Re-reading Hard Times. It's set around my neck of the woods - North Lancashire - and even though the substance of the world has changed so much (all tRe-reading Hard Times. It's set around my neck of the woods - North Lancashire - and even though the substance of the world has changed so much (all those cotton mills have gone - or have become student flats and workshop spaces) so many of the themes still feel pertinent. Louisa and Tom's dry wonderless -ological education feels very like our SATs with their sterile grammar questions. Some of the images - like the telegraph wires as a musical score - will stay with me a long time. And I love the way that Dickens is so free and flexible with his narrative voice and point of view - that shift towards the end, where futures are outlined and summed up, and quantities of happiness are allotted... The only thing I found problematic is that it seems to be morally acceptable (to characters we are to approve of, and to the narrative voice) for Tom to evade the consequences of his actions - which have been terrible for entirely innocent others. Not that one expects the moral simplicity of good deeds rewarded and bad deeds punished - but I did feel very uneasy to be expected to root for the spoilt kid's escape from jail. ...more
Loading...
