I always approach a Dickens novel with some trepidation mainly because they're usually long, incredibly wordy and Dickens always seemed to see the worst in women.

I got the audio version of Hard Times and it was beautifully narrated by Bertie Carvel. The story is not overlong but it still made my blood boil. Having said that it boiled equally for the characterisations of men and women (they're often more like caricatures).

The basic story is Thomas Gradgrind has brought his children up not to know anything fluffy or cheerful or frivolous. In this he has a supporter in the shape of Josiah Bounderby who, despite being 50, has got his eye on Gradgrind's eldest daughter, Louisa. So Lou marries Gradgrind to keep her brother, Tom, happy as Tom works in Bounderby's bank. Alongside this there's a social history side that deals with the workers (downtrodden, poor, no hope sort of thing) and the creation of a union. The workers too have their upheavals - bad marriages they can't get out of, peer pressure regarding unions/strikes, straitened circumstances. Yes, it's complicated.

Dickens certainly never seems to like a happy ending. A Christmas Carol must have near killed him. He puts his characters through hell then, when they've almost got happiness in their grasp, he gives them TB or some other disease that back in the 1850s would have killed you.

So I seethed through a lot of this book - I will continue to hear "of Coketown" following Bounderby's name because that's how he introduces himself (every time). In fact if Bounderby wasn't the inspiration for Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch then I'd be amazed. Also Mrs Sparsit drove me demented - she's a thoroughly revolting creature who wants Bounderby for herself.

I'm afraid to say that of the characters who aren't revolting, the others are pathetic and hopeless (except maybe Cissy).

However after I've said all that I did enjoy it in the main and the ending is not a total gloom-fest.

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.

I looked through 10+ pages of cover images and gave up. I'm reading a paperback from Dolphin Books. No idea how old it is, but it's in pretty good shape. $0.95 new. I also have a hardbound edition that's part of a complete set of Dickens, but is not in such good shape. Anyway, it's time I got back to the 19th century and Mr. D. in particular. Pretty good so far ...

Moving on as CD sets up his plot and characters deliberately. The whole lithping thing'th kind of nnoying, ithn't it??? Then there's the steady flow of alliteration ... curious. Thus far the usual CD pack of fools is limited in number, but I suspect more that just Bounderby, Gradgrind and M'Choakumchild will be trotted out as we get along.

The scope of the tale seems limited compared to my previous Dickens reads(David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations). Not so many characters(though the names are cherce) or locations. So far we're pretty much stuck inside Cokeville, a man-created early industrial hell of a place. As usual, CD lays on the suffering. One wonders if the author's personal life is reflected to a degree in the character of Louisa. Dickens was said to have been in love with his wife's younger sister and his own marriage wasn't a happy one I do believe.

- Once again Dickens annoys the reader with the excessively idiosyncratic speech of Stephen Blackpool. I'm reminded of "Wuthering Heights."

So ... I've got about 70 pages to go, not 20, or whatever the progress thingee says. This story began within the world of Gradgrind and M'Choakumchild as CD attacked the Utilitarian/Joe Friday mode of looking at and living in the world. In doing this he seemed to be siding with Matthew Arnold in "Dover Beach." But then he leaves that milieu behind to establish a sort of cardboard Victorian drama within the foul anti-paradise of Coketown. The characters ... Bounderby = the wealthy, narrow-minded self-adoring, up-by-the-bootstraps guy - perhaps about to be cuckolded but the foul snake-in-the-grass narcissist/hedonist Harthouse and Bounderby's much younger wife Louisa, emotionally hamstrung by her fathers attachment to a Utilitarian education. Her brother = Tom, a creep. Mrs. Sparsit, a nasty, mincing, hypocritical, Heep-like onlooker and score-keeper. Steven Blackpool, proletarian saint and his equally saintly pal Rachael. The mysterious Mrs. Pegler, whose mystery was stumbled upon by me in a trivia question - OOPS! Whatever ... I find that I'm less than enthralled by the whole thing and at this point find myself judging it to be Dickens of inferior(relatively speaking) quality. Still, one wants to know the outcome. Forward!

