Any other freaks out there who laugh like a child as they read Dickens? I find his humor outstanding and his stamina for writing equal to that of Alexandre Dumas (both were socially conscious and generous men as well). I don't love this book as well as Great Expectations, and it has a bit of an awkward start, but I have finally found my pace with Mr. Dickens. I regret that a high school teacher made us read A Tale of Two Cities far too early to appreciate him, and, sadly, turned me away from his work for years. I am so happy to have the maturity now to appreciate his humor, his characters and his concern for humanity.

[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.

"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. This is the principle on which I bring up my own
children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these
children. Stick to Facts, sir!"


The second Dickens novel I fell in love with (after Great Expectations) is closer to my heart for it concerns the working class. Dickens was the man that wrote of the common people and their plights; he was the one that exposed their trials and tribulations to the world. He was the one that made us remember them.

أظن إنى ارتكبت جريمة فى حقى وفى حق الرواية بسبب قرائتها بنسخة مختصرة ومبسطة ل١٨٠ صفحة يعنى مختصرة لأكتر من نصف الرواية الأصلية تقريبا فكانت مشكلتى الأولى والأخيرة إنى أجد صعوبة فى تحديد ما الهدف الكامل الذى يسعى إليه المؤلف وماهى الأوقات العصيبة؟!!

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

«أوقات صعبة» لتشارلس ديكنز
كتبت الرواية في زمن الثورة الصناعية زمن الفوارق الطبقية والانتفاضات العمالية والشعبية.
و في إمكاننا أن نقول إن تشارلز ديكنز، الكاتب الإنكليزي الكبير والذي كان من أكثرهم شهرة وتأثيراً في القراء الأوروبيين عموماً بكتاباته تلك التي من النوع الشخصيّ جداً كان رائعًا في هذه الرواية.
ديكنز لم يعش الفقر والصراعات الطبقية نظرياً، عبر التأمل والقراءة، بل عاشها بنفسه ميدانياً، هو الذي كان منذ طفولته يعاني غرق أهله في الديون ووصول أبيه إلى السجن أحياناً بسبب تلك الديون. ومن هنا، فإن الواقع في الرواية نابعاً من معاناته الشخصية.
تدور أحداث رواية «أوقات صعبة» في مدينة كوكتاون، حيث كانت تزدهر الصناعات الناشئة وبدأ ينتشر نوع من التبديل الجذري في ذهنيات أفراد الطبقة العاملة كما في الأحوال الاقتصادية للناس. في الرواية يظهر صراع بين طبقتين(البورجوازية والبروليتاريا)
ديكنز رمز إلى البروليتاريا بشخصية العامل بلاكبول
ورمز الى البورجوازية عبر شخصيتين أساسيتين :
1-مديرُ المدرسة غراد غريند، الذي كان -لفرط ما لديه من نزعة مادية- يربي أولاده على الوقائع الحقائق حتى أنه كان يوجه إليهم الأمر المباشر بكل قسوة (لا تتخيل..لا تسرحي)
تربية مجرّدة من العاطفة والحب وكان لها تأثير على ابنته الكبرى وشقيقها بطريقة مختلفة..فكل منهما له شخصية مختلفة تظهر خلال تطور الأحداث.
2- السيد باوندرباي، رجل الأعمال والمصرفي، صديق مدير المدرسة، والذي يطمع في الزواج من ابنته الجميلة وهو هنا بورجوازي حقيقي يعيش حياته وأفكاره في خط واحد لا يتطور..(عكس شخصية غراد غريند غير الراسخ طبقيا التي تطورت في النهاية)

الجزء الأساس من الرواية يتتبع مسار حياة الشخصيتين «البورجوازيتين» بالإضافة إلى مسار شخصية الصغيرة
سيسي الفقيرة، ابنة مهرج السيرك التي تلقي بها الأحداث إلى ساحة البيت لتتربى مع أولاد (غراد) بعقليتها الخيالية وشخصيتها العاطفية وكل ذاك الحب الذي تحمله..كان من المنطقي أن تحظى بحب الكاتب، لأن الفقراء، في رأيه «يعرفون عادة كيف يحافظون على أفئدتهم صافية نقية».
تتتبع الرواية أيضًا مسارشخصية العامل البسيط بلاكبول، الذي يقع ذات مرة ضحية لمؤامرة يحيكها ضده ابن سيده صاحب العمل، ومرة ثانية ضحية لسذاجة رفاقه في العمل في مصنع الحياكة.
..هنا يمثل الكاتب شرف الطبقة العاملة ونزاهتها في شخصية العامل (بلاكبول) بينما سمثل الوجه السوداوي منها في شخصيات رفاقه في المصنع
النهاية كانت مريحة اللهم إلا شخصية ابنة غراد غريند التي تزوجت من صديقة المصرفي الذي يكبرها بثلاثين سنة ..وددت لو أنها حظيت بنهاية أفضل.
هذا العمل يبقى من أجمل أعمال تشارلز ديكنز.

