I would recommend this book to anyone. It would be useful for the layperson who has question or the Sunday School teacher preparing a lesson or a pator or even a seminary student. Bruce takes many of the hardest sayings of Christ and gives a good interpertaion in just a few pages. If you want in depth coverage of a text then look somewhere else, but if you want a quick overview and solid answer this is the book to do it. If nothing else its a good reference book to have on your self, especially since its so affordable.

F.F. Bruce is very often quoted by some of my favourite authors; now I know why. I found this book to be most helpful to me in gaining a deeper understanding of many of the things that Jesus said......and as a result am able to apply them to my life in the appropriate way. There are 70 short chapters in this book!! A couple of examples: "Taking Up The Cross" and "Not Peace But A Sword". Excellent.

I always had a revulsion when I was forced to read Dickens in high school, and I was never able to get past the first chapter of any of his books, including this one. Now that I'm in my mid-30's, I want to re-visit a lot of the works that I had no patience for as a teenager, so I read Hard Times. Although there are many flaws to this book, I felt proud to have finally cleared the Dickens hurdle. Dickens is excellent at creating sympathetic (and evil) characters, even though they may be slightly cliche or wooden. The fact is, Dickens is able to hook you in with his plots and create a profound concern on behalf of the reader that the good guy (or girl) wins and the bad guy suffers. A lot of the twists in this book were a little "too convenient" and implausible to make it a crowining work of literature, but nevertheless it has motivated me to move on to Dickens' larger, more daunting works. If you are having any trepidation about tackling Dickens, Hard Times is a good place to start.

If you read Hard Times for the sole purpose of being entertained you will probably be highly disappointed. However, if you understand what was happening during this time period, you will realize that Hard Times is in reality, a long commentary. The Industrial Revolution was starting to show its down side. There was rampant poverty and disease, from the overcrowding of the cities. Children of the poor had to work long hours in unsafe factories rather than go to school. The gulf between the haves and the have-nots was very wide. The middle class was only beginning to be a distinct group.
This then was the backdrop of Hard Times. Dickens is making a social and political statement. This is a statement against the mechanizing of society. It starts with Dickens repeated use of the word fact. It is facts that have meaning. Human conventions like feeling, compassion or passion have no meaning or looked down upon as an inconvienent waste of time. If a situation cannot be put down on paper as in an accounting ledger it should not be considered.
This is where the conflict of the book comes in. Which helps humanity more compassion or fact. Is Bounderby a better person than Blackpool? Bounderby, who by his own admission was a self-made man. Untrue as this was he said it enough to make it his own reality. Or Blackpool, a weaver with an alcoholic wife, who was in love with another woman. Facts made Bounderby rich, compassion made Blackpool human.
Louisa presents another conflict. Louisa was educated only by fact. No wonder or inquisitiveness was ever allowed. She was the perfect robot. Doing what she was told when she was told. Just another piece of the machine, however, the piece broke, emotions came out, and they broke down the wall of fact that Mr. Gradgrind had so carefully constructed. Because the feelings have finally been acknowledged things really break down. She finds that not only has she married the wrong man but also the man she did marry is a buffoon whom she cannot respect nor live with.
The reader is left wondering if there is no one who will not be ruined by all the worship to fact. The whelp has certainly been ruined to the point he feels no responsibility to anyone but himself. If a situation can not be used to his advantage then he has no use for it, as a matter of course, he will run when he believes he will have to take responsibility for his own actions.
The gypsies have not been ruined by fact. But only because they live outside of society, they do not conform to the rules of society. These are the people who value character over social status. The gypsies do not value Bounderby and Bitzer with all their pomp and egomania. Rather they value Stephen Blackpool and Cecilia whom can show compassion and kindness no matter a person's station in life.
Hard Times can be used to look at today's society. Are we, as a society more worried about our computers, cell phones, faxes, and other gadgets than our neighbor's well being? Do we only get involved to help others when there is a personal benefit? Or, are we like the gypsies who can look into the character of the person and not worry about the socio-economic status? While Dickens' wrote Hard Times about 19th century England the moral can easily fit into 21st century America

Dickens creates a novel that virtually revolutionizes literature of the 1800's. At a time where most writers wrote in a stuffy prose full of unrealities and a jaded outlook, Dickens dares to tell with honesty what he sees through his window.

Hard Times has yet a misleading title. It gives one ideas of harshness, depression, poverty, and social decline--although the actual reality of then-London, still not something you would choose to read. However, Hard Times has as much depression and poverty as any of Dickens' other works. It is just in this case that Dickens chooses to remind the world that in the deepest despair there is beauty yet to be seen.

Dickens was a strange author. In his supposedly inspiring books, you get an overdose of sadness, and in his depressing books, you find beauty. It is this case with Hard Times.

It is a poor, honest man's search for justice in a world where only the rich have merit. It is a girl's search for true love while battling the arranged marriage for money. And lastly, a woman's search for recognition against her favored, yet dishonest brother. It is these searches that at last come together and become fufilled. And, while at the same time telling a captivating story, it comments on the then--and still now--presence of greed and total dishonesty one has to go through for money.

The title of this review sums up Hard Times. Its beauty comes from the pure searches for truth, the sorrow comes from the evil the characters most overcome to get there, and the honesty is both the truth with which Dickens portrays life and the the overwhelming truth that these protaganists create.