- I'm not exactly clear what is at the heart of Stephen's estrangement from his co-workers. He won't go on strike? Is that it? It's hard to tell from his mangled way of speaking.

- The ages old arguments about capitalism. Haves vs. have-nots and all the attendant mythology.

- Hard to be sympathetic to the foolish, narrow-minded Bounderby. We'll see if there's some redemption for him.

- Another complaint - I'm finding that the prose doesn't flow so smoothly in this one. Another G'reads reviewer says the words are over-wrought and over-worked. Seems that way to me too.

Finished last night as no one but St. Stephen has to suffer too awfully much. According to Wiki this book is by far the shortest of CD's novels(although ... "A Christmas Carol" was pretty short too), and was written for "business" reasons. I put it in the same general category as "Oliver Twist": it's okay ... it's nowhere near CD's best work, but it still provides an adequate diversion. Notes ...

- Bounderby the striver ... the capitalist ... the liar who fabricates a back story out of whole cloth to bolster his own mythology.

- Why the hate for the labor agitator?

- This book is somewhat padded. One G'reads reviewer correctly calls for stricter editor. Could've been up to 50 pagers shorter. Too much word-wind from the famous Mr. D.

- All that impenetrable Lancastrian yak from Stephen and lithping from Sleary get old fast(though the sad tale of Merrylegs[shades of Argos] is moving[especially if you're a dog lover] despite the lithping).

- Why so hard on the whelp? Is he made out to be a villain in service of CD's attack on the lad's "factual" upbringing?

- Tom hides out in the horse circus = shades of Frank Troy in "Far from the Madding Crowd."

- 3.25* rounds down to 3*.

n  “Don't be cross with us poor vagabond. People must be amused. They can't be always a learning, nor yet they can't always a working, they ain't made for it. You must have us, Squire.
Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us; not the worst!”n

Simply beautiful!
The book is divided into three parts. There isn't much that's happening in the first two parts, apart from the world-building and character introductions, so, you might just flow with the writing. But the third part is plain humour. Mrs. Sparsit's pursuit of Louisa is hilarious and every interaction thereafter. Dickens has this quality of making you ache with laughter at one moment and all sober the next, and it's magnificent. And the depth of his stories, their subtleness are the cherries on top.

Creo que voy a comenzar una tradición en mi cuenta de goodreads, y esta no es más que, al igual que el año pasado mi primera reseña fue un Dickens con "Grandes Esperanzas", voy a estrenar las reseñas de este 2022 con otro Dickens, "Tiempos Difíciles".

"Tiempos Difíciles" está ambientada en el Coketown industrial, supervisada por el Sr. Bounderby y Thomas Gradgrind, quien dirige una escuela empeñada en enseñar solo hechos y eliminar cualquier tipo de sentimentalismo o fantasía. Los hijos de Gradgrind, Tom y Louisa, son sus principales ejemplos de cómo funciona su educación. El circo del Sr. Sleary ofrece una visión diferente de la vida y desde allí Sissy Jupe ingresa a Coketown. A medida que hacemos un seguimiento de sus vidas, también vemos a los trabajadores de la ciudad a través de los cuales se exploran las consecuencias del industrialismo.

Admito que en un principio me llevó un poco de tiempo entrar, cargada como está la novela de descripciones interminables en los primeros capítulos. Pero después de un tiempo se vuelve evidente que esto era simplemente un prólogo, y una vez que la historia comienza correctamente, vuela delante de nuestros ojos. Si bien el crimen, la educación, la vida laboral, la política y el estatus de clase ocupan un lugar central aquí, no se puede negar que esta es una historia de humanidad y una acusación abrasadora del equivalente victoriano del capitalismo: "a los hechos no les importan tus sentimientos". Denuncia la forma en que la sociedad educa no para permitir que sus ciudadanos prosperen, sino para encoger sus almas e imaginaciones.

