I just finished reading a really good story by Hardy in which there is a proxy situation similar to that in Cyrano de Bergerac. Hardy’s story was written before Edmond Rostand wrote his play. I don’t know if Hardy could have influenced Rostand!
NJTM, Did you know that Hardy’s “On the Western Circuit” was made into a film called The Day After the Fair? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092835/
It’s interesting to think about whether Rostand might have been influenced by Hardy. Because of the timelessness of that “love by proxy” plot, I wondered whether there might have been a Greek myth with a similar story line, but I couldn’t find one.
Wowsers, Mary13, I did not know that. So interesting!
Now that I think about it, three of the stories I have read in Life’s Little Ironies have dramatic tension stemming from issues of identity.
“The Day After the Fair” is a good title for that movie. There is a merry-go-round in the story (steam-powered) that Hardy writes a wonderful description of.
There is also a surprisingly erotic passage where a man grabs a woman’s hand in the press of a crowd and slips his finger inside her glove. Turns out it’s the wrong woman, but she likes it!
I looked at the Wikipedia page. Apparently there was an American playwright who thought Rostand had ripped him off, but at least whoever wrote the article thought it was highly unlikely. I hadn’t realized that Cyrano was a real person, though the events of the play are completely fictional. So maybe that plot was just in the air at the time.
Gabriel has a watch that scarcely works, but is probably a treasured family heirloom:
However, Gabriel doesn’t really need a watch because he can tell time by the sky. I would guess that being in tune with the cycle of nature is another way that Hardy illustrates Gabriel’s exemplary character. The country folk definitely admire him for it:
Troy also had his pocket watch which held Fanny’s hair. Didn’t he try to give Bathsheba the watch when they first met? That could have ended everything before it began, once Bathsheba found the locket of hair.
Troy has his father’s gold watch: he offers it to Bathsheba soon after meeting her. She doesn’t accept it. Later - after their marriage - Bathsheba glimpses a lock of Fanny’s hair tucked in the back of the watch (when Troy checks not only the time but also the lock of hair.)
Gabriel has to track down Joseph Poorgrass and the cart with Fanny’s coffin. “The minutes glided by uncounted,” as Joseph spends “But only a few minutes, because 'tis as 'tis” at the alehouse.
I was struck by the time before Bathsheba would marry. Troy was impatient and married Bathsheba at the blink of an eye. Boldwood was satisfied to wait six years or forever, it seemed. Gabriel Oak proposed rashly once, and then waited until the time was just right.
Gabriel’s first proposal was one of the parts of the book that made me laugh. He scarcely knows Bathsheba when he goes to propose, telling her aunt, “…I should be very glad to marry her. D’ye know if she’s got any other young man hanging about her at all?” (p. 19)
When her aunt fibs about all Bathsheba’s suitors, he gives up instantly, “Well, there’s no use in my waiting, for that was all I came about: so I’ll take myself off home-along, Mrs. Hurst.”
I was also amused when Bathsheba ran after Gabriel and he, mistakenly believing that she had come to accept him, uses an endearment, “I’m sorry to have made you run so fast, my dear” – only to learn that she came to refuse him. Awwwwkward.
In re-reading the passage, I noticed a little foreshadowing. Gabriel tells Bathsheba that his confusion was understandable because she ran after him. She responds indignantly:
But that’s exactly what she does when she falls for Troy.
A friend who also read the book and I were discussing the appropriateness of this word for many of Hardy’s characters’ situations. An adjective much favored by the young people in our lives!
That was one of the lines that made me laugh out loud. Bathsheba seems to follow a rather weird logic system! I agree she loses it with Troy.
I also agree that time is an important theme in the novel. Ultimately I think the message is that the best relationships are built when people take the time to really get to know each other.
I was particularly aware of the passing time as Bathsheba sits by Fanny’s coffin, detemined to wait up for her husband. When she goes off to ask Gabriel whether he knew about the infant she stands outside his window a long while watching him read. He looks at a clock and goes to bed, and she loses her nerve and goes home again. Soon thereafter, Troy appears, and time seems to rush along as she runs off and then slows down as she finds a place to think about her situation.
Bathsheba’s time with Fanny’s coffin led to another one of my seesaw reactions to our heroine. On the one hand, I was proud of Bathsheba for her kindness in fetching the coffin and adorning it with flowers, her bravery in opening it, and her genuine sadness:
On the other hand, I was embarrassed for her after Troy arrived and saw Fanny and the baby, and Bathsheba deteriorated, wailing, into semi-hysterical jealousy:
I didn’t like that semi-hysterical jealousy either, but to be fair she hasn’t really had time yet to fall out of love with him. She knows the marriage isn’t working. She’s just begun to suspect why. But she’s still operating under infatuation mode. It doesn’t actually take her that long to get straight and see Troy clearly at last.
Those semi-hysterical words seemed like they came straight out of Scarlett O’hara"s mouth (substitute Ashley for Frank). I wasn’t fond of that part of the scene, either.
^ Yes!
I’m a short way into the short Hardy novel Under the Greenwood Tree and appreciating it all the more for the Madding discussion. Greenwood really seems to bring out Hardy’s funny side (there’s a lol section about the evils of the clarinet), his ability to capture a sense of the countryside with his skillful descriptions of the lighting, and likewise the sounds the musicians create. Hardy has a chorus, and in Greenwood, it’s really a gallery of musicians who provide the backstory and running commentary. I’m rather liking it! But what I wanted to post was a snippet about the element of time (and today’s discussion topic), in which the male protagonist, Dick Dewy, watches the young woman, Fancy Day, I’m sure he’s falling in love with at a Christmas day church service:
I just think this paragraph is beautiful in the way it combines the memorable small and large events of a brief event over the longer span of years.
Thanks for sharing that, PlantMom. Lovely!
In college, I read Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, couldn’t take the bleakness, and swore off Thomas Hardy forever. Obviously, it turned out not to be forever, and I’m very glad I gave him another go with Far From the Madding Crowd.
I’ve had the movie from Netflix for weeks and still haven’t watched it. December just doesn’t allow for two solid hours of free time!
We can begin selecting our next book now – and then everyone can get back to holiday and/or end-of-semester planning. Any ideas for February?
Leaving home now but thought I’d include this link to help with book consideration before I head off.
A recent book that has won awards and that a couple of people in my other book group have really liked is Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis.
Have any of you read Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín? I have read it, but it was quite a while ago, and I’d be more than willing to revisit it. There’s a new movie based on the book that’s supposed to be really good.
Thanks for the npr list, ignatius. I love scrolling through these end of year favorite reads!
I’ve seen H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald on a number of best book lists for the year. Do the group’s rules allow for a memoir/nature sort of book? Here’s the blurb from Amazon:
This morning while waiting at an appointment I also read a few stories from another 2015 notable, A Manual for Cleaning Women selected stories by Lucia Berlin, edited by Stephen Emerson. They’re shockingly raw and gritty, but funny and touching at the same time. Here’s an Amazon summary:
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I’ve read Brooklyn but would be happy to reread if I can get someone here to see the movie with me. DH was not interested last time I brought it up, lol.