Welcome to Hard Times

Rating:
Summary: A Fable of Life Inscribed on the Plains of the Old West
Review: Actually I saw the movie many years back and, remembering that and recently reading another Doctorow book, I decided to pick this one up when I noticed it in a store. The tale of a ramshackle little western town on the edge of nowhere in the Dakota territory, deriving its lifeblood from a nearby mine, WELCOME TO HARD TIMES grabs us from the beginning with its brutal portrayal of the town's destruction at the hands of a monster of a man who is to remain nameless for much of the tale, a natural force more than a fellow human being. The Bad Man from Bodie savagely rapes and callously kills those in his path including the town whores, the barkeep, the carpenter, the undertaker, the hangers-on, leaving only a few scattered survivors in his wake, after burning the town around them to the ground. In the shadow of his departure, with little hope and much desperation, the handful of survivors rebuild, mainly for want of anything else to do. And the town, after a rigorous winter, prospers. But the mood throughout is ominous and the memory of the Man fron Bodie never far below the surface of the broken people he leaves behind. Doctorow writes with subtlety and irony and his telling is as tight as it gets. Yet I found the ending, deliberately muddled, I suppose, to mimic the sense of collapse, rather a letdown after the crisp narrative that comes before. All breaks down, in the end, in a sudden revelation about the sustaining source of the town's hopes and the Bad Man from Bodie returns without notice, just abruptly appearing in the maelstrom of collapse. This time is a little different from the first in the town's response to the Bad Man, or at least in how the self-proclaimed town mayor and narrator responds. But the results are no less redolent of life's despair and futility. Although the characters are more than the Western stereotypes they at first appear to be, they do not rise above their situations but are sucked sadly back into the storm that blows down upon them from the larger world outside. They are a sad lot and so, we sense, are we all, doomed to live out our lives in hope and desperate striving but never able to gain a foothold in the rock to take us above the level of the town of Hard Times and the life it offers us. This is a fable, writ on Western rock, of living and dying. More subtle and many-layered than the movie it inspired, in the end it is a book of hopelesness and of the raggedness of life itself. -- SWM

Rating:
Summary: the anti-Shane
Review: As hopeless as a town that will always burn. Doctrow's novel is sleek and powerful, not just an American story, but the story of all society, building up and breaking down, of the dirty nature of the human soul, and the little spots of light that try to burn bright; a story in which the democratic mass is dangerous and the philosopher king is not as powerful as he aught to be, and the Bad Man from Bodie, like the Lord of the Flies, is not only always waiting to ride down from the mountain, but resides in most every human heart. Still, it is an essentially American novel and pays particular interest to deconstructing the Myth of the American West, a kind of anit-Shane.

Rating:
Summary: The Ghost Already in Hell While The Body Lives
Review: For the better part of the novel he has no name, he is simply referred to as the Bad Man from Bodie. And in Welcome To Hard Times harrowing first few pages he single handedly rapes, vandalises and burns an entire town. He never says a word. He is, as one character descibes him "a force of nature, like the weather", an inexplicable destructive force that strikes at random.

Those who survive the Bad Man's wrath choose to leave, to seek better fortune elsewhere. Only the town's unofficial mayor Blue, a local Indian healer, a half burnt prostitute and a murdered carpenter's son stay behind. Blue is the narrator, and it is not some angry venomous determination to fight back that makes him stay to found a new town, but a defeatest acceptance of their fortune. If life has to go on, then this burned down town is as good a place as any.

Doctrow's debut novel is a grim and dirty slice of bleak frontier life. A novel that sets out to destroy the myths of heroism in the old west. In Welcome To Hard Times heroism results in death and cowardice merely delays it. The only kind of accomplishment to be proud of is survival. As Blue narrates how the new town of Hard Times comes into being, how the Russian's bordello has brought prosperity and how the money is ever flowing, his tone is unmistakably regretful. The tragic outcome is never in any doubt, we are left to ponder who will be left behind next time a force of nature strikes.

Like Robert Altman's film McCabe & Mrs.Miller, this is a novel with no illusions about the period. Relishing the grim pictorals of Buzzards feeding on the dead, fire burning over ice, it marches to its inevitable end. The downfall is never in question, only one thing can make these character's life worse. Hope.