Es a veces hilarante y trágica y, dada su brevedad en comparación con muchas de sus otras novelas, es una forma mucho menos intimidante de mojarse los pies en su extensa colección.

I was sitting and thinking what I could write about this book, that also stood in front of me, defiantly, like a mountain that I could neither bypass nor jump over, but only climb it, slowly, little by little.. Suddenly, someone knocks at my door. I open it.. A ragged old man, with hungry eagle eyes stares at me as if I've been waiting for him a lifetime...
" I don't give alms " , I say, but next second I felt myself like a worm..." Wait, take a shilling, old man, " I say, and I try to close the door, but.. the old man puts his foot in the doorway, looking at me contemptuous.. " What to do with a shilling, my friend ? We're in such a hard times.. I can't even buy a bow tie with a shilling.
" What the fuck .. are you doin', papi ? " , I say, and having nothing else at hand, I arm myself with the book.
" Ah, you read my book ", said the old man, in a hoarse voice.

Me : " Oh, my goodness, Charles Dickens ! What are you doin' here ?

Dickens :" Well, you were reading my book, and I thought I'd drop by and see how you're enjoying it. "

Me, a bit confuse : " Uh...yeah.. it's a bit meh.. I mean great !
But I have a curiosity.. Is there a similarity between you and Mr. Gradgrind, your main character ? "

Dickens ( chuckles ) : Ah, you've picked up on that, have you ? Well, I must admit there are some similarities.."

Me : " Really ? But you're such an imaginative and passionate writer, Mr. Gradgrind, on the other hand, is a practical and unfeeling character.."

Dickens, ( smirking ) : " Yes, I know , but you see, I was also quite a practical man in my personal life. "

Me, (curious) : " What do you mean ? "

Dickens : " Well, for one, I was always very careful with my finances. I often wrote to make a living. "

Me ( malicious ) : " Yes, I noticed this, in some books ... But what about your personal life ? Surely, you were more sensitive and emotional than Mr.Gradgrind. "

Dickens ( pausing...) : " Well, you see,there was my wife...I left her for another woman .."

Me ( shocked ) : What ??

Dickens ( nodding ) : " Yes it's true, I was always also passionate in my love affairs. "

Me ( disappointed ) : " Oh.. Mr. Dickens, that's not very admirable. ."

Dickens ( smiling sheepishly ) : " I know, I know.. I guess I am more like Mr.Gradgrind than I'd care to admit. But you know what they say, truth is often stranger than fiction..."

Me : " I suppose that's true. But I still think you're a sh...brilliant writer. "

Dickens : " Thank you, my dear ".

Me : " I would have another curiosity, if you don't mind..."

Dickens : " Shoot, my boy ! "

Me: " Who's more greedy between you and Mr. Balzac ? "

( a deafening silence..)

Me : " Mr. Dickens ? ...Hey, Mr. Dickens !
( door slamming )

Still don't know what to write...

My eighth Dickens novel (if you count Drood), this was not my favorite. Lacking the subtlety in his social commentary of a Bleak House, or Our Mutual Friend, the melodrama turned to 11, a Dickensian 11, overall this was far less fleshed out than his better works. Having said that, his much more direct social commentary in the novel was scathing and refreshing at times for its frankness, and Hard Times does contain a few of his most eloquent passages. I’ll end by giving two examples:

“In that charmed apartment, the most complicated social questions were cast up, got into exact totals, and finally settled—if those concerned could only have been brought to know it. As if an astronomical observatory should be made without any windows, pen, ink, and paper, so Mr. Gradgrind, in his observatory (and there are many like it), had no need to cast an eye upon all the teeming myriads of human beings around him, but could settle all their destinies in a slate, and wipe out all their tears with one dirty little bit of sponge.”

“It was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.”

I taught this novel many times--oh, a dozen--because it's the shortest Dickens, fits into a college course easier than Nicholas Nickleby, my favorite, which I only taught once. Likewise with War and Peace only once because it took mostly the whole semester. Hard Times is excellent on education, only Nicholas surpassing it--and perhaps Tom Sawyer, on American and Church education.

