John Ruskin declared Hard Times Dickens' best novel. It is worth asking why this was Ruskin's opinion since he would have been the first to recognize that comparing works of art with each other and discussing which is the best is a sportsman's habit, not a judge of enlightened art. Let us understand that Ruskin meant Hard Times was one of his favorites among Dickens's books. Was it a whim of taste? Or is there another rational explanation for the preference? I think so.

Excerpt from the Introduction to Hard Times, in 1911 by Bernard Shaw.


In this very committed novel, but also profoundly moving (from my point of view, in any case), Charles Dickens denounces, beyond the living conditions of the workers of the first mechanized spinning mills in the North of England, the Industrial Revolution in his outfit. This historical process was not content with modifying the landscapes, the scales, and the ways of living, thinking, and producing; it simply replaced them with others, without resemblances or standard measures with the landscapes, the scales, and the ways of living, thinking, and producing of the agricultural and artisanal age that preceded. In this way, the Industrial Revolution was a fundamental change of civilization. A shift in civilization of such brutality that the sky adopted another color, the earth no longer had the same consistency or the same relief, and the two no longer joined on the same line as before. Before that, the air changed its smell and density, and disoriented men and women experienced the most difficulty adapting to the furiously utilitarian, madly materialistic, hideously disfigured world they had created. In this respect, Difficult Times is undoubtedly among the first novels describing the Anthropocene.
These proletarians and these bourgeois who were born in the space of a handful of years were all individuals thrown into the unknown at the speed of throwing stones. Of course, they did not all land in the same place. Still, whatever their point of fall, all had been forced to conceive new ways of living or surviving in this new world; all had to reinvent themselves as human beings in this society dedicated to machinery, perpetual motion, and profitability; everyone had to find justifications or explanations for their existence as rich or poor. It is the stories of some of these men and women that Dickens tells us in this dark social novel, which, beyond its biting irony and its virulent criticism of a greedy, contemptuous bourgeoisie sure of its good right (but also of a working class that is too gullible and easily influenced), is also a plea in favor of imagination and fantasy.
It would seem that Hard Times was the subject of numerous negative reviews for various reasons, whether at the time of its publication or more recently. It is profoundly different from the author's previous great novels, if only because it is or seems more austere, more desperate, and we do not find as many truculent characters as usual, but I loved it. All the more adored because it could be that the questions he asks about the thirst for power, the taste for profit, economic alienation, or education have lost none of their relevance since 1854.

“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.”

So begins Charles Dickens’ Hard Times. He creates a thesis for a character who believes that facts and a rationalism philosophy can conquer all, and for the next 280 pages will break down this philosophy.

It is well known that Dickens is a rather emotional writer. He wants to make people feel, so such a philosophy as the above must have been quite irritating to him. Imagine if you will that Dickens’ point in this novel is a watermelon. I know this sound peculiar, but bear with me. How to make sure that all his readers understand his point?

By doing the following:

  

This is the most blunt and blatant book imaginable. I’m not faulting him for that. Dickens wanted to make sure his readers got his point, and he was the most popular author amongst general readers, including many lesser educated. He wanted to make sure they got it, and by God, he would do his best to make sure they did. That said, the lack of subtlety hurt it from a modern perspective... still, he cannot really be faulted for that.

I’ve now read four Dickens books and of the four this is my least favorite. It doesn’t have the emotional impact of A Tale of Two Cities, the good humor of Oliver Twist or the perfect delivery of his moral that A Christmas Carol has. That’s not to say this is a bad book, it was quite a comfortable read with moments of the genius I’ve come to expect from him, it just didn’t quite match up to what I’ve enjoyed in the past. I’ve noticed that I tend to prefer Dickens when he’s in a more comedic mode, and while there is humor here, it is overall a much more serious book. At one point, prior to starting to read Dickens, I almost chose this to be my first one on account of it being so short compared to his other books. I'm glad I didn't as I'm not sure I would have felt the need to immediately jump to another of his works. Still, I’m glad I read it and will be continuing making my way through his works. 3/5 stars.

