Last year around this time, I made a New Year's resolution to read at least one piece of writing by Charles Dickens (1812-1870). I have loved Dickens since a colleague here recommended Bleak House. Never mind that it is one of the most gigantic novels I had ever read. It is quite simply a masterpiece.
I had just completed The Old Curiosity Shop, a marvel of curious people and scenes of London and the countryside. Once again I felt the wondrous power of Charles Dickens. It was then that I decided to make this resolution to read something by Dickens every year. Although I have to work myself up a bit to read a Dickens novel (the mood must be right), luckily I found the perfect title for 2010: Hard Times. It seemed to match the temper of the times.
This is a novel set in industrial England, when machines and "just the facts" are replacing the craft of the artisan:
"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"
This is the opening scene, a lecture to his students by the school master Thomas Gradgrind: a world where curiosity and wonder are frowned upon and ridicule in its many forms is heaped upon the head of any child (or adult) who dares to regard curiosity and wonder as being essential to life. Dickens writes: "Never wonder," an exquisitely precise description of one of the main themes of the book. Industrial powerhouses and the bleakness of the mill have replaced the handwork of the cottage artisan and creativity in imagination. This is the struggle that Dickens places before us. How the novel and its characters progress is a measure of the master storyteller at his best. Suffice it to say that Hard Times is a page-turner. But I also considered this reading to be a promise fulfilled for 2010. Now I will never wonder if I can keep my New Year's resolutions. So here's to more Dickens in 2011!
If you'd like to read (or listen to) more books by Charles Dickens, stop by your local library and select one of his novels; or you might like to read some of the serialized novels in two periodicals founded by Dickens--Household Words and All the Year Round; Hard Times was serialized in 1854. This is as close as we will get to the Victorians who read the novel for the first time. Request these periodicals from the Magazines & Newspapers Center on the 5th floor of the Main Library (requests are filled with 24-hour notice).
You'll find a heap (apologies...or not, to Uriah Heep) of Dickens in the Book Arts & Special Collections Center (6th floor) and the General Collections & Humanities Center (3rd floor), Main Library.
A note of historical interest: after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, libraries and readers from around the world came to our rescue. It has been written that the San Francisco Public Library lost its entire collection, except for about 1,500 books (most of which were in circulation at the time of the catastrophe). The library received thousands upon thousands of books and periodicals; one of these gifts was Household Words, from the Free Lending Library of the Union for Christian Work in Brooklyn, New York.
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| Charles Dickens, Hard Times Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 (blogger's copy) |
I had just completed The Old Curiosity Shop, a marvel of curious people and scenes of London and the countryside. Once again I felt the wondrous power of Charles Dickens. It was then that I decided to make this resolution to read something by Dickens every year. Although I have to work myself up a bit to read a Dickens novel (the mood must be right), luckily I found the perfect title for 2010: Hard Times. It seemed to match the temper of the times.
This is a novel set in industrial England, when machines and "just the facts" are replacing the craft of the artisan:
"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!"
This is the opening scene, a lecture to his students by the school master Thomas Gradgrind: a world where curiosity and wonder are frowned upon and ridicule in its many forms is heaped upon the head of any child (or adult) who dares to regard curiosity and wonder as being essential to life. Dickens writes: "Never wonder," an exquisitely precise description of one of the main themes of the book. Industrial powerhouses and the bleakness of the mill have replaced the handwork of the cottage artisan and creativity in imagination. This is the struggle that Dickens places before us. How the novel and its characters progress is a measure of the master storyteller at his best. Suffice it to say that Hard Times is a page-turner. But I also considered this reading to be a promise fulfilled for 2010. Now I will never wonder if I can keep my New Year's resolutions. So here's to more Dickens in 2011!
If you'd like to read (or listen to) more books by Charles Dickens, stop by your local library and select one of his novels; or you might like to read some of the serialized novels in two periodicals founded by Dickens--Household Words and All the Year Round; Hard Times was serialized in 1854. This is as close as we will get to the Victorians who read the novel for the first time. Request these periodicals from the Magazines & Newspapers Center on the 5th floor of the Main Library (requests are filled with 24-hour notice).
You'll find a heap (apologies...or not, to Uriah Heep) of Dickens in the Book Arts & Special Collections Center (6th floor) and the General Collections & Humanities Center (3rd floor), Main Library.
 |
| "Hard Times," chapter 1 Household Words, vol. 9, [whole no. 210] (1854) Magazines & Newspapers Center, SFPL |
A note of historical interest: after the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, libraries and readers from around the world came to our rescue. It has been written that the San Francisco Public Library lost its entire collection, except for about 1,500 books (most of which were in circulation at the time of the catastrophe). The library received thousands upon thousands of books and periodicals; one of these gifts was Household Words, from the Free Lending Library of the Union for Christian Work in Brooklyn, New York.
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| Back cover Household Words, vol. 9 (1854) Magazines & Newspapers Center, SFPL |
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