Gradgrind, the businessman who sets the tone of M'Choakumchild's school, disapproves of his daughter Louisa's reading*, almost as much as circus performer Sissy Jupe's, who read to her circus father about the Hunchback, and Dwarfs. Gradgrind says, "Never wonder." He disapproves of such fiction, of the workers who "sometimes sat down after fifteen hours work to read mere fables about men and women, more or less like themsleves, and about children..."(38). Dickens in Nicholas Nickleby has the Member of Parliament opposing bills "for giving poor grubbing devils of authors a right to their own property," adding that in writing his speeches, Nicholas "can be as funy as you like about the authors; I believe the greater part of them live in lodgings, and cannot vote"(199).
The suspicion against novels which Dickens cites runs back to Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women, though I think in her book she says women should read what men do, not the novels they waste time on.
Besides a great dog story, there's the amusement of the circus-owner's lisp, Sleary. He says, about circuses and novels, "People mutht be amuthed. They can't alwayth be a leaarning"(222, Norton critical 1966).
M'Choakumchild is no Wackford Squeers; maybe Gradgrind is closer, but more narrow and limited, and after all, Hard Times involves public education, which nobody in the 19C expected much from (except possibly in the U.S.), whereas Nicholas involves private boarding schools in the North.
Hard Times also sums up industrialized work such as Mancastrian loom-workers and repairmen who built (1830-1890) the factories in the city where I taught, Fall River, MA. So it provided a good 19C summary of Fall River's mills and mill-workers. One of my paper suggestions invited college students (often women in their 20's) to compare their own education, and their criticisms of it, with those here.

*Louisa grows, marries, and on the last page comes to wish her children have "a childhood of the mind no less than a childhood of the body."

This is my first Dickens outside of A Christmas Carol. I really enjoyed it, although I have nothing to compare it to in terms of his writing. Published in 1854, it is set in Coketown, a fictitious factory town in England. The central premise of this book is established early on (p. 11) when Thomas Gradgrind is alarmed to find two of his children peeking in on a circus. This after he has delivered his philosophy on the main point of life to the local teacher, Mr. M'Choakumchild:

"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 . . . nothing else will ever be of service to them."

Thus the struggle is illuminated of trying stamp out fancy in hearts and minds in order to keep people focused on the straight and narrow, the religion of facts, facts, facts. Heaven forbid they would have an imagination or some fun! All hell might break loose.

As I read Hard Times, I kept thinking that the world has changed dramatically since 1854, but human nature has not. This tale plays out every day in the 21st Century; we can easily connect the dots between Dickens' characters and the players in modern society. The hardhearted factory owner who tells lies and boasts of his generosity while oppressing and criticizing the workers, or "hands". The downtrodden "hands" just trying to eek out a living. The "bad influence" slackers and sycophants angling to get their share with no effort. The circus entertainers, just trying to spread a little joy before being run out of town. The union organizer, trying to incite the hands to revolt. To name a few.

I loved Dickens' writing. While critical of the industrialization of society, it was written with his trademark energy and humor. The names he gave people particularly tickled me. Mr. M'Choakumchild! And of course, this being Dickens (I have seen the movies, after all!) the story resolves to his more balanced and upbeat philosophy on life, expressed by Mr. Sleary, the circus owner, speaking in his characteristic lisp to Mr. Gradgrind:

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. . . . Do the withe thing and the kind thing too, and make the betht of uth, not the wurtht!"

I listened to Hard Times, wonderfully brought to life by Simon Prebble. There were so many passages I wanted to reflect on so I checked out The Everyman's Library edition from my local library. I have fallen in love with these classics editions which have so much helpful information which put a particular book in context and which help me relate to and enjoy a classic book even more than I might otherwise.

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.

Mavis Staples sings Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZsO3...

Hard Times is what they now call The Great Depression, about which Studs Terkel wrote his monumental work of oral history. But Hard Times by nineteenth-century English writer Charles Dickens is a book about working class northern England, about which he said,

"My satire is against those who see figures and averages, and nothing else."

