I started with Mayor of Casterbridge. Discovered it as a young 20 at the airport returning from my first trip to England and read it flying home. I think there was some combination of being that age of transitioning from a college student to young adult, having just spent time discovering the English countryside and sort of a personal sense of nostalgia as I concluded my summer that all fit into line with Hardy’s approach. i.e., Many of Hardy’s characters are also coming of age young adults - Bathsheba, Jude, etc., I find Hardy’s descriptions of setting absolutely beautiful, and I’ve always experienced Hardy’s mood as retrospective, in line with my nostalgia.
I don’t empathize directly with the circumstances of all his characters, but I do feel a very personal reaction to the tragedy experienced in the lives of those he presents. I agree that Hardy is dark, somber, and moody, but I think Hardy brings me out of myself and into someone else’s life and situation as I read.
I find Hardy very poetic - in fact, after Jude the Obscure, he wrote only poetry (volumes of which DH received for Christmas one year!) I get pleasurably lost in the style and am able to get past some of the plot lines which are sometimes incredibly sad, if not melodramatic. I do think that Jude the Obscure goes too far in pushing human tragedy - the first time I read it, I threw the book across the room at one point - just too much to be believed. I’ve thought a number of the movies and TV presentations, including the most recent Far from the Madding Crowd, have done a great job of presenting the visual poetry of the settings that I imagine while reading Hardy.
Favorite - probably Mayor Casterbridge, then Tess or Far from the Madding Crowd, then Jude the Obscure. I don’t like the conclusion of Jude where I think Hardy’s has flipped into cheap melodrama.
One funny story - a couple years ago, I was called to jury duty two days before I was scheduled to drive to S’s college to pick him up - I really did not want to be selected as a juror. I’d brought one of Gitting’s biographies of Hardy to the courthouse and was re-reading it. In the course of attorney questioning of potential jurors, I was asked what kind of books I liked to read. I held up Gitting’s biography and announced what it was. I was not selected.
Thinking about Momofadult’s post on Hardy, it’s interesting how certain authors resonate strongly with us for various personal reasons.
I have recently rediscovered Joseph Conrad. I read a couple of things by him as a teenager and was not particularly impressed – but then not long ago I finally read another of his books, and…wow!! That one really got to me, and I went on to read several more of Conrad’s works, with the same reaction. One of the things I like about his writing is his ravishing descriptions of the natural world. Hardy doesn’t hold a candle to him in that regard, as far as I’m concerned!
Conrad - yes, I’m hearing those Heart of Darkness African drums right now. Hubby had to work on me to get me to appreciate Conrad - and it’s only an intellectual appreciation, not emotional like I respond to Hardy. I’ll have to try some more - what would you recommend, @NJTheatreMOM ? So true about those personal reactions to authors - aren’t we lucky to have the opportunity - my definition of good art or literature!
Forgot Return of the Native - just discussed with Hubby who also had to dig deep to recall specifics other than the reddleman. I think this one moved me less deeply, maybe it wasn’t so morbid! I’ll have to re-read this one - probably been 35 years.
I’m especially fond of *Return of the Native * because I really enjoyed writing about for the final exam and got an A! It’s interesting because Hardy apparently was forced (encouraged?) to tack on a happier ending than he had wanted to. While Far From the Madding Crowd had lots of tragedy, I was glad to see Gabriel and Bathsheba end up in a happy place.
Thank you for your thoughts on Hardy and the recommended Gittings biographies, Momofadult. Inexpensive used copies are available on Amazon.
My brother loves Thomas Hardy. He has tried to steer me towards cheerier grounds with his favorites of Under the Greenwood Tree, The Woodlanders, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge.
Chapter 22, “The Great Barn and the Sheep-Shearers” is referenced in Mary’s question list (number 9) for its sensuality. Hardy really used the lush, bright, and fertile landscape to introduce the upcoming personal contact of the characters with the sheep and one another. I fell for Gabriel Oak before the sheep shearing scene ever took place, I think, because I found the writing in this chapter so warm and intimate, starting with this gorgeous description in the second paragraph:
Highly sensual, rich, fertile, and religious with hints of forbidden pleasure. Bravo, Hardy!
There are several academic articles out there about the cinematic nature of Hardy’s writing. Nowadays, we might say about such an author, “He was writing with the big screen in mind,” but back then, there was no big screen!
The source piece about Hardy’s cinematic technique seems to be an article by David Lodge, “Thomas Hardy and Cinematographic Form.” I can only find it on JSTOR, but in essence, Lodge states that a cinematic writer is one “who imagines and presents his materials in primarily visual terms, and whose visualizations correspond in some significant respect to the visual effects characteristic of film.” In Hardy’s novels, we encounter descriptions reflecting modern film techniques such as long shot, close up, wide-angle, telephoto, zoom, and so on.
For example, think of the “aerial shot” of Gabriel as he looks down through the roof at Bathsheba and her aunt early in the novel. That’s not my observation; it’s from a thesis I found online. It’s much too long for casual reading, but if you open it and search “Crowd,” you will find a couple additional examples of parallels between Hardy’s staging of a scene vs. a movie director’s staging—particular in the use of lighting: http://etheses.bham.ac.uk/4094/1/Robertshaw13MPhil.pdf
This book was a roller coaster for me. While I was reading I found I liked the book, I didn’t like the book, then I liked it again… By the time I finished, I decided it was just okay. I agree with @Mary13 that Bathsheba didn’t deserve Gabriel.
