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I know everyone one says this is the least popular novel of Dickens, but I loved it! Full of Frivolity, fun, Friendship and Forgiveness! Sorry can't help myself when there's an opportunity for alliteration. I found the characters not only well rounded but also full of depth, I always like it when an accomplished author portrays a character as a deadly sin and then lets them loose on each other, only with some of those characters to eventually to work out for themselves that they in fact are flawed just like all human beings. Perhaps this Dickens won't be for everyone but I really enjoyed it

Good malt makes good beer,
Walk in, and i'll draw it here;
Good wine makes good brandy,
Give me a call, and you'll find it handy
-I can better explain it drunk i guess

Geography time: Maybe its hard to communicate picturesque ideas in Hard-time to a modern viewer because its the kind of world we have never seen and rarely fathom, the bleak blues of the mill workers the clingy with which the bell used to shiver the souls of the "hands":rather workers that work in those inhumanly conditions is beyond our daily comfort,the smoke that the chimneys used to cough out and the sooth that used to stuck in their hair,only to be rinsed by beer once in awhile, the pestilence and depravity when people used to dream of to be fed on turtle soup and venison with a gold spoon; so different but so where the times in early 40's and following of industrial revolution but the description in a mill in Manchester though smaller in scale.
Its different in another base that it used to be published in a weekly magazine and was purposed to written to enhance its sale and hence a little different, mostly laid back and at parts intense, though Charles doesnt write or scream like most authors do to tell us how hard the times were but rather the characters in the story itself had the weight and intensity to convey the weight they carry,Its amazing how often i cursed the book and Dick my friend while i could still feel the sooth in hair and the intensity with which i wanted to wash it off, i will revisit my friend in future i guess.

Pick it on if you like Victorian setting and the way people used to live for the pride back in the days and how often this led to their downfall: due to the honor they so called wanna protect as it used to provide them structure and how far will they go to uphold their prestige -though It is really hard to get interested in initially but once you get your head wrapped around the personalities and the environment they were raised in and the kind of ideologies that existed, the people that used to live, the thoughts they used to have, the unions which they were a part of, how deeply they used to love, how it is okay if not every question is answered the hearts that used to beat.

I really good glimpse into the lives of the people those used to live, live not so differently than us

At the outset of this novel, we know that Dickens is going to pit reason against emotion, fact against feeling, and that reason and fact are going to come up short. In a world without sympathy, compassion or warmth, Louisa and Tom Gradgrind are raised. They have everything they might want in terms of money and position, but nothing else; their contrast is Sissy Jupe, a circus child who has the love of both her father and the circus family, but is steeped in poverty.

In true Dickens style, there are several side stories, one of which is the star-crossed love story of Rachael and Stephen, a sweet and dedicated pair, who bear their misfortunes with grace and acceptance. Theirs is unselfish love, which contrasts sharply with the love of Louisa for her brother, Tom, and his selfish abuse of her love for his own gain, and the loveless and unnatural marriage of Louisa with her father’s friend, Bounderby.

As always, Dickens tackles the evils of the day with some humor, in the person of Mr. Sleary, and a taste of villainy, in the form of Mrs. Sparsit. He addresses the rise of unions, and in a world where such ideas were radical, he paints them in a more favorable light than might be expected. But, most effectively, he tackles the educational system that puts everything above the individual child. While Gradgrind is not a cruel man, like Mr. Squeers who runs the school in Nicholas Nickleby, he is just as misguided and damaging to his charges. Bitzer, a minor character who serves an important part in the plot, emerges as a perfect example of the kind of empty shell that can be made of a child who is given nothing to draw on but self-interest.

I did not enjoy Hard Times as much as I have enjoyed other Dickens novels, but I did find it a worthwhile read and as always, there are characters here that will be long remembered. My next Dickens will be Little Dorrit, and I have heard that it is among his best efforts.

