welcome to hard times book review

September 25, 1960 Book Review: 'Welcome to Hard Times' By WIRT WILLIAMS nce again, the legend of the Old West has been rescued for a serious literary purpose,” say the publishers of this first novel by a philosophy major. Inevitably, they invoke “The Ox-Bow Incident”--a practice followed by many reviewers, who seldom fail to pronounce the work at hand the first serious fiction about the West since--well, almost always since “The Ox-Bow Incident” (e.g.: “The Authentic Death of Dendry Janes,” “Carrington”, “A Distant Trumpet,” “Warlock”). It is time to acknowledge that the “serious Western” has established itself firmly on a sub-genre of fiction. “Welcome to Hard Times” is an exfoliation on a quite sturdy branch. Thematically, E. L. Doctorow’s short novel is concerned with one of the favorite problems of philosophers: the relationship of man and evil. Its structure is appropriately dramatic and simple. Into a small settlement in the Dakotas comes a Bad Man from Bodie. With easy and pleasurable cruelty, he destroys the town. It only takes a few brutalities, a couple of murders, and some simple arson. Blue, self-appointed record keeper and honorific mayor, is too weak, too afraid--in a familiar tradition--to kill the Bad Man. Later, he sets about to rebuild the town. He also takes one of the brutalized bar girls, Molly, as common-law wife. The Bad Man comes back, of course. He has the inevitable confrontation with the Mayor, of course. But its inner meaning is a great distance from the business of “a man’s gotta dew what a man’s gotta dew.” The book says that evil comes only when summoned. Blue tries to explain it to Molly: “You know something? Listen to me, you know why he came that time? We wanted him . Our tongues were just hanging out for him.” And, when the rebuilt Hard Times wants Evil again, the Bad Man returns. Blue finally kills him, perceiving that he has failed as badly in acting as he had failed earlier in not acting. Perhaps the primary theme of the novel is that evil can only be resisted psychically: when the rational controls that order man’s existence slacken, destruction comes. Conrad said it best in “Heart of Darkness,” but Mr. Doctorow has said it impressively. His book is taut and dramatic, exciting and successfully symbolic. A novelist and critic, Mr. Williams is the author of “Ada Dallas” and other books.

The Quivering Pen

Just now I can feel that little quivering of the pen which has always foreshadowed the happy delivery of a good book. --Emile Zola

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Welcome to welcome to hard times : e. l. doctorow's first and greatest novel.

       The Man from Bodie drank down a half bottle of the Silver Sun's best; that cleared the dust from his throat and then when Florence, who was a redhead, moved along the bar to him, he turned and grinned down at her. I guess Florence had never seen a man so big. Before she could say a word, he reached out and stuck his hand in the collar of her dress and ripped it down to her waist so that her breasts bounded out bare under the yellow light. We all scraped our chairs and stood up— none of us had looked at Florence that way before, for all she was. The saloon was full because we watched the man coming for a long time before he pulled in, but there was no sound now.        This town was in the Dakota Territory, and on three sides—east, south, west—there is nothing but miles of flats. That's how we could see him coming. Most times the dust on the horizon moved east to west—wagon trains nicking the edge of the flats with their wheels and leaving a long dust turd lying on the rim of the earth. If a man rode toward us he made a fan in the air that got wider and wider. To the north were hills of rock and that was where the lodes were which gave an excuse for the town, although not a good one. Really there was no excuse for it except that people naturally come together.

       “Take care of me Blue?” she said softly.        “Yes Molly, if you allow.”        Still smiling she said “Mayor”—whispering so that I bent down and put my ear almost to her lips—“if I had that knife now I wouldn't drop it. I would stick it in you and watch the yellow flow.”        For a moment I didn't understand, I could not reconcile the words with the smile on her face. But I looked at her and saw what a sweet smile it was, full of hate, and I felt as if I had been swiped to the ground by the paw of a big cat.

2 comments:

Of all the Doctorow books I read Hard Times stuck with me the most. I read it after Ragtime and Bathgate and Fair. It was grim.

About to read Hard Times having just finished Ragtime!

