more experiential response, she is severely admonished. She is in fact, better known as Cecilia or "Sissy Jupe" and has been adopted as a kind of modified servant by the owner of the school, having been abandoned by her father, a clown who could no longer cause circus-goers to laugh.

What Hard Times conveys is a sense of compassion for those contending with the new reality of machines, tall chimneys "belching serpents of smoke, a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dyes, where pistons of steam engines worked monotonously all day long, up & down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness." In this milieu, the human population of Coketown is quite subservient to the machines.



Mr. Gradgrind, the school superintendent & a member of parliament and his friend, Mr. Bounderby, a self-made man who owns a bank & a factory--someone who had no exposure to a model school & is proud of it--both subscribe to a Utilitarian philosophy that is purely results-oriented but wrapped in a belief that machines will cause needed development, whatever the costs may entail. Even Gradgrind's children are seemingly in tow with this approach to life, at least until they become victims of it.

After a time, the workers begin to rebel against conditions and Stephen Blackpool, another of novel's formidable characters, is forced to choose between honoring his loyalty to a saintly woman named Rachael & his fellow factory workers as a strike looms...

Oh my friends, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown! Oh my friends & fellow-countrymen, the slaves of an iron-handed & a grinding despotism! I tell you that the hour has come, when we will rally round one another as One united power & crumble into the dust the oppressors that too long have battened upon the plunder of our families, upon the seat of our brows, upon the labor of our hands, upon the strength of our sinews, upon the God-created glorious rights of Humanity & upon the holy & eternal privileges of Brotherhood.

When Stephen is derided & dismissed both by his nascent factory union and fired by Bounderby, the factory owner, Hard Times quickly becomes more dynamic, particularly with the budding rebellion of Mr. Gradgrind's once very complacent daughter, Louisa.

Meanwhile, the traveling circus & its owner, a lisping Mr. Sleary, stand as anathema to Mr. Gradgrind & Bounderby but the circus serves as a relief valve for the oppressed of Coketown & other places along the circuit of the traveling circus.

Dickens manages to juxtapose the rigidity of Gradgrind & the buffoonish Bounderby with the apparent flexibility & casual intimacy of the circus family, with its owner, Mr. Sleary, of the belief that in a harsh world, a little levity & a brief escape can take the circus spectator a rather long way.



The formality of some of the language employed, with many complex sentences + the unfamiliarity of circus jargon & other slang of a particular time & place in England will entail frequent trips to the notes within the appendix. Added to that, there is at times some heavy-handed moralizing by the author.

However, there is a great deal more at play in Hard Times than one might initially expect. And, while hardly one of Dickens' most beloved works, it is a novel that I found full of pleasant surprises & an uplifting message about the need for compassion & forgiveness.

I saw a dramatized rendering of Hard Times in 2018 by the Lookingglass Theater of Chicago, complete with trapeze artists representing the spirit of the traveling circus. However, not having read the Dickens novel at that point, the importance of some of the individual relationships was lost on me.

Some years ago, I visited Saltaire, once a model town in West Yorkshire at the north of England, centered on a massive linen mill factory at Bradford, near Leeds. Its owner, Sir Titus Salt had acted with the best of intentions in creating the town with factory & new red brick houses for the workers at about the time that the Dickens novel is set. However, his insistence of an absence of alcohol, compulsory church attendance & payment in scrip eventually caused the workers to rebel & to strike.

The Salt's Mills factory eventually became derelict & on the verge of being torn-down, it was salvaged by Bradford-born artist David Hockney, now upgraded to an assemblage of shops, restaurants, a small theater & other venues, very much worth a visit.



*The version of Hard Times I read was a 1995 Penguin edition, with an introduction & quite helpful notes by Kate Flint. **Within my review are images of Charles Dickens; print of a polluted English city in mid 19th century; a photo image of factory worker from the same period; photo of circus trapeze artist from the Chicago theatrical performance of the novel in 2018; view of Saltaire, the now-refurbished Victorian linen mill & surrounding houses that comprised a mid 19th century "model town". ***There is an interesting 1994 BBC film of Hard Times with Alan Bates as Bounderby.