In current political discourse I have a particular dislike of the phrase 'Hard working families' since it implies it is not good enough to be working, or in a family, or even merely both of those together. No, only if it in addition to that you are sufficiently hard working are you good enough for your needs to be taken seriously in politics, and if you should slacken in your Stakhanovite ardour by preferring maybe to take a holiday rather than like Boxer in Animal Farm to work yourself into the glue factory, then presumably policy makers will think 'to Hell with you then'.

I feel that it was to counter such utilitarianism and the implicit acceptance of GDP ever increasing and the positive balance sheet as the meaning and purpose of life that Dickens wrote this comic melodrama - and and to assert the burning importance of creating in law a form of affordable and accessible divorce, which was a matter of particular concern to Dickens once he decided that he was bored of his wife and preferred rushing about after a young actress instead.

This is possibly my favourite Dickens novel, apart from or including all my other favourite Dickens novels, although it is a shade more melodramatic, than others - at least it does not try to jerk the tears out of you. It is short, punchy and humorous. I think you see in this one, because it is short, how Dickens suffered from an excess of ideas so at the start we are introduced to school teachers Mr & Mrs McChokemchild who appear twice in the novel before disappearing completely. Indeed they are so insignificant that Dickens needn't have bothered naming them.

Although the novel is set in a Northern English industrial town - Coketown  although that suggests steel and metal working, it seems from the mentions of fluff that the business of Coketown is based around cotton and weaving rather than coke and coking this is curiously not much relevant to the plot. Dickens published Gaskell's North and South, but he isn't interested in writing a shock novel about industrial Britain, Coketown as a setting is largely irrelevant to the story which again is not typical of Dickens for whom location is an important character generally in his books.

Nice themes here are family, the bad characters commit the ultimate Victorian shibboleth and reject, deny, or pimp off their families  interestingly Dickens was pretty ruthless in managing his own wife and children, while the good characters cling to their families and maybe can even be redeemed through family love.

This is novel that is above all about education - the formation of hegemonic social values through schooling in this case a thorough fact obsessed utilitarianism against which fantasy and the right to amusement struggles to be heard, Dickens being Dickens, it is that latter voices which eventually cuts through the 'facts' and eventually we see that Bounderby, the vigorous proponent of the school of hard knocks has in fact created himself as a the richest fantasy of all in his claim to be a self made man. In a beautiful though unsubtle touch (this is not a subtle book) travelling circus performers lodge at a pub called the Pegasus Arms - as though a winged horse wasn't fantastical enough - this one has to have arms too. In this book we are shown that without being taught or indulged with fantasy and pleasure from childhood, we end up depressed and struggling to find purpose or value in life and at continual risk from rogues and bounders all of which brings to mind John Stuart Mill and his complete breakdown following on from a utilitarian education and his eventual recovery through poetry.

This is an interesting one from the point of view of Dickens' radicalism too - which again rests on individual redemption - this stands at variance with the theme of education - if anybody was telling Dickens that he had to be coherent and congruent, that was not a voice he paid attention to.

Dicken’s shortest novel and so,so good. We read it for The Literary Life Podcast.

Hard Times was the most recent novel that I completed in my personal project of reading all of Charles Dickens’ novels in the order of publication. And I must say, that this satirical novel was my least favorite so far. This was published in 1854, first in serialized form and then in book form, taking place not in London but in a fictitious manufacturing town, Coketown, often compared to Manchester. Based on Galatians 6:7, For whatsoever a man sow, that shall he also reap.” The first book is entitled “Sowing,” the second book is entitled “Reaping”, and the third is “Garnering.”

