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Title: Hard Times (Audio Editions) by Charles Dickens, Martin Jarvis ISBN: 1-57270-336-9 Publisher: Audio Partners Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 Format: Audio Cassette Volumes: 8 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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: Worth the time
Comment: I hated reading Dickens in high school, and I was never able to get past the first chapter of any of his books, including this one. Now that I'm in my mid-30's, I want to re-visit a lot of the works that I had no patience for as a teenager, so I read Hard Times. Although there are many flaws to this book, I felt proud to have finally cleared the Dickens hurdle. Dickens is excellent at creating sympathetic (and evil) characters, even though they may be slightly cliche or wooden. The fact is, Dickens is able to hook you in with his plots and create a profound concern on behalf of the reader that the good guy (or girl) wins and the bad guy suffers. A lot of the twists in this book were a little "too convenient" and implausible to make it a crowining work of literature, but nevertheless it has motivated me to move on to Dickens' larger, more daunting works. If you are having any trepidation about tackling Dickens, Hard Times is a good place to start.
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.
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Title: Hard Times (Cliffs Notes) by Josephine J. Curton ISBN: 0822005786 Publisher: Cliffs Notes Pub. Date: 02 September, 1964 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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Title: David Copperfield (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Jeremy Tambling ISBN: 0140434941 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1997 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Little Dorrit (Penguin Classics) by Charles Dickens, Stephen Wall, Helen Small ISBN: 0140434925 Publisher: Penguin Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $8.95 |
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Title: Heart of Darkness (Dover Thrift Editions) by Joseph Conrad ISBN: 0486264645 Publisher: Dover Publications Pub. Date: 01 August, 1990 List Price(USD): $1.50 |
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Title: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens ISBN: 0812580036 Publisher: Tor Books Pub. Date: 01 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $4.99 |
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