Holly Burke, PhD.

Clinical Psychologist, Abnormal Psych. Professor

Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins Inst.

Of course, if you are not familiar with Phantom of the Opera (the musical), you shouldn't go anywhere near this book, because it won't make any sense whatsoever.

If you are a Phantom fan, however, this is what I have to say:
First of all, the only redeeming quality of this novel is that it isn't a novel! The introduction reveals beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is, in fact, a synopsis of what could have become a sequel to ALW's musical. This is also evident throughout the book, which is conveniently divided into scenes. At some points you can guess exactly what kind of musical number would have accompanied that particular scene (e.g. Darius' dream would be a spectacular scene, Pierre's Latin lesson would be the teacher's first song: a tune about Ireland!, Erik would have a hit solo when he finds out he has a son - that chapter even ends with a rhyme which may well be taken from that song, the party after the première would provide the opportunity for a large chorus and so on). With sufficiently good music, costumes, sets and cast it might have become a decent musical. It wouldn't have had much of a plot but many stage musicals don't. Nevertheless, I am thankful that the idea of a Phantom sequel didn't go any further since it would have ruined the original musical, which is complete in itself and has an effective "open ending". Besides, a sequel where Erik ends up winning would have made a mockery of the original tragic message of the story.

As for The Phantom of Manhattan, the story is uninteresting (bad guy chases innocent child and look, here's Christine and the Phantom and Raoul and Meg and Madame Giry again, o joy!) and the characters two-dimensional. It reads as a play and consequently we never know what anybody is thinking. This wouldn't have been such a flaw if their actions and words had shown it, but that characterization is sketchy at best. The background story is altered at will to suit Forsyth's intentions. This is not unusual in a piece of fan fiction, but quite frankly it's upsetting when the writer tries to justify his choices by saying that the author of the original novel was "wrong"! I realize that he's saying this for the sake of continuity, to eliminate the inconsistencies, but just saying that "this novel is based on the musical version of POTO, not Leroux's novel" would be a much more honest approach, as well as a more sympathetic one. As it is, one gets an impression of incredible arrogance which is impossible to shake off during the rest of the book. As if this wasn't enough, Forsyth says some unnecessary and downright mean things about Leroux's writing. I am not opposed to literary criticism, but the foreword of a pastiche is not the proper place for it. Besides, most of Forsyth's opinions seem more like childish nitpicking than anything else ("The weight of the chandelier was SEVEN tons, ha!" is not what I'd call an astute remark).

In short, the writer is no novelist (and, apparently, neither is ALW who helped Forsyth come up with the plot), this book is no novel (it's a commercial ad for a musical that, mercifully, never saw the light of day), there is no plot but that is no reason not to read Phantom of Manhattan for a few laughs and to boost your self-confidence by saying to yourself "I could do better than that!" (and you'd be right, you probably could!). But whatever you do, borrow, don't buy!

This was just bad.I mean the whole book doesn't even resembel the Phantom of the Opera to me and I wonder why the writer took the time to complete it at all.
This is one of those books that you really wish that you hadn't at all read.One of the worst Phantom of the Opera renditions that I have ever read.

Few things are more frustrating than reading a book (or watching a movie) and re-writing the thing in your head as you go along because what you are seeing fails to live up to "what could have been". Frederick Forsyth's "Phantom of Manhattan" is just such an exercise in missed opportunities. The basic plotline is audacious and original: after his rejection by Christine, the Phantom (Erik Mulheim in this version) is rescued from the pursuing mob by his old friend Madame Giry and escapes by ship to America, barely escaping death as he jumps ship and staggers ashore at Gravesend Bay. Critics of Erik's eventual involvement of the development of the Coney Island amusement parks tend to forget his expertise in the creation of clockwork figurines and his talents at magic and separating the unwary from their money. His irrepressible genius once more let loose aboveground, Erik soon parlays his earnings in Brooklyn into a penthouse apartment and financial empire in the heart of lower Manhattan. Determined to devote himself to the pursuit of riches, he gets the surprise of his life when a deathbed letter from Giry impells him to once more lure singer Christine Daae into the circle of his influence, leading to a climax that is both tragic and redemptive.

Forsyth unfortunately tells his story as a series of brief chapters narrated by Erik, Giry, and other characters. There are far too many of them and they clog up the book, which has a cluttered, almost slapdash feel to it. Forsyth continually drops names of well-known real-life people from that era -- sometimes without even naming the names. (See if you can spot a young Frankin Delano Roosevelt's brief appearance.)

Erik's character is sympathetic and fairly well developed but Christine, alas, has matured not a whit since last we saw her despite having achieved fame as an opera diva. She remains timid and obtuse in Erik's presence, and any hope of a romantic spark between them falls flat despite some rather startling revelations about their former relationship. (To say nothing of that revelation about Raoul!)

Forsyth includes an intriguing description of an opera set in the Civil War, written by the Phantom for Christine. There are some moving and effective scenes in the novel, but the missed chances and loose ends can drive you crazy. (How did things get out of hand between Erik and Christine in the middle of that mad escape from the mob under the Paris Opera House many years before? What are Erik and young Pierre talking about as they stand at the top of the stairs after the opera?)

"The Phantom of Manhattan" is not as bad as some have claimed. But it's not as good as it could have been, either.