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WELCOME TO HARD TIMES

by E. L. Doctorow ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 19, 1960

Hard Times, a town in the Dakota Territory, becomes a cemetery after the vendetta of the Bad Man from Bodie and its few survivors await his return- spooked by the fear which immobilizes them- all except Mayor (""just come by the title"") who hopes to build up the town and bring up an orphaned youngster with it. The months pass- in the vigil for the visitation to come- and at the end Mayor is alone with his memories of destruction and devastation and guilt.... A Western, with a difference, and something more (the publishers hope to sell it outside this market) this is a parable of violence and has an effectively stark and savage impact.

Pub Date: Sept. 19, 1960

ISBN: 0812978226

Page Count: -

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1960

Categories: FICTION

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Welcome to Hard Times Summary and Analysis

FreeBookNotes found 3 sites with book summaries or analysis of Welcome to Hard Times . If there is a Welcome to Hard Times SparkNotes, Shmoop guide, or Cliff Notes, you can find a link to each study guide below.

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Estimated Read Time : 4 minutes

Word Count: 1324

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FreeBookNotes has 11 more books by E. L. Doctorow, with a total of 65 study guides.

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Welcome to Hard Times

Learn about this topic in these articles:, discussed in biography.

His first novel, Welcome to Hard Times (1960; film 1967), is a philosophical turn on the western genre. In his next book, Big As Life (1966), he used science fiction to explore the human response to crisis. Doctorow’s proclivity for harvesting characters from history first became apparent in…

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Welcome to Hard Times Paperback

• Language English
• Dimensions 13.34 x 1.27 x 20.32 cm
• ISBN-10 0679736271
• ISBN-13 978-0679736271
• See all details

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Through the Shattered Lens

Where mainstream meets grindhouse, exploitation, otaku and gamers, film review: welcome to hard times (1967, directed by burt kennedy).

Based on a novel by E.L. Doctorow, Welcome to Hard Times takes place in the small western settlement of Hard Times, Nevada.  When the mysterious Man From Bodie (Aldo Ray) shows up, he terrorizes everyone in the town.  When the town founder, Mr. Fee (Paul Birch), attempts to stand up to him, the Man from Bodie shoots him dead.  When the local undertaker, Mr. Hansen (Elisha Cook, Jr.) tries to stop the Man from stealing one of his horses, the Man silently guns him down.  As the town’s mayor, Will Blue (Henry Fonda), stands by and helplessly watches, The Man rapes and murders Fee’s girlfriend and also kills the local saloonkeeper, Avery (Lon Chaney, Jr.).  The Man burns down the town and finally leaves.

Thought most of the surviving townspeople abandon Hard Times, Will Blue stays behind and tries to rebuild.  He adopts Fee’s son, Jimmy (Michael Shea).  Also staying behind is Jimmy’s mother, Molly Riordan (Janice Rule), a former saloon girl who was also raped by the Man and who constantly taunts Will for not being able to stand up to him.  New settlers arrive and the town starts to rebuild.  Zar (Kennan Wynn) and his four girls reopen the saloon and serve the workers at a nearby mine.  Isaac Maple (John Anderson) reopens the general store.  Under Will’s leadership, Hard Times starts to thrive.

A drifter named Leo Jenks (the great Warren Oates) also moves in.  When Molly discovers that Leo is a crack shot, she gets him to teach Jimmy how to handle a shotgun.  Both she and Will know that the Man is going to return in the spring.  Molly is obsessed with vengeance and Will fears that Jimmy is going to be consumed by her hatred.

Welcome to Hard Times works best at the beginning and the end, when Aldo Ray is on-screen.  As the sadistic Man from Bodie, Ray gives a classic western bad guy performance.  He’s intimidating, he’s violent, and he guns down the citizens of Hard Times with even more casual arrogance than Lee Marvin, Jack Palance, and Lee Van Cleef combined!  The middle section of the film drags and it is hard to ignore Jane Rule’s shaky Irish accent.  It is obvious that Welcome to Hard Times is trying to say something about Will Blue’s humanistic approach but it does not seem to know what.

Director Burt Kennedy was best known for directing comedic westerns.  Welcome to Hard Times was a rare dramatic film for him.  It’s not a great western but, thanks to Aldo Ray’s performance and the excellent work of cinematography Harry Stradling, Jr., it’s still a worthy addition to the genre.

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