The Unofficial — Editor’s Pick: Hard Times

I recently read five novels, actually. And this is the Unofficial’s editor holding the pen, drafting the first-ever Editor’s Pick.

Before getting into the books, let me introduce myself. I am a random guy from Class 9. I read books and poetry, and I aspire to be an entrepreneur who shakes the foundations of the world while still retaining his soul and morality. Capitalism with models—indeed a spectacle. I developed a habit of reading when I was seven years old. I started with Ruskin Bond, Rudyard Kipling, J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter, of course), and Ross Welford, and slowly progressed into more curated pieces: Adultery and Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho, The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, Chetan Bhagat, Charles Dickens, Kafka on the Shore, The Lord of the Rings, and Bengali authors such as Samaresh Majumdar, Buddhadeb Guha, Sarat Chandra, and Bonophul.

My recommendation for this month is Hard Times by Charles Dickens. Set in an era of frenzy regarding factories, machines, money, and cold facts, the line that hit me the hardest was when Louisa, Mr. Gradgrind’s daughter, seeks shelter in him and he reflects: “There is a wisdom of the head, and there is a wisdom of the heart.”

Growing up in a boys-only environment with minimal interaction with girls my age, it would be unfair for me to claim a definitive understanding of love. Looking at it through a strictly analytical lens—perhaps the cynical economist in me—it is easy to reduce human relationships to mere transactions, biological signals, or a subconscious drive. That is the cold, calculated wisdom of the head; it treats human behavior purely as data. But Dickens forces a pause. Love can also be seen as unconditional affection—caring without expecting a return on investment. That is the wisdom of the heart.

We are moving into an age where treating the person sitting next to us as an organic machine rather than a human being is seen as a point of pride. Various popular anime and manga, such as Classroom of the Elite or Death Note, reflect this exact mindset. But really, humans are social animals. We have feelings, people we love, and things for which we are willing to sacrifice ourselves. Is this in any sense rational? Yes and no. We decide whether something is rational based on our own judgment, and judgment can always be rationalized by the individual, no matter how irrational it seems to the person right beside them.

From the perspective of a machine, sacrificing oneself is completely irrational—and that’s where the cold calculators make their mistake. Every human you try to manipulate or treat as an organic machine can make irrational choices that are perfectly rational to them.

Hard Times is a great reminder for us today. The book itself explores complex family dynamics, surplus anger, toxic power dynamics, and manipulation. In this story, a girl with no emotional baseline is manipulated by her father’s friend into a disastrous situation. It’s eerie, isn’t it? A novel from 1854 closely resembles what is happening in modern families today. Girls walk into traps set by their cousin’s friend or a friend’s friend without realizing they are being manipulated—where a person sees them just as a trophy to be earned, not as an emotional partner.

Hard Times will be featured in our chronological novels section for people who can’t get their hands on a physical copy.

Thanking you,
Your beloved Editor.