Reader discussion: Hard Times

Public reader discussion about Hard Times in the WeRead Catalog by Charles Dickens.

[Off Topic] The Right Book at the Right Time

By FolioComet1987

Hey all—curious for this month’s off-topic thing: has there been a book that just somehow showed up at the right moment for you? We always bring up the same kinds of books here—ones that really changed how you think, or helped you through something tough, or even just made you feel something when you were a kid. Was there one that genuinely had an effect on the way your life went, mostly because you read it when you did? What was it, and what made it matter to you?

A book that got you through hard times

By BeanBee

Hey everyone, What’s a book that genuinely helped you get through some really rough, dark stretches? I mean stuff for mental illness, grief, loss—anything like that. I’m trying to find a fiction one if possible, but I’ll take recs for nonfiction too. I’ve been struggling with health anxiety, depression, and OCD, and it all feels tangled up with past trauma and grief. Things have been heavy lately, and I really want something that’ll help me through it. Thanks 🙏🏼

I was just curious over Charles DICKens "HARD" Times. So i felt obliged to post this.

By simple-market5111

I read Bill Bryson’s *At Home* and honestly it really made me realize how brutal those hard times actually were. Like, living in a Brazilian favela suddenly doesn’t seem half as bad—feels like a total joke compared to what people went through (and I’m not exaggerating).

Which Dickens novel should I read first? (Please ignore my username)

By Cloud-Prose45

I’ve been wanting to start reading Charles Dickens, but I’m totally stuck on where to begin. What’s the best one for a first-time reader?

Best of Charles Dickens

By luckywindow1990

I just got a full set of Charles Dickens’ complete works, and my reading list for next year is already like 100+ books, so I’m going to have to take these pretty slow. Where would you start? Would you go in order, like by year, or jump around? Are there a few key ones I should try first? Also, what’s your favorite Dickens book? And is there anything you really didn’t like that should be saved for later? I’m genuinely open to suggestions.

Charles Dickens Hard times (Chapter 2) Murdering the Innocents

By Superuser

Okay, so I *think* this is basically talking about someone who’s really good at fighting—he’d step in no matter what the situation was, mix up moves with his right and left, wear the other guy down until they’re basically backed into a corner, then land a clean hit. But the last line totally lost me: what does it mean about having “high authority” and bringing about some kind of “public-office Millennium” where Commissioners rule on earth? I get the general idea, but that part feels really unclear.

Charles Dickens writing style really annoys me

By dull_button8

This seems like a sub where people talk about and geek out over classic literature—stuff like plays, poems, novels, short stories, essays, all that. You’d expect discussion to get into analysis and criticism, maybe the history of the book or author, and even the social/political context around when it was written. Also, there’s a related one linked: /r/lickerish.

Am I using ‘embrace’ correctly?

By ionCastle

I’m trying to comment on Hard Times by Charles Dickens, and I’m not really sure how to explain the idea in the line “Education should embrace imagination and morality.” Does “embrace” sound right there, or is it kinda weird?

Flannery O'Connor

By NinaInTucson95

Would love to talk with anyone who’s got thoughts about her work. I’ve been working through her collected short stories and I’ve got a bunch of feelings/questions, so I’m curious what other people think. First off: she’s honestly brilliant, and her spot in American fiction feels totally earned. But also—I can’t stand “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” That one has always turned me off, and it’s also her most reprinted/anthologized story. I’ve tried it three times now (including in this collection again) and I still don’t like it. I’ve run into other O’Connor fans who feel the same way. I’ve got my own guesses about why that particular story rubs me the wrong way, but I’d rather hear what others think first. On the flip side, I do really like how much her stories can stay kind of ambiguous. She’s very clearly a Christian writer (and more specifically Catholic), so there’s a strong religious angle running through everything. But you rarely finish one and think, “okay, cool, it was all explained neatly at the end.” Like “Revelation” for example—this polite, well-mannered but openly racist/classist woman gets some kind of spiritual awakening, and it looks like it helps her… but then the ending leaves you wondering what, if anything, she actually took from it, or what lesson she even “got.” I like that kind of lingering uncertainty. It’s not like the story just sits there doing nothing—none of her stories do that. Also, she’s got style, and she can do this uncomfortable/horror thing that I think some people underestimate. I remember being way more disturbed by those ~20 pages in “The Lame Shall Enter First” than I was by all of “Apt Pupil.” I’m not a big Stephen King person, so take that comparison however you want, but still—her ability to make you squirm really stands out to me. Lastly, I’ve read a bit about her approach to reading, like the “anagogic” method (seeing the text literally, but also symbolically and spiritually). Does anyone here have any experience with that, or any kind of training in it?

