AnyBook4Less.com	Find the Best Price on the Web Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money Keyword AuthorISBN

Title: Hard Times by Charles Dickens, S. V. Krishnan ISBN: 0-86131-176-0 Publisher: Vantage Press Inc. Pub. Date: January, 1983 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $4.95

Your Country USA Canada United Kingdom Australia Austria Belgium France Germany Italy Netherlands Switzerland Currency AutoUSD CAD GBP EUR AUD CHF Delivery Only cheapest delivery All delivery options Include Used Books Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 3.62 (45 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: More Than Facts
Comment: I initially lamented the fact that Hard Times was assigned to me in my British lit. class. I had read some of Dickens's melodramas like A Tale of Two Cities and Oliver Twist and enjoyed them, but everything I heard about Hard Times said this was nothing like those. This was supposedly just strictly social commentary. My interpretation of that: BORING.

But then I read it.

Hard Times isn't like Dickens's other novels, but I don't think that it has any less heart than those masterpieces. In fact, Dickens endured himself much further to me with this novel as he has his characters perform Thomas Carlyle's enduring philosophy.

The novel follows the Gradgrind family who is raised adhering to FACTS and living in a society which worships the manufacturing machine. As the novel progresses, connections are made and broken, and the characters come to the realization that there is much more to reality than the material facts.

Hard Times is told so compassionately. The reader cares for these people and their tragic lives. The story is also told with biting humor that still cuts at today's society (this novel feels really modern), and the underlying philosophy is one which is so needed in our post-modern world. I would certainly recommend this novel to fans of Dickens and to fans of the truly literary novel.

Rating: 4
Summary: Scathing
Comment: In this novel set in industrial revolution era Great Britain, Dickens is about as subtle as a sledgehammer. Unlike some of his other social commentary, where he wraps his point in a gripping, twisting, and entertaining plot, Dickens goes right for the jugular in "Hard Times".

In this novel he lashes out against the dehumanization of our children through "education", as well as the still very real gulf between the well to do and impoverished. Even the names of his characters are none-too-subtle jabs. The local teacher, Professor Gradgrind, seeks not to educate or enlighten, but to hammer home facts and turn his children into automatons. His counterpart in the business arena is Bounderby, a blustering, egomaniacal, and ultimately vacuous man. Their countermeasure is a young orphan girl named Sissy Jupe. She is a lovable character that embodies compassion and humanity, but is very nearly broken by the their overbearing influence.

This is not a "fun" book to read, and if you're looking to be entertained in traditional Dickens fashion I strongly reccomend looking elsewhere (i.e. David Copperfield). The novel is relatively straightforward and simple of plot, and his scathing social commentary cannot be missed. The most compelling reason to read "Hard Times" though is the fact that the same mentality criticized here is still very much in existence today, and this makes the novel just as relevant for the 21st century as it was when first penned.

Rating: 4
Summary: Dickens message still relevant.
Comment: Considered by 19th century critics to be one of Dickens' more artistic and literary triumphs, Hard Times can be viewed in present time as a blistering polemic against the rise of industrial society and the dominate philosophy that rose in tandem with the industrial age, utilitarianism

It is well known that Dickens was a chronicler of his times, and his mode of expression, the novel. An intensely emotional individual, Dickens was known to be a power walker, starting in the afternoon, covering miles, to return home just before sunrise. It was during these extensive walks that he witnessed the utter poverty and squalor scattered throughout the streets of London. These walks brought inspiration for many of his novels, particularly, Hard Times.

In this novel, Dickens explores the applications of utilitarianism in its highly rational, and in many ways, brutal forms. The novels general theme is that a philosophy that is only concerned with happiness and survival for the majority, will attempt to quash any and all individual thought and effort. Individual ideas, emotion, imagination and creativity must be ruthlessly rejected in order for the majority of people to think alike, work alike and behave alike to attain a status quo of happiness for all. Rationality must prevail because imagination promotes individuality, which is anathema to mob concerns.

This polemic against utilitarianism is expressed clearly and persuasively in the practice of education. In the opening chapter for example, 'The One Thing Needful", the reader is introduced to this dictatorial emphasis on the rational:

"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 be of any service to them." (p. 47)

Romanticism was now on the wane and utilitarianism and the rise of rationalism infiltrated every aspect of 19th century industrial life - emotion has no place in capitalism - the masses are reduced to statistics.

Dickens main point in writing Hard Times, I believe, was to illustrate the brutality of the applications of the philosophy, utilitarianism, and the destructive results it entails when humaneness, the vital aspect of our nature, is ignored completely. Dickens was reporting, and speaking against a potentially destructive sway in society away from basic humanity and the importance of the individual, towards the highly mechanical and rational 'mob' philosophy of Utilitarianism during the Industrial revolution.

In our so-called modern times, Dickens message continues to be relevant. Our societies emphasis on rationalism and the exclusion of emotion, can only lead to destruction. A balance must be found.