In Book I, we are introduced to the superintendent, Thomas Gradgrind, in his school in Coketown where he emphasizes the teaching of facts, nothing but facts. Louisa and Thomas are his two oldest children with three younger children in the family cared for by Sissy. Tom and Louisa befriend Sissy, all of them very unhappy with their strict and rigid upbringing. Mr. Gradgrind’s close friend and devoid of all sentiment proposes marriage to Louisa, even though he is thirty years her senior. Louisa accepts the proposal and the newlyweds move to Lyon where Bounderby wants to observe how labor is used in the factories. In Book II, Thomas accepts a job with Bounderby and becomes more indebted to him as he becomes more reckless in his conduct. There are other characters, including the mill workers, where one gets wrapped up in their plight culminating in some dramatic ways in Book III, “Garnering.”

One of the predominant themes was that Charles Dickens wished to educate the readers about the poor working conditions of some of the factories in the industrial towns. There is also the question of morality where the wealthy are portrayed as morally corrupt as he explores the effect of social class in Hard Times. At this point, I am returning to Dickens’ London as I begin Little Doritt.

n  "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 mind of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."n  
n  Mr. Gradgrind, Hard Timesn  
n  
n  "We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control"n  
n  Another Brick in the Wall (Part II) - Roger Waters, Pink Floydn

Roger Waters' lyrics could almost be a direct response to Mr. Gradgrind's ridiculous world view.

The worst thing about Hard Times is the title, very off putting. You get the feeling that the book will indeed give you a hard time and should be avoided like the plague; particularly if you have never read Dickens before and assume that his books are hard to read. As it turned out Hard Times is one of the easiest Dickens books to follow, neither the plot or the prose is particularly convoluted. It is also one of his shortest and most concise, clocking in at a measly 350 or so pages instead of 1000+ like most of his novels.

The major theme, as far as I can discern, is the effect of stifling upbringing and overly rigid fact-based education at the expense of allowing children to cultivate their imagination. Facts and figures are essential for the development of intellect but they need to be balanced with fanciful stories and leisurely pastime. The novel’s protagonist Louisa was raised and homeschooled by her father to only be concerned with “facts facts facts!” and tales of fantasy, circuses etc, are boycotted. This has the effect of turning an innately decent loving girl into a living refrigerator. The effect on her brother is even worse, as he grows up to be a dissipated, deceitful and generally useless individual.

This being a Dickens novel the plight of the poor and the injustice society inflicts on them is depicted with a fierce passion. Both “the masters” (factory owners) and trade unionists are portrayed in very poor light. To balance the unsavory characters Dickens also introduces us to his stock “nice”, simple and honest characters and several eccentric ones. Also, even with the serious issues, Dickens wants to bring to your attention in this book, he never forgets his storytelling duties, Hard Times is well paced, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, and never drags.

The reason I enjoy reading about Dickens’ characters is the reason his detractors criticize him for. His supporting characters tend to be colorful in appearance, behavior and speech. However, they are also frequently cartoonish and unbelievable as real people. This is perfectly acceptable to me because I don’t think Dickens’ intention is to write ultra-real gritty fiction. The crazy characters are there to entertain and also function as caricatures of certain types of people for metaphorical purposes. For example Josiah Bounderby one of the antagonists seems like some kind of angry red balloon, all bluster and extreme arrogance. His housekeeper Mrs. Sparsit is super aristocratic and a real nasty piece of work. James Harthouse, a total cad with the seduction of Louisa in mind. His slick patter is very amusing and brings to mind one of Oscar Wilde’s more outrageous “motormouth” characters.

Dickens also gets a lot of flak for his melodramatic sentimental plots and “deus ex machina”. All true but without writing a tedious defence of the great man I would simply say that I am OK with it all. I always find his fiction to be accessible, entertaining and poignant. His prose is also a work of art, sometimes sardonic sometimes lyrical. Again the haters find him verbose, and again I enjoy his verbosity.

My audiobook version is superbly performed by actor Martin Jarvis, definitely not just a narration, but an actual dramatic vocal performance with tons of different voices and accents.

In conclusion, this alleged review seems more like an exercise in Dickens fanboying (now that's something you don't see every day!) than a proper review. Ah well, it’s the best I can do at this time of night.

