charles dickens Hard Times

[lunababymoonchild]

[Note: spoilers in review]
 

Set not in London for a change but in the fictional Northern town of Coketown, an industrial, polluted environment with downtrodden and poverty stricken workers and downtrodden women in wealthier families.  Naturally, being Dickens it is set in the Victorian era and is full of his usual social commentary.

 

Thomas Gradgrind is a strict totalitarian and educates both of his children (unusual for the era as one of his children is female). His wife still lives but not that you'd notice since she seems to be unwell most, if not all, of the time. 

 

Josiah Bounderby is a factory owner and doesn't seem to possess an ounce of compassion.

 

A circus - a real circus I mean, with performers etc - makes an appearance, twice, which lends a little levity to the unremitting hardships of the ordinary workers, hardships that the reader gets to know well.  

 

Gradgrind's children grow up and his daughter marries Bounderby (as expected) who is a full 30 years older than she is and his son gets older (the only way I can think to describe it). Both daughter and son pay a heavy price for their father's obsession with factual education where their imagination isn't acknowledged let alone catered for. Meanwhile a thoroughly honest man is blamed for something he could not have done and as he returns to defend himself he falls down a mineshaft and dies.

 

This is superbly written, as you'd expect, and very effectively shows the difference between the classes and that the wealthier classes are not necessarily better people - nothing much changed there then!  Gradgrind realises in the end his mistakes and tries his best to deal with the situation that he understands he created but Bounderby just gets worse and his whole life history is revealed at the end of the book but it doesn't explain his character so he seems to be irredeemable. Sharp social commentary, expertly written by a master of the craft this was nevertheless an enjoyable book. 

 

Recommended

 

[Hayley]

(A just popped a little spoiler alert at the top of this thread, just in case!)

 

I really hated Bounderby when I read this and the moment with the mineshaft is so heartbreaking!

 

You haven’t mentioned Sissy though and she’s my favourite! What did you think of her?

 

On 4/16/2023 at 11:53 AM, lunababymoonchild said:

Sharp social commentary

Absolutely. I can imagine a lot of people at the time changing their opinions on divorce laws after reading Hard Times! 

[lunababymoonchild]

1 hour ago, Hayley said:

 

I really hated Bounderby when I read this and the moment with the mineshaft is so heartbreaking!

Yes, Dickens does a good job of making Bounderby wholly unlikeable and the mineshaft incident was heartbreaking

 

1 hour ago, Hayley said:

 

You haven’t mentioned Sissy though and she’s my favourite! What did you think of her?

I thought she was lovely and how she ended up was just right at the end of the book, I thought

Edited April 18, 2023 by lunababymoonchild

[KEV67]

Bounderby reminded me of a certain orange president. I thought he was the best character in it.

Some bits of the book worked and some bits did not. I liked the bit when Gradgrind was passing on Mr Bounderby's proposal to his daughter. Other bits were rather boring. There was a circus master with a lisp, who was rather annoying. Those parts were difficult to read, as was the poor factory worker's northern accent.

The book is sometimes listed as a factory novel, along with Mary Barton, North and South, and Shirley, and not many others. To me it seemed more about education than working in factories. Charles Dickens appeared to be worried that only STEM subjects appeared to be valued, and that concentrating on a very limited curriculum useful to business and industry would cause children to grow up stunted. Coke Town is thriving, economically speaking, but the city is ugly and polluted, and its inhabitants are not very happy.