Dickens leaves me feeling like Kevin Mallone: "Why use lot word when few word do trick?" I think I'd prefer to watch his novels staged as plays, because sure there's plenty of drama in his plots and life in his characters and idealism in his themes. But his writing style? It's just not my cuppa. This book is pretty good, but very tiresome. Yes, it's satirical. Yes, it's incisive. Yes, it's often funny. It's also meandering, padded, and inelegant. It's tedious, it's grating, and it's bull-headed. Updike wrote lush garden paths. This guy writes grime-caked sidewalks.

3 stars. He's got rock solid ideas but Dickens writes like he's trying to force his way through your front door.

this book took me aaaages to finish.
some chapters i liked, though some bored me to death. likewise, i absolutely hated some of the characters, for instance, Bounderby was despicable, whereas i could sympathize with Stephen.
all in all, it was not an awful book, i found it quite enjoyable, however i didn't love it.

Despite my initial distasteful response and the downright discouraging reviews from a few of the Dickensian group, I found that after the YA phase of the novel, the writing was outstanding. Tom is a despicable spoiled rotten character while the poor characters have so much dignity.
Dicken's lampooning of the rich is a treat to read.

[Gennaio 2015]

Perchè Dickens è... Dickens.

Ho avuto due difficoltà con questa lettura.
La prima è cosa ricorrente nella storia di un qualunque lettore: il momento sbagliato.
La lettura si deve accompagnare ad una disponibilità psicologica non c'è niente da fare!
La seconda difficoltà (certamente condizionata dalla prima) riguarda la sensazione di “tradimento”.
Mi aspettavo un romanzo minimamente (nei limiti dei canoni vittoriani) centrato sulla condizione operaia: in realtà, "le mani" (metafora che Dickens usa per nominare gli operai...) sono una sfumatura.
Ciò che risalta è l'accusa ad una società capitalista tesa a mettere in atto un individualismo sfrenato.
Gli operai sono banalmente poveri di materia e ricchi di quel buonismo (e diciamocelo: anche un po' patetico!) tanto caro a Dickens. Quello che è maggiormente indagato è l’aspetto umano; essere poveri per Dickens è automaticamente sintomo di una sensibilità ed un altruismo paradigmatici.
Povero uguale buono, punto.
Ciò che mi è spiaciuto veramente è stata la completa assenza di analisi della condizione operaria e dunque ciò che lo avrebbe reso veramente un romanzo sociale. Una prova lampante è che persino il delegato sindacale è dipinto come becero e ridicolo. Non una parola sulla funzione del sindacalismo…
Nessun personaggio mi ha suscitato empatia.
I "buoni come Stephen Blackpool peccano di debolezza ed al massimo suscitano della pietà.
Ma perché allora quattro stellette?
Perchè Dickens è Dickens.
Una penna che scivola senza incrinature e taglia il foglio con la sua ironia ed il suo sarcasmo; incide le immagini attraverso memorabili descrizioni.
Una struttura del romanzo originale (Semina/Falciatura/ Raccolto) che biblicamente ci ricorda che "chi semina vento raccoglie tempesta".
E poi un epilogo per me memorabile.
Non dico altro perchè comunque sia va letto.

They say no-one reads a book to get to the middle. Well, for Hard Times, perhaps they should, so disappointing the end turns out to be, this is one of the examples of how literature has improved over the years. Having read Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and A Tale of Two Cities and enjoying them all immensely I tried Hard Times, having read here and elsewhere that the book represented Dickens at his best. It does not, and to say that it does devalues his other work. The book is filled with shallow characters where motivations are left unexplained, where the writing is long and overworked, where the reliance on local dialect is used as a substitute for characterisation, this for me is Dickens at his worst. There is, underneath all the wrought wordmanship, a worthy tale of the perils of industrialisation but it is too obtusely flanked by peripheral stories that do nothing but divert the attention away from this central tale. A scything edit and a reduction in word count to around 50,000 would have helped the story shine through but, as it is, it remains as blustery, repetitive overblown, misguided, predictable and boring as old Bounderby himself. Very disappointing.