I’ll take a stab at question 5
Bathsheba is tamed by life and the consequences of her choices. The 3 men all influence her change, but ultimately she is the one responsible.
Gabriel shows her kindness, strength, and enduring love. Boldwood was unstable and used guilt to get her to agree to marry him. I never felt like it was real love. It was infatuation out of control. If I had to pick one of the men who influenced Bathsheba’s change the most, I would pick Troy. She fell in love with him. He couldn’t be trusted and destroyed her dream. He was the one who broke her and caused her to look more deeply at herself.
^Ha, PlantMom, when Hardy wrote about plants like moschatel and cuckoo-pint and malachite, I felt frustrated by the passage because I would have had to look them up to know what they looked like. Obscure references…at least to me.
On the other hand, one of the plants that Bathsheba put cuttings of in the wagon with Fanny’s coffin was the herb southernwood, which I know to smell absolutely delightful, so I appreciated that reference.
I think I would recommend starting with Conrad short stories. A collection I enjoyed was Tales of the East and the West. The Secret Sharer, a shortish piece which is often included in volumes with Heart of Darkness, is a terrific tale – very dramatic.
The Conrad novel that got me back into reading him was the amazing The Secret Agent, a dark and gruesome story in some ways, but absolutely riveting.
I have also recently read Nostromo. It’s a bit challenging because of its length, but very good. I just finished Victory, which I had read in high school but didn’t remember and was delighted to rediscover.
I think the next Conrad I will read is Chance, which was his most popular book during his lifetime. It focuses on a female character and apparently deals with social issues surrounding feminism.
I like to think that Bathsheba did deserve Gabriel. She was right when she originally refused him that she wasn’t ready (or tame enough in her words), but I think by the end she’s still independent, but knows that Gabriel will respect that independence in a way that Troy could not and would not. (Nor would Boldwood have either.) Gabriel and Bathsheba have worked together on the farm, and I don’t see that fundamentally changing except of course to the extent that adding (presumed future) babies to the mix changes every marriage. I think both Troy and Boldwood give her examples of what she doesn’t want. Neither see her for what she is. Gabriel knows all her faults and loves her anyway.
If anything I think Gabriel is a bit of a problem. He’s a bit too perfect. Except for going off in a huff and wanting a proper apology before he’ll save her sheep, and almost killing himself in his hut, and the one time he nicks a sheep, we really don’t see him in a bad light.
I don’t think diversions are minded very much here, Momofadult, especially if they are about books.
If you read some more Conrad and would like to talk about it, please feel free to PM me.
I felt pretty much the same way. I thought the rustics were rather tedious. I read somewhere that they acted as a Greek chorus in the book, and I guess people of Hardy’s time found them amusing.
NJTM, I didn’t know some of these plants! but to share an idea of how Hardy was intentionally playing up the more pronounced and suggestive characteristics of some of the plants, I’ll provide a few links
I agree – except that I would say Bathsheba didn’t really love Troy. How could she? She knew so little about him. I think your description of Boldwood fits Bathsheba perfectly here: “It was infatuation out of control.”
I like your phrasing of Bathsheba coming “to look more deeply at herself.” In the opening pages of the novel, Gabriel sees Bathsheba surreptitiously pull out a small mirror, look at herself and smile faintly. At the outset, she is only looking at the surface, but by the end of the story, her contemplation goes much deeper than how she looks in a mirror.
Troy makes me think of Wickham also. And I have to add that Bathsheba reminds me of Lydia when she falls so easy for Wickham in all his soldier’s finery. Parts of Bathsheba’s personality seem at such odds with each other.
My heart absolutely ached for Boldwood. Clearly, he become unnaturally obsessed and is the kind of character we would worry about our real life daughters becoming involved with. I can’t help my compassion at his story, however. What responsibility does Bathsheba have for “inciting” the poor guy - and why is he punished when she gets off?
Perhaps I read too much innocence into Boldwood - but this is one those Hardy personal tragedies that keep me emotionally involved and coming back to his novels. I guess I’m a sucker for Hardy’s use of characters like this who seem born to be punished by the events of their lives and taken advantage of those who are more firmly grounded. Sad to say, but I find characters like Boldwood all too reminiscent of some poor souls I’ve known in real life. Perhaps that’s why I relate so strongly.
I thought of Boldwood as as someone who might be high-functioning autistic. I felt sorry for him, but he never seemed dangerously obsessed, though obviously his reaction to Troy’s sudden reappearance were the acts of a man who had gone over the edge. I really don’t think we can blame Bathsheba - most people would not have taken the Valentine seriously. I’ve known some people a bit like him in real life too.
Yes, I like those scenes with Gabriel too. I think because they humanize him. I particularly liked his insisting on an apology though I felt sorry for the sheep who had to wait!
Plantmom, I love that it was you who gave us all the plant links! I had not imagine cuckoo-plant quite like that!
I will confess to sometimes skimming a bit at the rustic Greek chorus. I am glad someone else also thought that that is what they are.
Thanks for the plant links in Post #33, PlantMom. Now I realize that malachite (like the mineral) was the word used by Hardy to describe the color of part of the cuckoo-pint.
