Hard Times, with eBook

Charles Dickens offers Simon Prebble every opportunity to show off his talent. Prebble brings life to the complex characters, describing them with all the color of the author's words and giving them personalities beyond their fitting voices. He assumes the dialects spoken in Victorian England--the educated and the uneducated--maximizing the alliterations and complexities to comedic effect. The nimble Prebble mimics a character's lisp, while keeping the words understandable. He describes the soot and sweat of industry to champion the working poor. Knowing Dickens was paid by the word helps explain why he uses so many when economy would do. Also, the fact that his stories were serialized explains why they go on and on, rather than taking the formulaic structure of modern novels. J.A.H. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Once in a while a great reader captures a classic work with such perfection that the listener can't put the headphones down. British actor Martin Jarvis, who lately achieved attention in the movie Titanic, attempts a full character portrayal, and succeeds--he glides effortlessly from one character to another. A sprightly old woman, for example, he enunciates in a high-pitched near-falsetto--it could be the woman herself. Professor Gradgrind's flat words sound like the prim schoolmaster he is. Mr. Bounderby, who throws his weight around throughout the book, is loud and blustery and insufferable. Jarvis carries the narrative portions nicely, too: His voice is precise, deliberate and yet smooth and expressive. Dickens was in the full flower of his talent when he wrote Hard Times, and this performance is a tribute to him. D.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine

In Dickens's story of the horrors of a utilitarian upbringing, reason and facts are everything, and imagination and creativity are nothing. The narrator's British accent goes well with Dickens's overly dramatic and lush prose. He uses different English accents for the numerous male characters, some speech defects for others and a breathy falsetto voice for all the women. While a straight rendition of the dialogue would be an improvement, luckily the story is mainly narrative. Some classics simply may not translate well either to audiobooks or to the 1990's. E.F. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Once in a while a great reader captures a classic work with such perfection that the listener can't put the headphones down. British actor Martin Jarvis, who lately achieved attention in the movie Titanic, attempts a full character portrayal, and succeeds--he glides effortlessly from one character to another. A sprightly old woman, for example, he enunciates in a high-pitched near-falsetto--it could be the woman herself. Professor Gradgrind's flat words sound like the prim schoolmaster he is. Mr. Bounderby, who throws his weight around throughout the book, is loud and blustery and insufferable. Jarvis carries the narrative portions nicely, too: His voice is precise, deliberate and yet smooth and expressive. Dickens was in the full flower of his talent when he wrote Hard Times, and this performance is a tribute to him. D.W. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

[Editor's note: The following is a combined review with OLIVER TWIST.]--"Cliffs Notes"meets "Masterpiece Theater." If you like turgid nineteenth-century melodrama, you'll certainly enjoy these tapes, for they are slick, professionally--albeit unimaginatively--acted, and meticulously produced in the BBC's house style. Warning: Do not listen to these dramatizations expecting to find Dickens. Adapter/Director Nigel Bryant has excised everything that lifts the master's works high above conventional scenery chewing. For blood and thunder, these plays will do fine; for more satisfying Dickens on tape, we recommend the readings of Martin Jarvis and Miriam Margolyes. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine

[Editor's Note--The following is a combined review with DAVID COPPERFIELD, GHOST STORIES, GREAT EXPECTATIONS, MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT, THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, NICHOLAS NICKLEBY, OLIVER TWIST, OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, THE PICKWICK PAPERS, and A TALE OF TWO CITIES.]--New Millennium presents the distinguished Academy Award winner Paul Scofield interpreting abridgments of the novels and stories of Charles Dickens. These are excellent readings, sonorous and compelling. However, they lack the verve and character of the old Victorian qualities that have been so wonderfully captured on cassette by Martin Jarvis and Miriam Margolyes, among others. And while few authors benefit more from pruning than the paid-by-the-word Dickens, some of these cuttings are far too drastic. In addition, hurried post-production is evident in numerous audible edits, frequent mouth noises, and occasional overlapping of announcer and narrator. Y.R. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine

Dickens's text reads aloud beautifully. He not only had a lifelong crush on the stage, but he made a good bit of change on the lecture circuit reciting his favorite stories. Well aware of this theatricality, Pennington takes a nice approach with HARD TIMES, a bleakly melodramatic caricature of industrialism. He lays back the narrative and lets out all the stops with his impersonations. Narrowly skirting excess, he makes good use of dramatic pacing, comic timing and regional accents. An added plus is the abridgment, which deletes the worst of the over-writing. (Dickens, whose work was serialized in magazine installments, was paid by the word.) Y.R. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine

This dramatization not only brings Dickens's classic novel to life, it transforms it. The music that opens and closes scenes sets the mood before a word is spoken, and the sound effects evoke the complexity of London and the Industrial Revolution. The scenes of emotional confrontation are almost hard to listen to; Mr. Bounderby's pounding words of self-praise are clear and painful assaults, and Mr. Gradgrind's teaching is as appropriately irritating as his name. In many cases, the adaptation makes the novel's accounts of the confrontations of classes more accessible, but the voice-over from the perspective of the adult Sissy Jupe distracts at times. She seems too calm and focused for the scenes recently recalled. G.T.B. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Anton Lesser finds the emotive force behind Dickens's bleak social commentary, HARD TIMES, and gives it a unique reading. Dickens's stock characters are fleshed out by Lesser's quavering voice and given outward emotions, making these Victorian-era personas more accessible to contemporary listeners. Atypical for a Dickens story, HARD TIMES lacks any comic relief and reads like a case study of the industrial and utilitarian culture and how the inhabitants of a town built around those ideals are beaten down by it. By reading with a voice more suited to a period romance, Lesser places the emphasis on the feelings of the characters, effectively softening the edges of HARD TIMES. F.T. (c) AudioFile 2012, Portland, Maine