Charles dickens hard times

By IslandSleepy

Okay, I get that the language was different back in the 1800s, but I’m still really thrown off by a bunch of the writing in this book. Some of the sentences are just… endless? They keep stacking new ideas and there are so many semicolons and commas and all that punctuation. I’m guessing he’s going for some kind of poetic/dramatic style, but I genuinely can’t follow this one. “They had a little conchological cabinet, and a little metallurgical cabinet, and a little mineralogical cabinet; and the specimens were all aranged and labelled, and the bits of stone and ore looked as though they might have been broken from the parent substances by those tremendously hard instruments their own names; and, to paraphrase the idle legend of Peter Piper, who had never found his way into their nursery, If the greedy little Gradgrinds grasped at more than this, what was it for good gracious goodness sake, that the greedy little gradgrinds grasped it!” Is that even one sentence? It’s longer than my whole paragraph above, and once I get past “their own…” I basically lose track of what it’s trying to say. Can someone break down the second half for me?

What are your thoughts on Charles Dickens? How do you like his styles and what are your favorites and least favorites of his?

By Fern_Basket

I’m trying to do a little Dickens binge soon. So far I’ve only read A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist—A Christmas Carol was pretty good, but I felt like Oliver Twist dragged, and it didn’t really grab me. Kinda bummed me out. Next up I have to read A Tale of Two Cities for English class, so I’m hoping it’ll be better. My teacher knows my taste pretty well and thinks I’ll like Great Expectations, so that one’s probably next. What Dickens have you read, and did you actually enjoy them?

What are some of the hardest philosophical books to read?

By hill-mountain8664

Hey! So pretty recently one of my go-to book reviewers (the kind of person who can apparently chew through stuff like *Ulysses*, *Infinite Jest*, *Gravity’s Rainbow*, *The Recognitions*, *Don Quixote*—okay not that one, but you get me—those wildly hard, dense books) said there were some books that completely beat him. A couple of them sound like “yeah, that tracks,” like *The Dream of the Bottoms* (which I’ve heard is basically impossible) and also these super long ones—like over a million words. But the one he said really, truly crushed him wasn’t even the “most famous” hard pick. It was Hegel’s *Phenomenology of Spirit*. I’d heard of that book before, way back, and I remember people calling it a brain-melter. At the time I didn’t care much, because I was more into fiction than philosophy. But later I kept hearing this kind of claim like “someone who reads GR without much trouble got wrecked by Hegel,” and that made me curious. The more I’ve looked into philosophy, the more it feels like a lot of it is just… hard. People argue about “the hardest book,” and everyone has different answers: some say Kant (*Critique of Pure Reason*) because of the length and the way the ideas are laid out; some say Heidegger (*Being and Time*) because of the subject matter; others swear by Hegel and *Phenomenology*; some go for Sartre (*Being and Nothingness*); and I’m sure there are plenty I’m not even thinking of. And I’m not sure what to make of it. Like, is Hegel genuinely that deep and challenging, or does he just not explain things in a way that makes it easier for normal humans to follow? Also, if *Phenomenology* is like this, what about his other work—like the *Encyclopaedia* or *Science of Logic*—are those just as brutal? Same question for the stuff I mentioned and the stuff I didn’t. Some of these books might actually be “brain melters,” sure, but some might also just be written in a way that makes you feel totally lost (I’m thinking of things like *Finnegans Wake*, where the struggle is almost the point). And then sometimes I worry some “important” philosophy is hard just because it’s poorly done, not because it’s amazing. So basically I’m sitting here wondering: what’s the “definitive hardest” philosopher (or philosophical book) in your opinion? And if you pick one, I’d love to know how you’re judging difficulty—like, is it how much your mind wanders just trying to track the thought process, how hard it is to even follow where the book is going aesthetically, and also yeah, since I’m the type who likes big chunky books, how long it is too. Also, if you know any incredibly hard-to-understand books that are philosophical (please no hard science stuff), feel free to toss those in. Thanks in advance for any thoughts—sorry my English is a bit rusty, it’s my second language. Hope everyone has a good day, and good luck with the hard reads.

Opinions of "Hard Times" by Dickens

By LilyLovesBooks64

I’ve got this book sitting here and I’m planning to get to it soon, but I wanted to see what everyone thinks. I’m not a huge Dickens person, even though I really do like the vibe he can create and I genuinely respect his writing. I’ve been trying to warm up to him more. I did enjoy *Great Expectations*, but *A Tale of Two Cities* kind of dragged for me. I know it’s a classic and the story’s good, but it felt way too wordy and it doesn’t really match what I usually enjoy. That’s why I’m thinking *Hard Times* might be a better entry point—since it’s shorter, maybe I won’t have to get through as much of the wordy stuff. Not trying to hate on Dickens at all, I just want to be honest about what I personally don’t click with. So, what do you all think?

During the last year and a half, I read every Dickens book.