Last words go to Mr. Sleary, circus manager extraordinaire (who speaks with a lisp)

n  "People mutht be amuthed. They can’t be alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a working, they an’t made for it. You mutht have uth, Thquire. Do the withe thing and the kind thing too, and make the betht of uth; not the wurtht!"n

This.

This book is, for me, Dickens' best. I loved every second of it, the darkness of Tom's steady descent into drinking and gambling were brilliant and there were several times I found myself simply rereading a few paragraphs over and over, in awe at them. (The end of Chapter XIX, The Whelp, is something I hold in very high regard as possibly one of his best pieces of writing ever.) I want to deal with the characters individually from here, since I feel they are all very important.

Mr Gradgrind - Facts. This man's obsession with facts and hate for fantasy is possibly one of the most genius parts of the plot, highlighting exactly what Dickens means to say. His regret at the end serves to show the inevitable outcome of living his sort of life, and is done in a very clever way. His name is also wonderful. I like to say it. Gradgrind. It's great, isn't it?

Bounderby - Dickens made me hate him, and he was made to be hated. For all his bluster and superiority he is in fact worse in moral integrity than Stephen or Tom, which is why I was intensely glad as Louisa took her steps away from him. He really is a 'bounder'.

Louisa/Loo - A perfect tragic heroine, but I couldn't help thinking more than once that she should really get some backbone. But I suppose that was the point, so she was well done too.

Cecilia/Sissy - I didn't like her very much, but I did like the way she was used, as the embodiment of fancy and fun. She served to drive the point home and was useful in terms of story development.

Tom/The Whelp - Goodness, I hated him sometimes. As I've already said, his descent was done well and some of the description around him was fantastic. Dickens' habit of referring to him as the whelp was perfect.

Stephen Blackpool - The character I could emphathise with most, he was likeable and pitiable. I loved his struggle with Slackbridge and the Trade Union, and his contrasting relationships with Rachel and his wife made me feel very sorry for both of them. His ending was also very sad, and shows just how cruel people can be to each other.

Mrs Sparsit - One of the most brilliant in the book. The image of her staircase, with Louisa walking to the bottom, is one that has stuck with me as being particularly genius. I also laughed at her disappointment by the train towards the end, as she was so anxious to see the downfall of others she ended up being nothing more than a jobless window.

James Harthouse - Although for most of the book I wished Louisa would run away with him, the end convinced me otherwise. Still, he was a very interesting character who provided a catalyst for all the suppressed emotions of the Gradgrinds/Bounderbys.

All in all, a brilliant book.

Entertaining but, at heart, a joyless socialist diatribe!

HARD TIMES is set in the ugly and imaginary (but all too realistic) mid-Victorian Northern city of Coketown - a near-dystopian blend of the worst of capitalism and the ravages of rampant industrialization. Its blackened factories belch soot, steam and a poisonous haze of sun-blotting pollution. Its citizens are joyless automotons, dancing their repetitive daily work jig to the mind-numbing tick of a drudging, miserable metronome that is wound up every day by Josiah Bounderby, the heartless factory owner, a banker and ostensibly Coketown's leading citizen.

While the workers have begun to sample the delights of the forbidden fruit of trade unions and labour organization, the very idea is still much in its infancy. Indeed, Bounderby is so completely ensconced in the status quo that he cannot even imagine why a worker would want more than he has and why he would feel that there was anything more that he might possibly need. He genuinely believes that what he offers his workers is complete, generous, utterly selfless and more than sufficient unto their needs.

Thomas Gradgrind is a retired hardware merchant. While not quite in the same league as Bounderby with respect to wealth and insufferable pomposity, Gradgrind is now a teacher and, like Bounderby, is so completely comfortable as to be utterly unable to imagine any other way of living. In fact, Dickens portrays Gradgrind as a staunch utilitarian who does his utmost as a parent, a person, and an educator to eradicate any fanciful notions of imagination, joy, dreaming, aesthetics, music, poetry, fiction or, indeed, even amusement, in both his students and his children. His students' curriculum is centered on "facts, facts, facts" and hard skills such as analysis, deduction, mathematics, science and pure observation are glorified.

