Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Hard Times is #888 on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. See the whole list and my progress here. This summer, I’m reading from the list for my 20 Books of Summer challenge, and instead of straight reviews, I’m going to compare the 1001 Books write ups with my own impressions.
Hard Times is one of the lesser known Dickens novels. It’s been on my shelf for 10+ years, and I’ve started it more than once, without getting much farther than the schoolroom chapters, where the teacher is named “Mr. McChokemchild.” A library ebook helped me get past the small font in my Penguin Popular Classics edition, and I soon wondered why no one told me this book has so much more than school children. It’s a classic Victorian social novel, tackling class, unionization, alcohol abuse, gambling, infidelity, and more. It’s sort of a North and South, with more humour and less romance.
Well, someone did try to tell me. The 1001 Books Hard Times write up not only mentions Gaskell (in an unfavourable comparison) but the entry is right beside the entry for North and South, highlighting the fact that these stories were being serialized at pretty much the exact same time – what a time to be alive! You know, if you weren’t a factory worker… or a woman…
The write up also would have helped me make the connection to utilitarianism, a philosophy I’ve been interested in since reading The Brothers Karamazov (and since going down several rabbit holes related to the current crop of tech-bro philosophers who are rebranding it as Effective Altruism). This theme is first explored in this early classroom scenes – what is an education for? What’s the point of “wondering” when you can memorize facts?
The write up portrays Hard Times as a bit of an unfocused look at these various social issues, and I guess it is, but compared to Dickens’ known works like A Tale of Two Cities, I found this one more satisfying. It read faster (not only because it’s significantly shorter), the characters were more varied, and while some were one-dimensional “bad guys”, most had some depth and showed some growth, even some of the female characters. And it’s just very funny. The circus ringmaster, Mr. Sleary, with his lisp and his rolling glass eye, was played for comic relief, but he speaks the line that sums up the book:
‘People must be amuthed, Thquire, thomehow…they can’t be alwayth a working, nor yet they can’t be alwayth a learning. Make the betht of uth; not the wurth.’
Chapter VI
To me, that’s as good as “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known” (though perhaps not as good as “the best of times” etc.) I’m glad I finally read this. For me, that’s four down, six to go for the 1001 Books-worthy Dickens novels.
Reading in Bed 
Ah that’s interesting, because Hard Times is far and away my least favourite Dickens (though I suppose that the one I haven’t read, The Pickwick Papers, may turn out to be more hateable). It’s been 15 years since I read HT but I remember finding it incredibly dull when not silly, and just much more thin than I expected from Dickens. Perhaps it’s time to revisit it.
I think a lot of people feel that way! And about the Pickwick Papers, which is also on my shelf but doesn’t sound nearly as fun.
I read hard times a very long time ago and like you enjoyed Dicken’s characters Actually the book was published as ‘Condition of England’ novel in 1854. After observing a strike. Dickens was motivated by social conditioning and conveys reslism with imaginative grotesques and vivid, melodramatic elements. A good read with two aspects rather like Gulliver’s travels.
Yes I read a bit about how he came to write it. I think that’s where the comparisons to North and South come. Elizabeth Gaskell probably did a bit job portraying the plight of factory workers, but Dickens was funnier!
I’ve not read Dickens… although I did get three-quarters of the way through Great Expectations about 20 years ago before I lost my copy (on a train, I think) and just never bothered to replace it 🥴
I, too, am working my way through this book, albeit very very very (you get the idea) slowly. My edition is different to yours though… I wonder how many books on the list are different? I like the idea of using 20 Books of Summer to read more of the ones you already own.
There is a book tube channel where she mashed all the editions together and came up with 1300 and some books. I’m sticking to me edition, which is the first one!!
I have a bit of a Dickens allergy because I grew up in Dickens country and thus he was constantly being forced on us at school – but I do have some Dickens on my Classics Club list now! I like those sprawling Victorian social novels, and it sounds like this really fits the bill.
And it’s short 😉
Oh, now you’ve made me want to go on a Dickens reading binge – especially as this is one I haven’t read!!!!
I know I feel the same way!! I still haven’t read all of Oliver Twist and that movie is a childhood favourite
I really struggle to muster the effort to read Dickens, though I think I also have Pickwick Papers sitting on my shelf. Bring British you kind of have Dickens rammed down your throat and, whilst this may be for good reason, it gets tedious and over familiar and it’s easy to forget that Dickens can be insightful and fun.
My unabashed biases aside, this sounds like it was a fun read and worth the effort. For myself perhaps I’ll end up watching a BBC adaptation. There’s bound to be one or five in the old archives 😁
I don’t know if there is one for this, not a recent one. Masterpiece Theatre, get on it!
I read both it and North and South recently, and I feel Gaskell would have profited from Mr Sleary’s advice – she forgot to put anything entertaining into her novel! Not my favourite Dickens because I actually like all the overblown characters in his major novels, but I feel he does a good job with the themes he’s chosen, most of which are still relevant today.
Totally agree. The North and South miniseries, on the other hand… very entertaining