Charles Dickens sigue siendo para muchos el prototipo de novelista victoriano pues en su obra se condensan los valores y los ideales de esa sociedad. Novelista burgués, sensible a los cambios sociales que se producen en su entorno, logró conciliar dos mundos: el de la sociedad establecida y el de los descontentos, el de los oprimidos. Tiempos difíciles constituye una crítica al utilitarismo más radical y aborda el tema del matrimonio como reflejo de su infeliz experiencia personal.

I read this as part of the Open University Arts Foundation Course ( )

Yes, a classic. ( )

Dickens seems to have been tired at the time he wrote this. It was not up to the usual detail that he put into his books. This is about a father who runs a school in a town in England called Coketown. It's a town dominated by a look factory that pollutes the air and the river and the humans and Animals who are part of the town. The father believes that imagination, and fantasies, daydreaming, the arts, have no valid place in a child's learning. Thus it is that his own children are treated to this standard and grow up to be unhappy as a result.
It starts out with an Italian traveling circus in the town, and the daughter of one of the clowns has been abandoned by her father, who is sick and doesn't have the health to make people laugh anymore. Sissy Jupe, as she is called, is taken home by Mr Gradgrind, the headmaster, and given the job of looking after his wife, the hypochondriac. Sissy is actually the most interesting character, imo, yet very little time is spent detailing her life after going to live with the Gradgrinds.
Yea, disappointing Dickens work. ( )

At the outset of this novel, we know that Dickens is going to pit reason against emotion, fact against feeling, and that reason and fact are going to come up short. In a world without sympathy, compassion or warmth, Louisa and Tom Gradgrind are raised. They have everything they might want in terms of money and position, but nothing else; their contrast is Sissy Jupe, a circus child who has the love of both her father and the circus family, but is steeped in poverty.

In true Dickens style, there are several side stories, one of which is the star-crossed love story of Rachael and Stephen, a sweet and dedicated pair, who bear their misfortunes with grace and acceptance. Theirs is unselfish love, which contrasts sharply with the love of Louisa for her brother, Tom, and his selfish abuse of her love for his own gain, and the loveless and unnatural marriage of Louisa with her father’s friend, Bounderby.

As always, Dickens tackles the evils of the day with some humor, in the person of Mr. Sleary, and a taste of villainy, in the form of Mrs. Sparsit. He addresses the rise of unions, and in a world where such ideas were radical, he paints them in a more favorable light than might be expected. But, most effectively, he tackles the educational system that puts everything above the individual child. While Gradgrind is not a cruel man, like Mr. Squeers who runs the school in Nicholas Nickleby, he is just as misguided and damaging to his charges. Bitzer, a minor character who serves an important part in the plot, emerges as a perfect example of the kind of empty shell that can be made of a child who is given nothing to draw on but self-interest.

I did not enjoy Hard Times as much as I have enjoyed other Dickens novels, but I did find it a worthwhile read and as always, there are characters here that will be long remembered. My next Dickens will be Little Dorrit, and I have heard that it is among his best efforts.
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