Hard Times by Charles DickensMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hard Times is my fave Dickens' novels, not only because it is by far the shortest of barely a quarter of the length of those written immediately before and after it. Much is made of the sociological dimensions of the story; lower class injustice in Victorian industrial society and all that. For me that is saying westerns are about cowboys. A western is a setting, and this has a setting. For me, it is the story of Louisa coming into her own as a young woman with a domineering father. Indeed, the three books end with Louisa climaxes:
* the unwanted marriage proposal (Book I),
* as a newlywed confronted with an admirer and her rigorous education having stifled her ability to express her emotions (Book II),
* Concluding all at the end of Book III, Louisa will grow old and never remarry, showing kindness to the less fortunate and being loved by Sissy's children, she will spend her life encouraging imagination and fancy in all she encounters as the post-utilitarian agent for hope in this bleak story.
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