الرواية  تقسم الاحداث الى ثلاث كتب وتحتوى على عدة افكار أبرزها وماسأتحدث  عنه باستفاضه هو اسلوب التربية والحياة التى تقوم عليه وتحدث ايضا عن تلك المدينة الصناعية وبالتالى التحدث عن العمال العاملين وحياتهم ونظرة صاحب العمل لهؤلاء العمال وطريقه حديثه عنهم

الكتاب الاول : البذر

وفيه نتعرف على جراد جرايند وابنائه ونخص بالذكر لويزا وتوم ، ونرى اسلوب وقناعة جراد جرايند سواء  فى حياته او فى تربية ابنائه و فى المدرسة ، الحياة والتربية القائمة على الوقائع
...
《لا تعلموا هؤلاء الصبية والفتيات شيئا عدا الوقائع،  فالوقائع
 وحدها هى المطلوبة في الحياة . لاتغرسوا شيئا سواها واقتلعوا كل شئ عداها ، فما بغير الوقائع يسعكم ان تصوغوا عقول الحيوانات الناطقة،  لانه ما من شئ يجدى عليهم سواها》

حسنا فنحن فى مدرسة وعائلة وبلدة تعتمد على الوقائع،  لا يوجد اعتراف بالعواطف ، لا وجود للخيال ، لايمكن ان نسمح بالتساؤل ، الحجرات والمبانى خالية من  اى مظهر للجمال .
مدينة من الاجر الاحمر الذى اصبح اسود من الرماد .

الشوارع صغيرة مأهولة بإناس متشابهون وخروجهم وعودتهم الى عمل واحد ولاشئ فى حياتهم سوى العمل .
مرفوض بالطبع ان توجد حوائط مرسوم عليها خيول مثلا او ارض مرسومة بالزهور فهذا غير واقعى ومرفوض مجرد التفكير فى ذلك .

ولاننسى ان نذكر صديقه الحميم مستر باوندربى  الذى يتفق معه تماما فى افكاره ومجرد تماما من العواطف وهو رجل مصرفى ، تاجر وصاحب مصنع ، رجل عصامى لا يتوقف عن تذكيرنا بذلك وبطفولته البائسة.

و مسز سبارست وهى التى كانت تعمل و تحيا مع مستر باندوربى والتى كان دوما يذكر اصلها وزوجها المتوفى ومكانتهم العالية من قبل والتى تركت المنزل حين تزوج مستر باندوربى .

ونلتقى فى المدرسة ب سيسى جيب التى التحقت حديثا للمدرسة حينما جاءت مع والدها للبلدة  مع السيرك الذى يعمل فيه  لمديره مستر سليري ، وبالطبع تربيتها يختلف كثيرا عن تعاليم مدرسة جيرا جراند واساليبه وقناعاته .

فهل سيقبل  بوجود فتاة مثل  سيسى فى المدرسة لتدمر افكارهم ؟؟
وتجعل الاطفال الاخرون يفكرون او حاشا لله يتخيلون

This book is another evidence of Charles Dickens' brilliancy when it comes to writing. He starts with one person and her destiny, but gradually the story becomes more and more intricate and complex, and in the end you end up with a completely different story from what you started out with.
I have quite an ambivalent relationship to Charles Dickens and his books. Some of them I love, some of them confuse me or end up disappointing me. "Hard Times" was a good story, but I was mildly disappointed with the fact that it changes direction. I wanted to continue reading about Sissy and her destiny, but I was disappointed to realize that her story became kind of a parallel plot to the main plot. Nevertheless, the main plot was definitely full of surprises and at times kept you at the edge of your seat, and I liked that.
However, I can't disregard the fact that I was quite bored during most of this novel. I felt like the story became more and more predictable, and I felt like it kept dragging on the same characters and their worries and views on life. Therefore, I ended up rating this one 3 stars, because it's definitely worth a read, but it's not my favourite of Dickens'.

Hard Times is Dickens’s novel set in the fictional Coketown and centering around utilitarian and industrial influences on Victorian society.

Dickens’s brilliant use of characterization can be seen in high form here and as always, his naming of his story’s populace is entertaining by itself. The best is without a doubt Mr. McChokumchild, a teacher.

Louisa Gradgrind is a thinly disguised fictionalization of John Stuart Mill. One of the great things about reading literature from the 1800s or earlier is that a reader can ascertain how contemporary works have been influenced by the older work.

Wildly inspirational and influential. Elements of Hard Times and Dickens work in general can be seen in Roger Waters works, Monty Python and even The Big Lebowski.

