Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Hard Times readalong 2022

242 replies

Piggywaspushed · 28/12/2021 09:52

Hello and welcome to the selected Dickensalong of 2022 : Hard Times.

This is Dickens' shortest novel (yay!) but was still serialised in instalments running from April to August 1854.

I propose shortening this slightly:

January BOOK ONE Chapters 1- 6
February Chapters 7–12
March Chapters 13 -16
April BOOK TWO Chapter 1- 5
May Chapters 6-12
June BOOK THREE Chapters 1 - 5
July Chapters 6 to end.

Some version number chapters consecutively but I have gone for the Wordsworth edition numbering. Hope that is OK.

So this is kind of a pint sized readalong! Might be more manageable for some of those who fall by the wayside normally (naming no names...)

I enjoy Dickens when he does social commentary so am looking forward to this one and to eventually meet Gradgrind.

OP posts:
Terpsichore · 02/06/2022 11:23

TWIW was serialised as well (in Dickens's journal 'All The Year Round' - they were big buddies), so we could probably divide it up OK into decent chunks?

Another vote here for your excellent stewardship, Piggy, but I appreciate you have plenty of other claims on your time!

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 10:37

Awww, shucks.

OP posts:
IsFuzzyBeagMise · 02/06/2022 10:36

ChessieFL · 02/06/2022 10:28

But you do come up with intelligent things to say Piggy! You’re good at analysing what’s really going on under the surface of the book whereas I just know whether I like it or not!!

Yes! I agree with Chessie. I also like reading your analyses, Piggy.

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 02/06/2022 10:35

Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 09:52

It would be quite some drinking game if you downed a shot every time she said interesting!

I found it interesting that she is a Louisa fan and thinks she is an interesting female character, a viewpoint not shared by most of us it seems.

I think that Sissy and Rachael had a quiet strength about them. Louisa started out quite feisty, but seemed to fade away after her marriage.

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 10:29

Bit surprised there is no Wordsworth edition , Penguin out of print and no Oxford either!

OP posts:
ChessieFL · 02/06/2022 10:28

But you do come up with intelligent things to say Piggy! You’re good at analysing what’s really going on under the surface of the book whereas I just know whether I like it or not!!

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 10:26

Never stopped me!

OP posts:
ChessieFL · 02/06/2022 10:18

I’m happy with WIW. I also don’t mind hosting but if someone else is keen to host that’s fine too! I can’t guarantee I’ll come up with any intelligent thoughts though!

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 09:52

It would be quite some drinking game if you downed a shot every time she said interesting!

I found it interesting that she is a Louisa fan and thinks she is an interesting female character, a viewpoint not shared by most of us it seems.

OP posts:
IsFuzzyBeagMise · 02/06/2022 09:51

Thanks Piggy. That was interesting as Katie said many times over :)

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 09:08

Katie on Hard Times.

OP posts:
Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 09:06

I tried reading it years ago but failed. I was checking more if it was long enough for a readalong. Dickens worked well because he wrote in instalments so there were natural cliffhangers.

Are others up for WIW? Anyone else want to host, or are people going to shuffle around not making eye contact until I relent? 😉

OP posts:
Terpsichore · 02/06/2022 08:49

A quick Google says about 700 pages, Piggy, but it’s very gripping, in my experience - when I first read it, I took it to read on holiday, thought I’d just make a start, and finished it in the car before we’d even got to the holiday cottage (er, I wasn’t doing the driving, obviously!).

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 02/06/2022 07:33

I don't as a general rule re read books and have read Vanity Fair quite recently. How long is The Woman In White?

OP posts:
ChessieFL · 02/06/2022 06:57

I’m happy with another Dickens (I have the complete works to get through!) but also happy with Collins or Trollope as I haven’t read either. Another suggestion is Vanity Fair by Thackeray.

LadybirdDaphne · 02/06/2022 01:06

Not sure I've got too much to add about Hard Times - 'not Dickens' personal best' pretty much sums it up for me. Enjoyed Bounderby and Mrs Sparsit, got annoyed by Dickens' anti-union stance. He didn't seem to be offering any other solutions for improving the position of the working class.

Felt very sorry for Louisa and am daydreaming about a follow-on where she doesn't get married and have children because the love of her life turns out to be woman who is her intellectual equal. Have been watching/reading too many Sarah Waters-esque Victorian dramas I think. (It's your fault Ammonite!)

Happy to read Wilkie Collins or Trollope because I've never tackled either before.

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 01/06/2022 21:44

I've never read Trollope so that would be fine with me.

Terpsichore · 01/06/2022 21:24

I’ve read The Woman in White and I love it. I don’t mind reading it again, though.

Would anyone fancy trying some Trollope? Barchester Towers is good, and although it’s the second of the Chronicles of Barsetshire, you can read it as a standalone.

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 01/06/2022 21:05

Would anyone like to read 'The Woman in White' by Wilkie Collins?

I read it years ago and thought it was good, although I would read more Dickens or something else!

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 01/06/2022 20:15

I genuinely have no idea for another readalong : I think I might be all Dickensed out.

OP posts:
InTheCludgie · 01/06/2022 18:39

Just finished the book, my second Charles Dickens after A Christmas Carol! I enjoyed this overall, glad Louisa escaped a bad marriage but sad she never found love again. Hilarious that Josiah Bounderby Of Coketown was unmasked for the massive fraud that he was.

Do we have a plan for another readalong? I'd love to do another.

Original poster
Piggywaspushed · 01/06/2022 17:27

Oh that did make me laugh! They did go to quite an effort to get the chatty man out of the hole, only for him to die shortly thereafter.

OP posts:
IsFuzzyBeagMise · 01/06/2022 16:35

He was very loquacious for a nearly dead man...wasn't he just? I thought so too :)

DesdamonasHandkerchief · 01/06/2022 10:54

That screen shot makes me feel relieved I listened to the Audible version.
I agree Hard Times isn't Dickens at his finest. I thought it picked up in the middle but then tailed off again.
I started off feeling sorry for Stephen Blackpool and ended up wishing he'd stop monologuing already and die. He was very loquacious for a nearly dead man. And are we meant to think it was pure coincidence that Louisa and Rachel stumbled across him down the disused mine shaft? A coincidence too far for me.
Favourite characters were Bounderby (someone up thread compared him to the Monty Python four Yorkshiremen, which I thought was spot on) I too enjoyed his unmasking as a charlatan, and Bitzer, but that could have been because the Audible narrator (Bertie Carvel) gave Bitzer a wonderful oily, unctuous voice that made me look forward to his appearances.
All in all a 5/10 Dickens for me.

IsFuzzyBeagMise · 01/06/2022 10:22

Ha ha...yeth he wath...and it got a bit tirethome 😄

Swipe left for the next trending thread