Rating:
Summary: The Ghost Already in Hell While The Body Lives
Review: For the better part of the novel he has no name, he is simply referred to as the Bad Man from Bodie. And in Welcome To Hard Times harrowing first few pages he single handedly rapes, vandalises and burns an entire town. He never says a word. He is, as one character descibes him "a force of nature, like the weather", an inexplicable destructive force that strikes at random.

Those who survive the Bad Man's wrath choose to leave, to seek better fortune elsewhere. Only the town's unofficial mayor Blue, a local Indian healer, a half burnt prostitute and a murdered carpenter's son stay behind. Blue is the narrator, and it is not some angry venomous determination to fight back that makes him stay to found a new town, but a defeatest acceptance of their fortune. If life has to go on, then this burned down town is as good a place as any.

Doctrow's debut novel is a grim and dirty slice of bleak frontier life. A novel that sets out to destroy the myths of heroism in the old west. In Welcome To Hard Times heroism results in death and cowardice merely delays it. The only kind of accomplishment to be proud of is survival. As Blue narrates how the new town of Hard Times comes into being, how the Russian's bordello has brought prosperity and how the money is ever flowing, his tone is unmistakably regretful. The tragic outcome is never in any doubt, we are left to ponder who will be left behind next time a force of nature strikes.

Like Robert Altman's film McCabe & Mrs.Miller, this is a novel with no illusions about the period. Relishing the grim pictorals of Buzzards feeding on the dead, fire burning over ice, it marches to its inevitable end. The downfall is never in question, only one thing can make these character's life worse. Hope.

Rating:
Summary: Adventures on the Post-Modern Frontier
Review: I've read all of Doctorow's work, but I keep coming back to Welcome to Hard Times. This slender volume is immense in its ambition, and focuses on elemental questions of courage and cowardice, the problem of evil, and its almost irresistable power. Set in the Dakota Territory in the late 19th century, the novel examines our highly sentimentalized American West through a post-modern lens. Doctorow lays open romanticized notions to expose the raw, ugly reality beneath. As always, Doctorow is almost poetic, and his characters simultaneously repulsive and attractive. If you've not read Doctorow, start here.

Rating:
Summary: It's a great story
Review: This is Doctorow's first novel, and after reading it, you see from the very beginning he was a great writer. It's an ambitious treatment of evil, cowardice, love and family, wrapped up in an great western tale (of the spaghetti type). The Bad Man destroys the town and everyone in it in the first few pages. After that the human spirit thrives (sort of) as a few attempt to rebuild the town and their lives. And look for redemption.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome to the Real , Real West
Review: This is Doctorow's sleeper novel. It hasn't received much critical attention in comparison to his other works, but this one is a real gem. It provides us with a picture of what kind of hardscrabble existence the western settlers actually endured, as opposed to the sanitized images Hollywood has provided us. The only other author I've seen perform this so effectively is Harte Crane. The characters are stereotypes (the bullying villain - the noble prostitute - the unwilling hero, etc) but Doctorow invests the plot with enough quirky twists and injects enough black humor to keep the reader from noticing how one-dimensional the characters are. And they do undergo transformations, which keeps them from remaining so one-dimensional. If you are a Doctorow fan or are just looking for a diverting, yet intelligent read, give this one a try.

Rating:
Summary: Destroyed my idealism of the wild west
Review: We each have our conceptions of how the west was in that period when America was coming into itself, and the American or newly minted immigrant, with all his ideals and aspirations, was exploring hitherto unconquered frontiers in search of wealth and opportunity. This is a somber work, and for that reason, refreshing and real.

Blue is a leader of sorts, also kind of a coward, but human in all respects. He rises and falls with the town he exists in. He ekes out a position of modest respect, while also inciting a level of revilement in those with whom he desires closeness. He is in a way a tragic character, but fully human. The Bad Man of Bodie is the dark force of evil in the story, hovering around ready to destroy the meager gains that Blue and his fellow settlers find. One senses Blue's disappointment and self-loathing in his recounting of the rise and fall of the inconsequential town and a rueful sense of what could have been, personally and socially.

This was a very entertaining read; thoughtful, subtle and as satisfying as a cold beer on a hot day.