** 2018 - Dickens' character names are the best - Gradgrind? Bounderby, Jupe, Sparsit. Harthouse, Blackpool, Slackbridge. But of course Mr. McChoakumchild is the best, maybe the best in his canon. McChoakumchild's name is an ax upon which his satire grinds, illustrating his social commentary.

صدفة أوقعتها فى طريقى
فيجب ان أقول عنها بعض الأشياء
كانت قراءة إلزامية ولكنها كانت قراءة رائعة
تعلقنا بها فى شبابنا لم نكن نضجنا بعد
أحببت القراءة باللغة الأصلية وحصلت على العلامة الكاملة فى هذه السنة فى مادة اللغة الإنجليزية
فأى ذكرى أجمل أنشد عن هذه الرواية الرائعة

Dickens wrote Hard Times as an attempt to increase sales of his flagging magazine and had to produce it in weekly instalments which probably explains why it's so bereft of inspiration and artistry. It's ironic that a novel lauding the importance of heart and imagination as guiding principles in social reform should have a mercantile consideration at root. Hard Times is a leaden rhetorical read. There's little subtlety in its sermonising. There's not even much of a story and what story there is doesn't always make sense. Most surprisingly of all it doesn't include a single memorable character. The characters are programmed automatons of the flimsy plot. Even the humour is relentlessly off key. The only positive note is his standard sentimentalised girl-woman only plays a minor role in this novel.

For me this joins A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield as duds in the Dickens' canon, though it doesn't possess the redeeming features those two novels possessed.

“Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts; nothing else will ever be of any service to them.”

So begins Hard Times, and what an opening this is! We know instantly from this, some of what the novel will be about, and the character of the man who says these words. He is plain-speaking in his “inflexible, dry, and dictatorial” voice, direct and committed to his extreme view of teaching as instruction. His name is Mr. Thomas Gradgrind, “an eminently practical man”, and he has an ailing wife, and five children called Louisa, Tom, Jane - and revealingly - Adam Smith and Malthus. He has a misguided idea of Utilitarianism as a ideal in all things, only valuing facts and statistics, and ruthlessly suppressing the imaginative sides of his children's nature.

Mr. Gradgrind also has a close friend, a banker and mill owner, Josiah Bounderby, who boasts that he is a self-made man, proud that he raised himself in the streets after being abandoned as a child - and in the meantime never letting anyone forget it. Whereas both men express the same hardnosed views, Josiah Bounderby is a very different sort of man, a blustering, arrogant and hypocritical man,

“A man who was always proclaiming, through that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of his, his old ignorance and his old poverty. A man who was the Bully of humility”.

“'We have never had any difficulty with you, and you have never been one of the unreasonable ones. You don't expect to be set up in a coach and six, and to be fed on turtle soup and venison, with a gold spoon, as a good many of 'em do!' Mr. Bounderby always represented this to be the sole, immediate, and direct object of any Hand who was not entirely satisfied.”

Hard Times is an unusual novel for Dickens, in that it is set in a Lancashire mill town in the North of England, and deals with the working conditions of the “hands” or workers there. This is not Dickens's familiar geographical area, nor is this novel his best accomplishment by a long way. Yet the novel is now a bestseller, and often the first one people read, or study at school, because it is his shortest novel.

What prompted Dickens's sudden interest, was a twenty-three week long mill workers' strike in Preston, which Dickens had gone to see in January 1854, prior to writing about it in his periodical “Household Words”. He based his invented grimy, soot-besmirched “Coketown” on Preston. There are fewer descriptive passages than usual in this short novel, but the depressed gloom of Coketown is very effectively conveyed,

“It was a town of red brick, or of brick that would have been red if the smoke and ashes had allowed it; but as matters stood, it was a town of unnatural red and black like the painted face of a savage. It was a town of machinery and tall chimneys, out of which interminable serpents of smoke trailed themselves for ever and ever, and never got uncoiled. It had a black canal in it, and a river that ran purple with ill-smelling dye, and vast piles of building full of windows where there was a rattling and a trembling all day long, and where the piston of the steam-engine worked monotonously up and down, like the head of an elephant in a state of melancholy madness.”

In principle Dickens was very interested in this area of workers' conditions and the resultant protests. He had touched on working class unrest in “Barnaby Rudge”, and had intended to write about factories in “Nicholas Nickleby”, although both of these are far longer and more powerful novels. The article he wrote in “Household Words” after his visit, says,

“... into the relations between employers and employed ... there must enter something of feeling and sentiment ... mutual explanation, forbearance and consideration ... otherwise those relations are wrong and rotten to the core and will otherwise never bear sound fruit.”

