"It’s been a while since I’ve read any Dickens novel aside from my annual reread of A Christmas Carol. That is in large part due to the length of the majority of his novels. It’s not that I’m averse to longer classics, but I’ve had a hard time convincing myself to take the plunge. Which is why I decided to pick up Hard Times, the shortest of his novels. But for whatever reason, I didn’t expect to adore it. And yet, here we are. First published serially in 1854, it’s a story that still feels oddly timely today. This was an absolutely delightful Victorian fairytale, one that is now firmly entrenched among my favorite classics.

Speaking of fairy tales, a single sentence I heard on the Literary Life Podcast radically changed how I viewed Dickens’ work. While I’ve always enjoyed his stories and his clever prose and his wonderful naming conventions, I understood the criticisms that his characters are either flat or caricatures, that his plots often lean into the melodrama and can feel unbelievable. According to the podcast, that was kind of the point. Dickens wasn’t trying to write gritty, realistic novels. He was writing fairy tales set in a modern, industrial reality. Hearing that flipped a switch in my brain. I could suddenly see which characters were ogres or witches or dragons. I could see how the “heroes” of Dickens’ stories were fairy tale heroes, and how the settings related to the story being told. It made sense of the over-the-top descriptions and story beats. And having that knowledge completely changed how I approached this book. It also made me excited to not only read more from Dickens, but to go back and reread those I’ve already experienced.

I was charmed from the very beginning. The description of the speaker, Tom Gradgrind Sr., in the second paragraph of chapter 1 was hilarious. It shared a witty, tongue-in-cheek tone with the opening narration of A Christmas Carol. In this story there are tons of Biblical allusions, and allusions to fairy tales and the Arabian Nights. Our characters are less characters than allegorical archetypes. It’s a tale against utilitarianism and progressive education, but not in a preachy way. Dickens is showing us why it doesn't work, not telling us what to believe.

Life in Coketown is one solely of materialism, utility, and fact. There's no imagination, no art, no beauty. That is counterbalanced against the fairy tale tone and structure of the book. Through these characters and their trials Dickens displays how the powers-that-be in education and the workforce often can't seem to (or don't attempt to) understand actual humans. Theory reigns, and real people buckle beneath them to their detriment. And it's not that these authority figures are evil. They have good intentions. But they're wielding methods that don't leave room for humanity.

There are some wonderful characters here. Now that I understand how Dickens approached crafting his characters, I enjoyed both the heroes and the “villains”—and those that swapped from the latter to the former—so much. I was particularly taken with Stephen Blackpool and Sissy. Some characters experienced tremendous growth, which was lovely to witness. The entire story is expertly plotted and paced. And the writing is cheeky and clever and second to none.

Again, I am stunned by how much I loved this little-discussed Dickens novel. Hard Times is not one of those stories that is incredibly well-known, like Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, or even Bleak House. I enjoyed all of those, but not nearly to the extent I loved Hard Times. I’m not sure how much of that love was inspired by the novel itself and how much spawned from finally understanding how Dickens crafted his stories through fairy tale conventions, which makes me excited to revisit the aforementioned books with that new knowledge in mind."

"Nancy Sindelar's Influencing Hemingway: People & Places That Shaped His Life is indeed a book detailing those who acted as influences, beginning with his parents, grandparents & others at his boyhood home of Oak Park, Illinois.


Well beyond the early hometown, foundational influences, Sindelar catalogues those who left deep impressions on the author, his 4 wives included, in places like Kansas City & Toronto where E.H. worked for newspapers, as well as Key West, Italy, Spain, Cuba and of course his early expatriate life in Paris.

Well beyond Hemingway's colorful influences, Influencing Hemingway serves as a kind of memoir, wherein the biographer visits the many places where Ernest Hemingway lived, exploring modes of writing while he connected with the likes of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others.

Nancy Sindelar also recounts the role that the legendary author has had in guiding or influencing her own life and it may be this very personal investigation that I enjoyed most.


Sindelar examines the many contradictions in Hemingway's life. As an example, he disdained those who had wealth, while making use of their wealth to enhance his lifestyle. Affecting a bohemian life in Paris, he relied on his 1st wife Hadley's trust fund to go on skiing trips and to upgrade their living quarters. Later, E.H. gained $25K from kin of his 2nd wife in 1933 to finance a lavish safari in East Africa, fulfilling a longtime Hemingway dream.

He sought out the company of artists in Paris & elsewhere, befriending them but very often disparaging them when not in their presence.

You can find anything you are looking for in Paris, except serious artists, for the artists of Paris who are turning out creditable work resent & loathe the others....who are nearly all loafers, talking about what they are going to do and condemning the work of all artists who have gained any degree of recognition.

As other Hemingway biographers have indicated, after a time, the author seemed to grow bored with what he had, always questing for a new adventure, always needing to "escape the routine of married life." Late in life, becoming besotted with a youthful Italian woman named Adriana, even with her mother nearby, he continued a pattern:

The parallels between Ernest's lifelong interest in hunting and his quest for the youthful Adriana were not lost on his critics. Many believed that the bases of his pleasures when hunting were the rituals and the satisfaction associated with conquest, and to some extent Ernest's relationships with women were based on the same needs and his desire to collect trophies.

As one might expect, there isn't all that much previously undiscovered content in Influencing Hemingway but what there is comes from a somewhat different vantage point, one that I very much enjoyed.


*There are many black & white photos within Nancy Sindelar's biographical sketch of Ernest Hemingway, a book I was given as a part of an evening at Hemingway's boyhood home in Oak Park, Illinois, with author Sindelar offering a presentation that included slides illustrating Hemingway's life in Oak Park & well beyond.

**Images within my review include one of biographer, Nancy Sindelar and three of Ernest Hemingway."

"Three sisters on the cusp of adulthood in 1940s Greece. Three summers in their lives, mostly through the narration of the youngest. Where secrets feel dramatic, emotions tumultuous, and the summers of their childhood just out of reach...

It was kind of sweet to be reading it while in the Greek countryside myself, but it felt a bit underwhelming, especially the second half. I found it unbalanced, maybe due to the fact that Katerina's way of painting the story to us was as all over the place as she felt. I did enjoy the depiction of young and confusing desire that leaves you fumbling for what to do; do you act on it, especially if it's expected of you, or do you hold onto what you yourself actually dream of?"

"(3.5*)

Since my first read (which I can’t believe that was 8 years ago), I’ve been meaning to return to the poems in Howl and Other Poems. This time, I read the poems by date rather than the order of the book, starting with the Earlier Poems first leading up to Howl, noting how the later poems, with their long lines, read like prose that simultaneously shows different sides of a picture.

The mood in these is mostly unsettling, dark to sombre, but I was also amused how in A Supermarket in California the speaker is shopping with Walt Whitman. Howl, with its chanting in the last parts was not as visually crisp as its first part, but that first part starts with such a loud bang that takes the rest of that poem to catchup with, and I needed a moment where Song (one of the Earlier Poems) turns love upside down like a heavy weight.



I enjoyed reading these again, what struck me the most is how its use of language collides imagery in unexpected ways.
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