stick to your name

Why do authors switch up their names?  Why do authors sometimes even leave out their name from the public?  Everyone has their own reasons; some I understand, some I do not.  Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein, left out her name from first publication.  She did this so people did not know it was written by a woman.  Later she added her name.  When leaving out your name in cases like this, I can completely understand the reasoning behind it.  The author, Theodor Seuss Giesel, known more predominantly by the name Dr. Seuss, changed his name to hide from writers in college.  He decided to keep the name when he wrote his children’s books.  I am okay with this because it gives it a more fun way for kids and also makes it easier for kids to relate.  We all had a few Dr. Seuss books during our childhood.  The author Stephen King, who we all have also heard of, originally did not change his name.  Later, he decided to write a few novels with a different name, Richard Bachman.  He also added a different photo to the back of the book.  The reasoning behind this was that Stephen King wanted to play with the reading society.  He wanted to see if there was a difference because of the names.   It was his own personal little game.  I find that to be utterly pointless.  Just stick with you original name.  You do not have a reason to change it.  Another person that I do not understand why they changed their name was Joanne Rowling.  Her pen name is J.K. Rowling.  If she is trying to be creative and give her name a catch to the reader, it’s unnecessary.  The readers like your writing for the stories, not your pen name.  Pretty much what I am trying to say through this is that writers, unless having an issue within society, or getting to the appropriate age of the readers, should not change their name.  Be proud of the name your mother gave you.

Hard times with Hard Times

            So this week (and I guess technically last week too) we read Hard Times by Charles Dickens. I have of course heard of this book before, as well as others by Charles Dickens (i.e. Tale of Two Cities), that I have been interested in reading. However, Hard Times definitely was not how I expected it to be and gave me a hard time reading it. I guess I have encountered this before, older novels usually are a little bit more complex and difficult to read than today’s average young adult novel, but even the plot and contents were a little more depressing than I imagined.

            The book is a realistic view on the world and society, I still like reading books with happy endings though. Starting off, I just felt sorry for the majority of the characters. Louisa, Sissy, and Stephen all just had such bad situations going. Lousia was forced to grow up too fast and never even experienced a childhood because of her father’s extreme obsession with facts. I can’t possibly imagine a child being so serious and never even imagining anything at all. Both of my younger cousins talk non-stop about only things they imagine, especially the younger of the two. My youngest cousin is only 6 so definitely younger than Louisa, but all he does is tell made-up stories and talk about what he dreamt about as well as make up random games. So the imagine of a little girl doing only homework and fact drills at that age is definitely sad. Also, one of the other depressing things about Louisa that really hit me was how unemotional and casually she decided to marry Bounderby. She just looked at the facts about the situation and did not consider her romantic feelings at all and in turn this lead to an unhappy marriage. Even after she eventually manages to find feelings for another man and leave Bounderby, she never does remarry or have kids.

            Then with Sissy, it was terribly sad that her father abandoned her like that. Just like how close she is to her father, I am really close with my mother who also raised me as a single parent. I can’t even imagine my mother leaving me like that so it is just really sad to think that Sissy had to go through something like that. Then after that to be told that she is not smart enough to continue through school, that her nickname “Sissy” is not suitable, and practically be treated as a maid just makes it all that much worse. The fact that she ends up getting married in the end and has a large happy family is a little bit of a silver lining; after all, Sissy was probably the most innocent and sweet character of the novel.

            Finally there was Stephen Blackpool who is only a “hand” at Bounderby’s factory and is in love with Rachel yet married to a horrible drunkard hag who only comes back into his life on occasion to collect more money from him and steal his belongings. I feel his circumstances were the most miserable of all because from the beginning he was just such a pitiful character, than he was told he could never get a divorce because he was too poor and finally ended up dying after being falsely accused as a bank robber. That situation was probably the worst because Tom was just a selfish crook who took advantage of Stephens situation and framed the poor guy.

            Other than these three examples the fact that Bounderby banned his own mother from ever seeing him and that she still checked in once a year was sad. As well was that Tom died alone away from his family once he saw the error of his ways, and that Mrs. Sparsit, who was just trying to help, gets fired for accidentally bringing Bounderby’s mother to him. I don’t know why but I wasn’t expecting this book to be so depressing but almost all the characters got the short end of the stick it seemed.