Dickens firmly believed that every individual should have dignity and be accorded respect. Unfortunately though, the part of the “Preston Workers' Bill” that he went on to quote, presents itself as a standard Marxist theory of labour value, mentioning the “gold which is now being used to crush those who created it.” This simply went too far, and alienated his readers. The novel was not then very popular; indeed all such criticisms of the upcoming Industrial Revolution were frowned on. Looking backwards was not the way. The popular belief was that rich rewards were in store, rapid progress was assured, and that mechanisation would provide a panacea for all. Only in retrospect can we put Hard Times in context, and see what the author was trying to achieve in this specific short period of history, and also appreciate the many other aspects of the story, which were somewhat overshadowed by this unpopular message.

For Dickens was keen to illustrate his beliefs with this, his tenth novel, published in weekly parts between April and August 1854. He also, perhaps unwisely, widened his remit to include another issue of social reform close to his heart, that of Education. His earlier novels had become increasingly complex, dealing with multiple issues and with many intertwining plots, subplots and mysteries, culminating in the masterly “Bleak House”. However, with Hard Times, he seems to have misjudged the scope slightly. To write a searing indictment of Utilitarianism as currently practised, to damn both employment conditions and industrial action, plus condemning a theoretical Utiliarianism put into practice in schools, and to then put the whole into an entertaining framework with a dash of comedy and romance, was simply overambitious.

Sales of “Household Words” had been flagging, and Dickens attempted to boost these by issuing his new serial in weekly parts, instead of monthly parts, as hitherto. This was alongside all the other activities in his life: editing, directing, acting, his social work and speaking, plus all the domestic dramas he had. Dickens worked best under pressure, but even he admitted that to write episodes of Hard Times week after week was “crushing”. Dickens was a novelist, albeit an exceptionally talented novelist, and one of the first, but he was neither a philosopher nor a political economist - and certainly not a revolutionary. He was also aware that for the large part, his readers would have no truck with unionism. He had set himself a well-nigh impossible task.

Dickens rallied for the underdog, and was keen to demonstrate the continuing inhumane conditions for the poor, and the new sort of constraints that industrialisation would bring in its wake for the workers. But the way he depicts the "good" workers in this novel, Stephen Blackpool and Rachael, shows that his belief was in a sort of "noble poor". He thought they should accept their lot with dignity, and leave it to others to improve their conditions. They are docile and harmless characters, working themselves to death. When difficulties arise, they cannot be self-sufficient. They have no honourable alternative but to go cap in hand to their bosses, relying on a paternalistic system to help them. They thus come across sometimes as mere mouthpieces for ideologies; rather flat and unconvincing prototypes compared with the other characters in the book.

Even if Dickens had had the time and space to develop this novel into the sort of Dickens novel which reigns supreme, it is doubtful whether it would serve the function he probably intended. What it does do, is give a snapshot of people, rather than depict a mass movement. We have individuals to represent the different types, and in Hard Times they unfortunately seem more than ever mere constructs to spout certain opinions. This is probably always going to be a danger with any persuasive novel. Dickens also provided a counterweight to these "noble poor" characters. Just as in “Barnaby Rudge” he had shown us that mob rule was not the answer, here too the organisers of the strike are shown as underhand manipulators, quick to remove themselves from any blame. Slackbridge, the trade union agitator trying to convert the workers to unionism, is described as,

“not so honest ... not so manly, he was not so good-humoured; he substituted cunning for their simplicity, and passion for their safe solid sense.”

Mr. Gradgrind's school, just as Josiah Bounderby's mill, is equally constrained, based on ideology, dry theory and a sort of blinkered ignorance of the emotional side of life. Thomas Gradgrind, supported by the wonderfully named schoolmaster “Mr. M'Choakumchild”, is not an evil, nor even an unkind man. He is contrasted with Josiah Bounderby right at the start, and Dickens makes it plain in his introduction that a large part of the novel will be to show the growth and development of Gradgrind's character. I certainly felt very sorry for him by the end.