HARD TIMES is really the story of Gradgrind's children, Louisa and Thomas Jr, brought up in the sullen atmosphere of Coketown under the strict discipline of their father's colourless educational regimen. It is the story of Louisa's arranged marriage to Bounderby, a man thirty years her senior who imagined her as his bride even as he watched her grow from infancy. It is also the story of Thomas Jr's fall from grace as he is unable to avoid the twin siren calls of the vices of gambling and liquor to escape from the drudgery of life as his father's son and as Bounderby's employee.

While I found HARD TIMES to be as entertaining as any other Dickens novel that I've read (and, frankly, I've loved them all), I did find it to be too bleak and unremittingly socialist in nature. Dickens' far left-wing political leanings were crystal clear.

There were "blacks" and there were "whites" but there were no grays anywhere in sight. HARD TIMES was a story of polar opposites, fact vs fancy, joy, happiness and hope vs despair, honesty vs dishonesty, generosity vs greed, and so on. And, although Dickens did allow the story to end portraying Thomas Gradgrind as a parent who was doing his very best to act on his love for his children, even these acts of altruism were aimed at ultimately ensuring that theft against the evil Bounderby went un-punished. In short, Bounderby and the capitalist class could do no right while the working class could, in effect, do no wrong.

Entertaining, to be sure, and not a story that I would want to have missed but HARD TIMES is also a story that is not as timeless as others Dickens has written.

Paul Weiss

"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."

My reading of theories of pedagogy and knowledge development usually is quite separate from my reading of fiction for the pure pleasure of being human!

But now recently I have come across several references to the wonderful Dickensian caricature of positivism with the suggestive name of Gradgrind. There is a war going on in the world of schooling, with a clear front between those who are in favour of the measurable fact-based model that fictional Gradgrind tried on his own environment, with quite heartbreaking results, and those who have interpreted the opposite of Gradgrindianism as the way forward, and claim that inquiry, creativity and transferable skills are the pillars of education, and that facts are obsolete before they enter the heads of the suffering child vessels.

Now I am quite sure that Dickens could have written a brilliant satire on the extreme opposite of Gradgrind's pedagogy if he had seen it in action. How are children to develop ideas if they have no knowledge to get inspired by? How are they going to proceed in inquiry if they have no basic understanding of the scientific concepts? How are they going to create exciting and artistic visual and textual artefacts without the literacy skills that are the tools leading towards linguistic and artistic mastery? How are they going to "research" a history topic independently that they have never heard of before, and definitely cannot put into context?

As happy as I am whenever Gradgrind shows up in the educational debates, I have to say that his very presence as a negative example of old-school knowledge is an ironic symbol of the value of "knowing" the iconic history of literary or scientific reference points. If you haven't had some kind of basic schooling in literature, you won't understand what Gradgrind's evil represents: to evaluate his mentioning in the school debate, you have to know about Victorian standpoints, Dickens' position within them, Gradgrind's failure, and educational theories over the past century that have swung like a pendulum from one extreme to the other.

So cheers to the fact that facts are part of life - and the devil is in the PART!