Hard Times is the tenth novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book surveys English society and satirizes the social and economic conditions of the era.

The story is set in the fictitious Victorian industrial Coketown, a generic Northern English mill-town.

It’s his shortest novel and until now I thought that it was my favourite of his works, but I praised the writing more than the story (I favour stories like Bleak House, Oliver Twist & Martin Chuzzlewit).

This was a re-read for me, but first time in English (instead of Portuguese).

The writing, in my humble opinion, is simply terrific and far from being ostentatious, pretentious or even flowery.

The plot is simple and straightforward, void of overly dramatic events, and we were presented with a nice revelation or twist, near the conclusion.

The characters are all very well displayed and constructed, and some are unforgettable.

The sense of humour, although subtle, is also present, as well as the author’s pessimistic view of industrialization and the future.

This is very different from his other books and may not please everyone, but like the first time, I truly enjoyed the storytelling.

PS. Just yesterday I watched the 1994 BBC adaptation for the tv, written and directed by Peter Barnes. It was well done and helped me to add some faces to the characters, but the book is a lot better.

e-book (Kobo): 382 pages (default), 110k words

Paperback (The Modern Library Classics) - introduction by Jane Jacobs: 374 pages (cover to cover)

Audiobook narrated by Sean Murphy: 11h37 minutes (it’s excellent and I only paid $0.65 Canadian from Kobo audiobook)

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.

«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. :)))

Tempos difíceis é um livro que me impressionou muito.

 Imagine uma cidade horrível, toda cheia de poluição ,escura , com fábricas trabalhando a todo vapor, soltando fumaças pretas por suas chaminés. Assim é a fictícia  coketown, cidade onde se passa a narrativa desse livro que , apesar de não ser o mais conhecido nem tão grande como outros de Dickens, é um livro poderosíssimo.

 Nesse ambiente horrível vivem famílias e pessoas pobres e  trabalhadoras, criadas na simplicidade, mas a maioria delas, pessoas bondosas e amorosas, criadas num ambiente de amor e sentimento que se tornaram grandes homens pelo caráter, aqui podemos incluir , Raquel , Sissy, e Stephen Blackpool.

Outras pessoas, criadas em uma situação econômica muito melhor, mas criadas para não terem sentimentos,( o lema do Senhor Gradgrind diretor da escola local), para se aterem só aos fatos, fatos e fatos, (aqui me vem à mente a crítica de C.S. Lewis no livro a abolição do homem), se tornam criaturas frias e sem sentimentos, despreparadas para enfrentar relacionamentos e o mundo em si, como Louisa e Tom ,que foram criados nesse sistema de educação.

 É assim que o livro se desenvolve, é essa luta entre a educação baseada só em fatos, contra uma educação baseada na simplicidade, mas com a adição de sentimentos essenciais à vida.

Livro maravilhoso, poderoso, gostei demais.

Dickens usa o coração e o  humor para desenvolver uma história cheia de críticas a exploração industrial, à pobreza, a educação baseada somente em fatos que levou  a destruição de personagens desse livro. O livro não é óbvio, temos viradas espetaculares na história a cada capítulo que nos prende até o final.


Anotações e rabiscos de leitura, pode conter spoiler

Gradgrind destruiu seus filhos com essa educação baseada em fatos, a pobre Louisa tinha até um coração bom mas a sua falta de sentimento a fez se casar com o rico  banqueiro Josiah Bounderby trinta anos mais velha do que ela.

Raquel e Sissy são as minhas personagens favoritas. Doces e amorosas, me apaixonei.

A história se passa  no ano de 1940 , Dickens a escreveu em 1954.

Umas das cenas mais emocionantes foi a conversa que Louisa teve com seu pai mostrando a ele como seu método de educação  a tinha destruído e também a seu irmão que se tornou um ladrão:“Eu estava cansada, pai. Tenho me sentido cansada há muito tempo”, disse Louisa.

“Cansada? De quê?”, perguntou o atônito pai.