I read it in my twenties, and read it now in a time when “data-driven” bureaucracies rule the day, and even in public education, where some teachers get their pay docked if their students do not exceed district data expectations. Performance-based development, they call it, performance being exclusively determined by student scores on standardized tests.

“One cannot understand the history of education in the United States during the twentieth century unless one realizes that [stats and quantitative guy] Edward L. Thorndike won and [progressive, democratic, conversation- and community-based theorist] John Dewey lost”— Ellen Condliffe Lagemann

The most memorable scene in Dickens’s 1854 novel Hard Times (by Dickens) is the first one, where the teacher, Thomas Gradgrind, asks his class to define a horse:

"Bitzer," said Thomas Gradgrind. "Your definition of a horse."
"Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth." Thus (and much more) from Bitzer.
"Now girl number twenty," said Mr. Gradgrind. "You know what a horse is."

Girl number twenty is Sissy who rides horses every day, whose family owns horses. To “define” a horse in this way is incomprehensible and silly to her.

An accumulation of facts is the only knowledge that matters to Gradgrind. Facts, not feelings. The businessman who helped shaped the American Common Core, the set of standards that continues to drive school curriculum in the US, said,“If you want to apply for a job at GM, they don’t give a damn how you feel.” He was speaking here against the teaching of the personal essay in school, and stories, something he and his committee intended to drastically reduce in American public school curricula. And they were successful, to the detriment of the love of learning for millions of children. The Common Core privileges argument over story, nonfiction over fiction and poetry, a process that coincides with the conservative takeover of US politics more than a quarter of a century ago, but Dickens saw it already happening 150 years ago in England, skewered in this book.

“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”—Gradgrind

Gradgrind raises his own kids, too, without stories, without feeling, only reason, which leads daughter Louisa to a miserable marriage without love, based only on practical (wealth, social status: Facts!) considerations. Love is not part of the necessary vocabulary of the Gradgrind family or school. But this fact-based approach also leads to societal consequences where the bottom line matters more than humans.

The last thirty years in economic and political philosophy is correctly assumed by many to be guided in part by the brutally selfish ideology of Ayn Rand, but a century before her it is Dickens (in 1854?!) who makes this harsh indictment of mid-19th-century industrial practices and their dehumanizing effects:

“Any capitalist . . . who had made sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, always professed to wonder why the sixty thousand nearest Hands didn't each make sixty thousand pounds out of sixpence, and more or less reproached them every one for not accomplishing the little feat. What I did you can do. Why don't you go and do it?” As if! And those not achieving that goal correspondingly feel guilty; they know it is their fault they have not had the proper pluck, the determination, to achieve what others have done.

And social practices begin in school:

“. . . it was a fundamental principle of the Gradgrind philosophy that everything was to be paid for. Nobody was ever on any account to give anybody anything, or render anybody help without purchase. Gratitude was to be abolished, and the virtues springing from it were not to be. Every inch of the existence of mankind, from birth to death, was to be a bargain across a counter. And if we didn’t get to Heaven that way, it was not a politico-economical place, and we had no business there.”

But Dickens is clear in his view about school and society:

“There is a wisdom of the head, and. . . there is a wisdom of the heart.”

Both have to be present for children in school and society to thrive.

Instruction is now required in most school districts to be “data-driven,” which means that which can be reduced to numbers, to statistics, which are more easily gleaned from multiple choice tests than, say, more organic, community-driven projects where the effect might be more complex, un-graph-able, unquantifiable.

What a good book! It’s satire, but insightful satire, useful. Sure Dickens can be preachy and sentimental as he rails on social practices he finds dehumanizing. But he also can be fun; are there sillier names for teachers than Gradgrind and--this is the best--Chokumchild?!

Janice Ian’s Better Times Will Come:

https://www.bettertimeswillcome.com/s...

A link to the whole Better Times Will Come musical project:

https://www.bettertimeswillcome.com/?...

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