It has to be said, that flawed though this novel is, the characters are an absolute delight. Chief for sheer entertainment value has to be Mrs. Sparsit, Josiah Bounderby's elderly housekeeper with her “Coriolanian style of nose” (which is always poking into other people's business) and “dense black eyebrows”. She has aristocratic connections by way of her great aunt Lady Scadgers, and considers herself a cut above her employer. Her interactions with the blustering, pompous Josiah Bounderby, are a constant source of amusement. There is the pantomime villain, James Harthouse, an exaggerated version of Steerforth in “David Copperfield”. I could almost imagine him twirling his moustache, smooth-talking devil that he is; a heartless and unprincipled young politician. There is the anaemic fact-spouting machine Bitzer. And Mrs. Gradgrind, a minor character, amusingly endearing, always telling her children they should be studying their “ologies”,

“A little, thin, white, pink-eyed bundle of shawls, of surpassing feebleness, mental and bodily; who was always taking physic without any effect, and who, whenever she showed a symptom of coming to life, was invariably stunned by some weighty piece of fact tumbling on her;”

Most memorably, when asked if she is in pain, she remarks vaguely,

“I think there's a pain somewhere in the room ... but I couldn't positively say that I have got it”.

There is the lisping Mr. Sleary and his travelling circus. Dickens always has to include a theatrical troupe, or some entertainers of this type in his novels, and his personal love of the exuberance and spontaneity of the circus, and the generosity of spirit of circus folk, shines through brightly. When Sleary lisps, “people mutht be amuthed” it is really Dickens who is speaking. Dickens held passionate views on the rights of everyone to amusements; fighting against groups who advocated strict observance of the Sabbath, saying that Sunday was the only day that working people had to indulge in simple amusements, or even to attend museums and so forth. To make a circus an integral part of the serious concerns of this novel's plot is quite a tour de force, but he achieves it. Mr. Sleary's circus is essential to both the beginning, where we are introduced to Louisa and Tom peeping under the curtain of the circus tent, intrigued by all the unfamiliar lights, drama, colour and action, and to the ending ... which, naturally, I shall not divulge.

Louisa and Tom, sister and brother, are central characters. Louisa would do anything for her brother, “The Whelp”, as Dickens calls him. She loves Tom dearly, sullen though he is. Louisa develops through experience, much as her father does; she is a very strong character, whose initial sulkiness changes. She has determination and obstinacy, but also a strong sense of duty and justice. Through the story she moves through both indifference to her plight, and cynicism. She undergoes trials and tribulations which might break any young spirit, but remains true to herself. For those who (unfairly) castigate Dickens for docile females, look to Louisa - or her friend Sissy Jupe, from the circus. Or to Mrs. Sparsit, of course, although she is more of a grotesque than an heroic character. No, in every single novel Dickens writes, he provides us with plenty of strong females. It is clear however, that just as he does not like the poor to be too outspoken, he admires the quieter tenaciousness of women in extremis, and views this as an admirable female trait.

Interestingly, at the time of writing this novel, Dickens's own marriage was crumbling. He had included three essays on divorce in “Household Words” that month, and in Hard Times he portrays the plight of a man who is unable to divorce his burdensome wife, even though in this case she is “a drunk”, a hopeless wretched addict. It is Josiah Bounderby who explains in great detail everything that would be involved in such a procedure,

“Why you'd have to go to Doctors' Commons with a suit, and you'd have to go to a Court of Common Law with a suit, and you'd have to get an Act of Parliament to enable you to marry again, and it would cost you ... I suppose from a thousand to fifteen hunded pound ... perhaps twice the money.”

The character he is speaking to earns a mere few shillings a week. But it seems pertinent that Dickens inserted this detail. Dickens researched his novels quite well, reading a book on the Lancashire dialect prior to writing this, for instance, to make sure his representation of the characters' speech was accurate. Divorce was expensive, legally difficult, and socially unacceptable in the 19th century. It looks as though Dickens underwent intensive research on how to obtain a divorce, to see if it would be feasible for himself. In fact he separated from Catherine, with whom he had ten children, four years later in 1858, but never did divorce her.

There are fewer characters in this novel than usual, and none of them seem to be based on real people Dickens knew, and whom his readers knew. In earlier novels there were often several of these in one novel. It must have been a guilty pleasure for many reading a new serial by Dickens, to look out for a recognisable character, such as his erstwhile friend Hans Christian Andersen, whom he had maliciously immortalised in the odious character of Uriah Heep in “David Copperfield”. So it is quite disappointing to find none included, just as it is disappointing to realise that any illustrations were drawn later on, by various artists, and only a very few within Dickens's own lifetime. Presumably the constraints of writing to a weekly deadline impinged on more than the novel's text itself.

