Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
This is one of my favorite books by Charles Dickens. It is his shortest work, and his funniest. There is much obvious humor here. But, it is Dickens at his social critic best. For those frightened by the commitment to Dickens' seemingly never-ending Nicholas Nickleby or Bleak House, I recommend Hard Times.
Another great thing about this book is that it is available in free e-versions in many places: gutenberg.org, www.dickens-literature.com (also available in downloadable audio form here), http://dickens.stanford.edu/hard/time... (available here in a scanned version of the original publication in Household Words), and a Google.co.uk books version (http://books.google.co.uk/books?)
The book was published in 1854, in serial form in Dickens' own weekly journal, Household Words, in an attempt to spark interest in the struggling publication. It was a satire of hard-core Utilitarianism, who preached analysis, efficiency, and devotion to the bottom line as the way to provide society's blessings to the greatest number of people. Think 19th Century trickle-down.
Louisa, the oldest child of Mr. Gradgrind, attends her father's school in that Coketown. He is interested in facts and only facts, with a devotion to make Detective Joe Friday wince. He teaches one of Louisa's classmates, Sissy Jupe, is the child of a horseman in the circus. When forced to choose between an education or a life with her father in the circus, Sissy chooses the former, hoping someday to return to the latter. Sissy represents the amalgam of logic and emotion, the compromise Louisa seeks throughout her life and never manages to attain. Louisa's brother, Tom, also pays for his father's devotion to analysis, logic, and statistics. He is unprepared to confront the moral grey areas of life and ends his life in America, as a fugitive bank robber.
This is a great read-aloud book, allowing the reader to give in to the Utilitarian bombast of Gradgrind and Bounderby (the über-capitalist mill owner,) and the pinched and punctilious pronunciation of Bounderby's "paid companion," Mrs. Sparsit, whose interfering, jealous machinations help bring the Gradgrind children to their sad and lonely ends.
If you feel the need to add a Dickens novel to your reading list, Hard Times is an enjoyable choice, and you'll still have enough life left over for other pursuits.
Another great thing about this book is that it is available in free e-versions in many places: gutenberg.org, www.dickens-literature.com (also available in downloadable audio form here), http://dickens.stanford.edu/hard/time... (available here in a scanned version of the original publication in Household Words), and a Google.co.uk books version (http://books.google.co.uk/books?)
The book was published in 1854, in serial form in Dickens' own weekly journal, Household Words, in an attempt to spark interest in the struggling publication. It was a satire of hard-core Utilitarianism, who preached analysis, efficiency, and devotion to the bottom line as the way to provide society's blessings to the greatest number of people. Think 19th Century trickle-down.
Louisa, the oldest child of Mr. Gradgrind, attends her father's school in that Coketown. He is interested in facts and only facts, with a devotion to make Detective Joe Friday wince. He teaches one of Louisa's classmates, Sissy Jupe, is the child of a horseman in the circus. When forced to choose between an education or a life with her father in the circus, Sissy chooses the former, hoping someday to return to the latter. Sissy represents the amalgam of logic and emotion, the compromise Louisa seeks throughout her life and never manages to attain. Louisa's brother, Tom, also pays for his father's devotion to analysis, logic, and statistics. He is unprepared to confront the moral grey areas of life and ends his life in America, as a fugitive bank robber.
This is a great read-aloud book, allowing the reader to give in to the Utilitarian bombast of Gradgrind and Bounderby (the über-capitalist mill owner,) and the pinched and punctilious pronunciation of Bounderby's "paid companion," Mrs. Sparsit, whose interfering, jealous machinations help bring the Gradgrind children to their sad and lonely ends.
If you feel the need to add a Dickens novel to your reading list, Hard Times is an enjoyable choice, and you'll still have enough life left over for other pursuits.
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