«روزگار سخت»، حاوی توصیفات درخشانی از تغییرات حاصل از صنعتی شدن بر شهرها، زندگی کارگران، بهره‌کشی کارفرما از آنان و شکاف طبقاتی است. در عین حال شخصیت‌های کتاب فارغ از اینکه به کدام طبقه تعلق داشته باشند، از بعد شخصیت فردی، می‌توانند خوب یا بد باشند. اشاره به امکاناتی که بواسطه پول برای ثروتمندان فراهم می‌شود، از قبیل امکان طلاق در جامعه‌ای که طلاق قانونا ممنوع است، از جمله اشارات قابل توجه کتاب است.

از طرف دیگر، بخش‌هایی از داستان با تأکید بر عقلانیت منطقی و محاسبه‌گر، که هر شکل دیگری از عقلانیت و احساسات را طرد می‌کند، آدم را به یاد نقد آدورنو و هورکهایمر از «اسطوره عقل» در دیالکتیک روشنگری می‌اندازد. علیرغم همه این‌ها، داستان کشش بالایی دارد و توصیف و توضیح‌ها بیش از حد طولانی و آزاردهنده نیست. اما اعتراف می‌کنم که حدود صد صفحه آخر، سر و ته داستان تا حدودی شبیه سریال‌های ایرانی به هم آورده می‌شود. کلیشه‌ها کم‌کم توی ذوق آدم می‌زنند و بعضی از شخصیت‌ها بیش از حد سفید و بی‌گناه به تصویر کشیده می‌شوند. با وجود همه این‌ها، به دلیل قدرت بالای کتاب در به تصویر کشیدن مناسبات اجتماعی و اقتصادی، و تعهد به امور انسانی و جمعی، بدون آسیب رساندن به روند داستان و کشش داستانی بالا، به آن چهار امتیاز می‌دهم، هرچند اگر دیکنز زنده بود، به او پیشنهاد می‌‌کردم که داستان را به شکل دیگری به پایان برساند که طبق معیارهای عصر ما کمتر کلیشه‌ای باشد. :)))

Più passano gli anni e le letture si accumulano più la distanza tra scrittori di 'oggi' e scrittori di 'ieri' mi sembra crescere. Certo, quelli di ieri, hanno il vantaggio di essere sopravvissuti alla scrematura del tempo diventando una specie di distillato a lunga capacità di invecchiamento. Non sempre la loro lettura è agevole, la lingua può essere ridondante, il ritmo troppo lento, i temi forse (forse!) a volte lontani dalle esperienze contemporanee, il giudizio morale onnipresente. Ma la profondità di spessore dei personaggi, la ricerca (non la ricercatezza) delle parole, la grazia dei giri di frase, l'ampiezza degli sguardi sull'umano, la conoscenza e l'uso appropriato delle figure retoriche - tra tutte quella magica arietta che fa pizzicare il naso, l'ironia, - costituiscono per me il massimo piacere della lettura.
Anche questi Tempi difficili non fa eccezione. I protagonisti sono più tipi sociali che esseri individuali ma la grandezza di Dickens sta nel farcelo dimenticare.

"Ela despediu-se dele com um 'Boa noite' carinhoso e foi acompanhá-lo até à porta da rua, de onde era possível ver os fogos de Coketown, conferindo à paisagem um brilho sinistro. Louisa ficou ali, a olhar fixamente para eles e a ouvir o ruído dos passos do irmão, que se afastava. Os passos foram-se rapidamente extinguindo, felizes por se verem longe do Palácio de Pedra; mas Louisa ainda ali ficou, já o irmão estava longe e o silêncio reinava. Dir-se-ia que, primeiro na lareira dentro de casa e, depois, na neblina incendiada do exterior, tentava descobrir como seria a trama que o Tempo, o maior e mais antigo de todos os tecelões, teceria com os fios com os quais já tecera uma mulher. A fábrica do tempo, porém, é um lugar misterioso, o seu trabalho não se ouve e os seus Braços são mudos."