“Não sei – acho que de tudo.”

I decided to read ‘Hard Times’ after Ali Smith said at a book festival event that it was one of the inspirations for Spring. She praised it as a novel that understands the pernicious effects of industrialisation, as indeed it does. I haven’t read much else by Dickens (only A Tale of Two Cities and Nicholas Nickleby) so was interested to find out if he treated social issues in a similar fashion to French authors of the same era: Zola, Balzac, Hugo, et al. I found ‘Hard Times’ more coy regarding sex, perhaps not surprisingly, although the difficulty of divorce is a powerful theme. I think Dickens captures the ethos of industrialisation better than 19th century French novels I’ve read, however Zola in particular is far superior at conveying the appalling toll taken by poverty. Nonetheless, ‘Hard Times’ was more subtle and interesting than I really expected. The female characters had important and varied roles to play and the tone was often amusingly sardonic:

The bank had foreclosed a mortgage effected on the property thus pleasantly situated, by one of the Coketown magnates, who, in his determination to make a shorter cut than usual to an enormous fortune, overspeculated himself by about two hundred thousand pounds. These accidents did sometimes happen in the best regulated families in Coketown, but the bankrupts had no connexion whatever with the improvident classes.

Dickens certainly captures hypocrisy and double standards beautifully. The pace was rather odd, though. ‘Hard Times’ flits between protagonists, shifting to another when you’ve just got used to the first. The sprawling ensemble is nonetheless held together by some very effective dramatic scenes, each involving a dilemma or revelation. I found Mrs. Sparsit the most interesting character, although she is not remotely likeable. Her manipulations and attempts to destroy Louisa are perhaps the most compelling part of the narrative, far more intricate than the crude and careless behaviour of Harthouse and Louisa’s brother. Yet she’s also a comedic character in her intense snobbery, subtle bitchiness, and use of Noodle as an insult:

"You found Miss Gradgrind - I really cannot call her Mrs Bounderby; it’s very absurd of me - as youthful as I described her?” asked Mrs Sparsit, sweetly.
“You drew her portrait perfectly,” said Mr Harthouse. “Presented her dead image.”
“Very engaging, Sir,” said Mrs Sparsit, causing her mittens slowly to revolve over one another.
“Highly so.”
“It used to be considered,” said Mrs Sparsit, “that Miss Gradgrind was wanting in animation, but I confess she appears to me considerably and strikingly improved in that respect.”

Sissy is given less attention than the early chapters would indicate, although her friendship with Rachael is lovely. She bridges the class divide between owners and workers, which seems gigantic whenever Mr. Bounderby interacts with Stephen Blackpool. Actually, my main critique is that Stephen Blackpool’s speech should not have been written phonetically, as this made it very tiresome to read. No-one else’s contained such an annoying profusion of apostrophes, although he often talked with people who surely had the same accent (such as Rachael). On the other hand, the depiction of Coketown, the archetype of a squalid Victorian industrial town, is brilliant. Industry’s refrain of complaint about regulation has not changed in more than 150 years:

A dense formless jumble, with sheets of cross light in it, that showed nothing but masses of darkness:- Coketown in the distance was suggestive of itself, though not a brick of it could be seen.
The wonder was, it was there at all. It had been ruined so often, that it was amazing how it had borne so many shocks. Surely there never was such fragile china-ware as that of which the millers of Coketown were made. Handle them never so lightly, and they fell to pieces with such ease that you might suspect them of being flawed before. They were ruined, when they were required to send labouring children to school; they were ruined when inspectors were appointed to look into their works; they were ruined, when such inspectors considered it doubtful whether they were quite justified in chopping people up with their machinery; they were utterly ruined when it was hinted that perhaps they need not always make quite so much smoke.

Although on balance I prefer the generally greater passion of 19th century French fiction, I am inclined to read further Dickens novels. Compared to A Tale of Two Cities and Nicholas Nickleby, ‘Hard Times’ has a less cohesive narrative, but a more subtle and intriguing combination of characters and themes. There is a great deal of insight to be found, as well as high drama and amusement. The callous obliviousness of the rich remains, sadly, very relevant to the present day. I can see why Ali Smith would draw a link between Gradgrind’s delusional obsession with facts and the current tendency for automation to conceal bias. Dickens makes it clear that while Gradgrind is sincere, industrialists and politicians merely pay lip service to facts and statistics in order to serve their greedy interests. The analogy with the 21st century surveillance capitalism is imperfect, but it’s definitely there.

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.