By brokenspring

Back in 2020 I was like, “Okay, I’ll spend 2021 reading Dickens.” Seemed simple enough—never really read him before, he’s super famous, and I didn’t think there were that many books. So I went and bought all of his books in the same Everyman’s Library edition. https://imgur.com/Syj135w Then I made a plan. I added up the page counts and got 11097 pages total. Divide by 365 and you get about 30.4 pages a day. “Totally doable,” right? Right? In the beginning it was. Then life happened, I moved countries, and my routine basically fell apart… but I still kept going. https://imgur.com/kMGW42e https://imgur.com/rdBtn4H https://imgur.com/mcOMEze And yesterday I finally finished. Anyway, what did I learn from all that: - A schedule sounds easy until you’re doing it every single day. 30 pages/day stops being “no problem” pretty fast. - 1800s English absolutely slows me down. I can understand it fine (even though some expressions are kinda hilarious now), but I’m way faster with modern English—and even faster in my own language. - I basically tore through the books I liked. Shocking, I know. - Chesterton’s intros are… weird, in a good way? They’re different from most intros I’ve read, but they’re nice to read after (re-)reading the novel. - Dickens was kind of consistently good overall. Out of all 16, I loved most of them more than I expected. - David Copperfield and A Tale of Two Cities are now genuinely among my favorite books ever. - The ones I liked a lot too: The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Barnaby Rudge, and Edwin Drood. - I also don’t really line up with a lot of critics—Bleak House did not work for me at all, and Hard Times wasn’t great either. Great Expectations and Our Mutual Friend were enjoyable, just not “wow.” - His Christmas stuff is sooo boring. - And I really, really wish Edwin Drood was finished. I was having a good time with it. So yeah. It was a fun little challenge, but I don’t think I’ll ever do it again. Next up I’m thinking more contemporary books… but I already feel the pull back to the 1800s, so I’ll probably go back soon.

Choosing Editions for Dickens' Works

By sun33

I’m pretty new to Charles Dickens. I just got through Bleak House and I’m almost done with Martin Chuzzlewit, and now I’m excited to keep going. I’d love recommendations on which editions/publishers to look for when I’m picking up the rest. I’m mostly thinking of buying new, but I’m open to great used editions too if they’re worth it. My biggest thing is that I want a good, sturdy binding. I also liked the Bleak House I read a lot because it had illustrations and an intro by GK Chesterton, so I’d definitely like more of that—solid notes or an intro, and illustrations if possible. If anyone has suggestions for specific editions/books, or even a publisher that does a decent job with all (or most) of Dickens’ big works, I’d really appreciate it.

I’ve started reading Hard Times by Charles Dickens and I'm really enjoying it so far. Do you have any other Dickens recommendations, aside from Great Expectations and Oliver Twist?

By FolioCrewless

Honestly, anything with his name on it.

Is Charles Dickens really all that great?

By window_verse

I get why everyone praises Dickens, but he just hasn’t clicked for me. He’s probably one of the most famous “classic” authors, and I’ve tried about four of his books, but they kept feeling worse as I went. I don’t think it’s the old-fashioned writing either, since I actually like stuff like Charlotte Brontë, Melville, and Poe. What bothers me is that his writing feels really repetitive and kind of flat. And I’m always getting stuck in those overly descriptive parts where every paragraph seems packed with adjectives, which makes it hard for me to stay interested. If you’re into Dickens, I’d genuinely like to hear which specific book(s) you like and what you see in them. Maybe I’m just expecting the wrong things from his stories.

Hard Times: Thoughts?

By Narrow-Rabbit

I’m getting into the third book of Hard Times, and I’ve actually been enjoying it more than a few of the takes I’ve seen floating around. Has anyone else read it and had their own experience with it?

Hard Times -just finished it

By hidden_raven6223

Spoilers!!! I really liked this one—honestly, it might be my favorite Dickens book so far. I’m super excited to actually talk about it with people. And that ending… the repeated “these things were to be” hit me hard. Plus the part where it’s basically said Louisa doesn’t remarry after Bounderby dies—yeah, that was a total gut punch. I can’t tell what the author wants me to imagine, like, does she end up dying? Does she just raise Bounderby’s kids by herself? What even happens to her? Also, what about Slackbridge? Is he just gone from the story now, or do we know anything that I missed?

Which is your favorite Charles Dicken's book and why do you like it more than the others?

By listensAnchor3742

I really like stuff like *Oliver Twist*, *Great Expectations*, and *A Christmas Carol*, but if I had to pick, my favorite Dickens book is *Our Mutual Friend*. A lot of people seem to have never even heard of it unless they’re really into classic fiction. What I like most is that it doesn’t feel quite as bleak as some of his others. The characters are all over the place—in class, gender, and personality—and there’s romance, but it stays pretty understated instead of getting overly dramatic. Plus the mystery side of the plot keeps pulling me in, and I honestly find myself curious about what’s going on with the smaller characters too.