The critics' views of Hard Times lurch from one extreme to the other. One characterises it as “sullen socialism”; yet another's view is that it is his “masterpiece” and “his only serious work of art”. These views seem to be rather partisan, reflecting the political and socio-economic views of the individual, rather than impartially judging any merit in, or assessment of, the novel itself. It is undoubtedly not his best work, but it is enjoyable nevertheless. Parts of it made me laugh out loud; I felt suitably shocked, saddened and indignant at others. It has all Dickens's sarcasm, wit, expostulation, sentiment and ridiculous cameos. He can shift in a page-turn from scathing satire to heart-rending pathos. In a way Hard Times is a throwback. It is dissimilar to the majestic novels which immediately precede it, but is more reminiscent of the biting sarcasm of the early novels such as “Oliver Twist”. It does however show the maturity and skill of the later writer. There is tragedy, frailty, robbery, treachery, deceit, impersonation, violence, greed, overarching ambition, possibly an attempted murder, imprisonment and deportation; all humanity and inhumanity is here.

And what lingers is the message of the vital and enduring importance of the imagination and fantasy; of a young life perilously close to being blighted by an upbringing blinkered by Utilitarian principles. There is the satisfactory ending, characteristic of Dickens's novels, where all the characters are accounted for, and in general (although not in every case) the villains get their just desserts.

Hard Times is like a little taste of Dickens. Sadly you do not get the depth of character, the richness of detail in his powerful descriptions, both of place and character, nor do you get the rich tapestry of convoluted plots. Another critic wrote that it is more like “a menu card for a meal rather than one of Dickens's rich feasts,” and this I find quite apt.

But it is hugely enjoyable and could not be written by anyone else. Give it a try, but if it is your first Dickens, please make sure it is not the only one. You would miss out on so much.

“'How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, oh, Father, What have you done with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here? ' said Louisa as she touched her heart.”

this is what victorian people had to explain utilitarianism because they didn't have the good place on netflix

I know, this isn't the classic, broadly drawn out story with 25 characters and lots of side paths like we're used to from Dickens, but nevertheless I think it's one of his best, especially as a historical document. Published in 1854, it offers a harsh indictment of the horrible social conditions in a fictional English industrial town ('Coketown'). And at the same time it illustrates Dickens' moralistic look at gruesome reality.

The protagonist, the goodhearted weaver Stephen Blackpool, is the symbol of the natural wisdom of the laborers ('the Hands'). He becomes victim of both the industrial class as the labour union. Clearly Dickens didn't trust the unions as defenders of the working class, but he rather saw them as a violent, disruptive and double harted element. The author preferred reforms from above, in a context of harmonious cooperation between employees and employers.

Dickens also denounces the arrogance of the bourgeoisie (through the industrial Bounderby and the nihilistic politician Harthouse). And he offers a sharp critique on the emergent philosophy of positivism, with its obsession for hard facts and ruthless logic (a clear reference to the French philosoper Auguste Comte). Above this all hovers the wisdom of charitable female characters like Cecilia and Rachael. Perhaps you can say that Dickens' classic novels are more impressive from a literary point of view, but this social document sure made a lasting impression on me.

I have mixed feelings about Charles Dickens shortest novel, Hard Times. As a satire/social commentary of 19th Century English Industrialization, morality/ethics and utilitarianism (Phew!) it succeeds pretty well. As for straight up storytelling, I think it falls flat.
As a satire, tis a bit heavy-handed and smothers the lively, colorful characters Dickens is so great at creating. One of the characters, Stephen Blackpool, an honest factory worker and man of great integrity, speaks in a vernacular that is difficult to read at times, requiring extra effort. Mr Sleary, the lisping circus proprietor is almost as challenging to read.
I love Dickens, his magnificent prose and the characters he creates but in Hard Times its glaringly apparent that they serve his greater purpose by being caricatures of political/philosophical ideologies at extreme ends of the moral spectrum. 'Good' people are the poor hard working, honest people. 'Bad' people are the rich, immoral factory owners, bankers, etc. An overly simplistic view? But I imagine quite popular with his readership back in the day.
All of this would be fine if the story could rise above it, but none of the threads of the narrative went in any direction I wanted them to go and led to an unsatisfying result. Which ultimately makes for an unsatisfying read.
I ain't be dissing Dickens though; my rating is probably more a reflection of how it compares to some of his other novels which I just loved more..