Hard Times (Bantam Classics) Mass Market Paperback – March 1, 1981

Looks great cant wait to read

I had to read this for my literature class but I turned out to enjoy it more than I thought I would! Great book for the college intro level.

Iron machines, dull, polluting and monotonous; under their tyranny the will, desires, and ambitions of humanity has been replaced by manufactured objects, statistics and industrial shapes and colors. But nature pushes through this cold society, and that conflict fuels this story.Being not a fan of realism (much realism in my life already xP) I read Dickens just because I love the 19th century literature from the UK. He hooked me up just since the first paragraph. His description of the characters is life-like. It was so realist that I got a shock when I knew afterwards that the city is not a real place. It is not only that everything is "showed," is also that you can "listen" sounds, "step" into grounds of different textures, feel the hair of Louisa over the bare chest of his brother. For moments Dickens is quite poetic, as in that moment in which Louisa listens a bell in middle of the quite night, it is described in such a way that it would be a disservice to tell you how. In other part a character, jealousy and desperate, is prying and Dickens masterly blends her feelings with the rain (!) It is awe-inspiring the richness of details of that century. The characters have such intensity not only despite being dehumanized by the machines, but because precisely that: they are about to have a neurosis for crushing their nature. There is not much humor but there are characters that end being humorous, there are twists, revelations, it was quite entertaining to read and sure I'd love to read more Dickens' stories.There is social critic in this book, but Dickens never forgets that he is doing literature; something that Mark Twain tend to forget. Almost nobody is black and white but they tend to be complex. The more power the persons have the more tempted they are to neglect they are treating with human beings, being either the businessmen, the educators, the aristocracy and, even, the union of workers. If there is a religion it seems to be the iron machine. The only exception in character development seems to be a worker, Blackpool, whose participation in the novel tended to be a bit in the pathetic side, in an exaggerated way. I still don't like realism but sure I'd like to read more about Dickens.About the AmazonClassics edition I think it is a very recommendable edition. I didn't detect mistakes, the typography and formatting are visually clean and modern, and the X-Ray as always is useful.

This novel was a challenge to me albeit a shorter story than most, not so much the content but with his very creative colorful characters he also incorporated one with a lisp, that couldn't pronounce his “s” and another that spoke in a very “cockney” accent. In able to understand the content I needed to slow down and read the passages aloud. Very clever and somewhat playful Mr. Dickens. As with his other novels he wrote about the down trodden, misunderstood and serious difficulties of the lower members of society. The story takes place in Coletown, a dreary place to be sure with all the smoke from factories polluting the environment. There is not one or singular protagonist in the story, many have a story to tell. A child abandoned by her father who is a circus performer and has lost his touch and wants a better life for her. An educator who believes all children should learn only facts and nothing but facts so even his own children don't know how to deal with society or relationships in general. A bank and mill owner who lives a lie. A poor mill worker, stuck with an alcoholic wife. Dickens even has added one of those ladies who is in everyone's business and a libertine. Very entertaining even though melancholy at times I highly recommend.

The book binding was not glued on the front cover and the binding is loose across half the front binding. It's Charles Dickens so it is a very hard read.

This is an excellent TV version of Dickens' novel. The actors portraying Gradgrind and Bounderby showed their respective fact-stressing and insensitive natures very well. Louisa was well shown as a woman whose feelings had been kept inside all of her life. There is also the gloom of Coketown, an atmosphere impossible for its citizens to escape from. This adaptation is very close to the book and there are no great departures from the original story. There is another version of Hard Times available (which I have not seen) that had some poor reviews, so I chose to purchase this one instead. Surprisingly, this one was not included in any other Dickens DVD collection, but it is available separately here. If you love Dickens, this is well worth getting since it's one of the best miniseries created. There's not much technology since the series was made back in 1977 on a limited budget, but in the viewing experience there's a great story brought to the screen with some wonderful drama.

Charles Dickens is............well, simply Charles Dickens. While 'Hard Times' is one of his lesser known tales, it deserves the same merit as those of ther better known titles. The characterizations that are present have an equal depiction with those of any other of his novels and his descriptions of venues are, as I said before, simply Charles Dickens. No one weaves a clearer tale with such clearly defined characters as does he. The other fascinating factor about this author is the manner in which he simply throws out character after character and then, at the end of the novel, draws them all back together in a tightly knitted plot line. While this novel is known for its rationality vs. humanism conflict, class separation, family ties and elitism are fully explored as well.