Mr. Thomas Gradgrind , a very wealthy, former merchant, now retired, only believes in facts, and mathematics, two plus two, is four... facts are important, facts will lift you into prosperity, facts are what to live by, they are the only thing that matters, everything else is worthless ... knowing. He sets up a model school, were the terrorized students, will learn this, ( and other subjects that are unfortunately, also taught) the eminently practical man, teaches his five children at birth ... facts! They fear him, a dictator, at home, his weak minded, sick wife, just looks on, wrapping herself up, to keep warm and complaining of her weariness . But fictitious Coketown , (Manchester) is a dirty, factory town, incessant noises from countless machines, powered by coal, chimneys forever spewing dark gases, polluting the air, thick smoke like a twisting snake high above the atmosphere, moving this way and that, spreading all through the surrounding areas, the filth, the sickness, and early death, to the inhabitants, but the "hands" are not relevant, money is, making lots of it, that, and only that. A foul- smelling canal, and even more, a purple river, flows by , the buildings becoming an ugly gray, quickly, the people have to escape to the countryside, to breath fresh healthy air. Travelers going by this place, can only imagine there is a city there, under the black cloud covering, yet they can't see it. Mr. Gradgrind best friend, if there is such an animal, in his circle, is the banker, and manufacturer, Mr. Josiah Bounderby, always telling anyone, within hearing distance, that he himself, rose from the gutter, to become a rich man, no help... he did it alone . Story after story, of his sleeping in the streets, hungry, soiled, without a farthing to his name. Abandoned by the evil, uncaring, widowed mother, brought up by his horrible, drunken grandmother, who beats the child repeatedly . Entertaining, heart-wrenching, you felt for this man, how he suffered greatly in youth, except it's not quite true ...in fact, lies. Louisa, Mr. Gradgrind's oldest and favorite child, is very pretty, the bachelor Bounderby, has eyes for her, when she reaches the proper age of about 20, the fifty- year -old man, asks for her hand in marriage, of course, conveying this fact first, to her father. Louisa says what does it matter, a prisoner in her own home, the girl hasn't seen anything of the world, disaster follows, the couple have nothing in common, what can they talk about? Mrs. Sparsit, her husband's meddling housekeeper, from a good family, hates her. Louisa, flirts with the restless, gentleman, Mr. James Harthouse, who proudly states that he is no good! Still Louisa, only loves her brother, "The Whelp", young Thomas, getting money from his sister, gambling, drinking, wasting it all and always coming back for more. The selfish boy, works in the bank for Mr. Bounderby, his now, brother- in- law, when the well runs dry, the drunkard "finds" some 150 pounds sterling, inside the bank, not properly being used and sees, that it will be. Implicating an innocent "hand", Stephen Blackpool, fired recently by Bounderby, for speaking too much, shunned by the trade union members, for not joining, he walks the streets a lonely man, with an alcoholic wife who deserted him, she still periodically comes back , to sober up, and a sweetheart, that he can't marry too. Mr.Blackpool, seeks work elsewhere, not knowing he's a suspect, in the puzzling crime. The industrial revolution makes some people rich and others sick, but there is no going back , the dye has been cast ...

Hard Times is my return to Charles Dickens as an adult. I have read Oliver Twist and David Copperfield as a child. I didn't have an appetite for Dickens when I was young, for his subjects were sad and depressing. But as an adult, I understand and appreciate him. He touched so many sides of the society which were rarely spoken of before. He penetrated into human minds so thoroughly and exposed both their black and white sides. Although these qualities in his writing made me sad and depress before, the same qualities have made me fall in love with his writing now.

Hard Times is Dickens's shortest novel. Through a well outlined and well-written story, Dickens comments on the lives, living, and conditions of towns in the light of industrialization. This social commentary gives a perfect picture of the lives and conditions of living of working-class people and the dominating power exercised on them by their masters over every aspect of their lives, suppressing them and using them to secure their wealth and position in life.

There is also a strong criticism of utilitarianism. This theory was introduced in the aftermath of the industrial revolution to make it easy for the masters to control the working class, depriving them of any capacity to reason and making them live a submissive life according to their whims and fancies. Dickens's use of Facts against Reason throughout the book subtly mocks the theory and exposes the social downfall that it would lead to. He brings the character of Louisa Gradgrind and demonstrates what tragedies one would face if they are suppressed of their capacity to feel and to reason. Although it is a little overstated, the point is clearly proved.

I liked the character variety in the book. They ranged from kind, goodhearted, sweet-tempered to cunning, boastful, treacherous. This wide variety added colour and contrast to the book. The story was engaging, his social views kept me well connected with it all along. I enjoyed his satire very much. Dickens is a realistic writer of the Victorian era and that is the secret of his popularity even today.

A thoroughly fascinating read as always.