Return of the Native
by Thomas Hardy
Return of the Native
by
Thomas Hardy
|
|
| published
|
February 2006
by Book Sales
|
| first published
| 1878 |
| binding
| Hardcover |
| isbn
|
8188280097
(isbn13: 9788188280094)
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| ebook |
|
| pages
| 480 |
| date added
|
04-06-08
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|
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Read in March, 2008
Crushed by Things Beyond Control: A Review of The Return of the Native
Poor Thomas Hardy. He was pursued by a fate almost as cruel as that which crushes his characters. As a boy he was too well educated to pursue a quiet life on the heath, when he grew up to his novels were too mercilessly condemned by Victorian moralists for him to live in peace as a writer. He turned exclusively to poetry (depending on your stance that can also be counted as tragedy) and his estranged wife died, and altho...more
Crushed by Things Beyond Control: A Review of The Return of the Native
Poor Thomas Hardy. He was pursued by a fate almost as cruel as that which crushes his characters. As a boy he was too well educated to pursue a quiet life on the heath, when he grew up to his novels were too mercilessly condemned by Victorian moralists for him to live in peace as a writer. He turned exclusively to poetry (depending on your stance that can also be counted as tragedy) and his estranged wife died, and although he married again he continued writing poetry about his other wife, the dead one. Fortunately for Mr. Hardy the fate that buffeted him throughout his life was a kinder one the preternaturally punitive fate that tends to crush the characters in his novels. Return of the Native is no exception.
The native is Clement Yoebright and his return to Egdon Heath is precipitated by his boredom with success in the diamond industry in Paris and his longing to lead a more meaningful life. He returns home hoping to make a satisfying life for himself by educating the poor Heath dwellers. Instead he becomes entangled with the beautiful and capricious Eustacia Vye for whom the word Paris signifies all the glamour that her life had been lacking. The arrival of Clym Yoebright therefor marks the end of Eustacia's affair with Damon Wildeve who promptly marries Thomasin Yoebright, something he had been promising to do for quite a while. Then the machinations of fate begin to move, and Thomas Hardy makes is clear that human loves and lives are merely grist for the mill and the millstone is crude and heavy. In some books the characters engage in a futile struggle to escape their fates but not so with Thomas Hardy; Clym runs madly into Eustacia's arms, Damon hurries from the house he shares with his wife and daughter to the carriage he will carry Eustacia away in, and a sobbing Eustacia rushes headlong through the driving rain to drown herself in Shadwater Weir. Of course her husband and lover throw themselves in after her.
The pleasure in reading Thomas Hardy comes from lavish descriptions of the heath, a tone that strikes the perfect chord between compassion and strict morality, and the grim precision of inexorable fate in action. While The Return of the Native deals ostensibly with Clym Yoebright and the events precipitated by his return it seems to me that Eustacia Vye is the true subject of the novel. The heath is her torment, the play between Hardy's compassion and morality reaches a fever pitch in regard to Eustacia, and it she who is the most cruelly smitten by the hand of fate. Eustacia's internal struggles are the most dynamic and the narrative dips into her thoughts and feelings more frequently than those of any other character. And it is Eustacia who rebels against cruel fate and gives voice to a sentiment befitting almost any of Hardy's greatest characters:
"How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me! ...I do not deserve my lot!" She cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. "O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to heaven at all!"
Not everyone likes an author who occasionally averts his gaze from the matter at hand to observe instead the movements of the clouds, or insects that herald the passage of seasons, or the difference between trees that grow unmolested in a sheltered hollow and those that grow exposed to the wind on a high and distant hill. I can understand why some might have an aversion to such lashings of rain and thrashing of branches, because in the hands of a lesser author it all turns into a purple mush of twilight followed by the obligatory fiery sunset. But Hardy is made of sterner stuff and so is his prose, so his well-executed landscapes are somber and his sunsets are full of foreboding. The heath reveals not only the state of mind of the characters living on it, it reveals what is within their very hearts:
"Take all the varying hates felt by Eustacia Vye towards the heath, and translate them into loves, and you have the heart of Clym. He gazed upon the wide prospect as he walked, and was glad."
And the heath represents an uncompromising morality that Hardy seems to regard simultaneously as overly hard but necessary.
Like many Victorian authors Hardy is concerned with morality but he surpasses many of them in that his concern is sincere and complex: he shows compassion for both those who have strayed from conventional mores but remain pure-hearted and good (Clym) as well as those who willfully exhibit clear moral failings (Eustacia.) His endless sympathy for the faithless Eustacia is indeed almost too much for my taste at times, but her immense inner torment and remorse render her redeemable at the very moment of her suicide, and the end she is a sympathetic figure. (When she lies dead "the stateliness of look which had been almost too marked for a dweller in a country domicile had at last found an artistically happy background.") At the crux of Hardy's work there is an interesting tension between two opposing possibilities: Are these people suffering all of these terrible calamities because God is punishing them for the error of their ways, or were they simply born into a world too cold and cruel for sensitive souls such as these?
Wether it is the hand of a vengeful god at work, or merely the random blows of a fate precipitated by the heedless actions of men, Hardy goes out of his way to lay his characters low. The lengths he goes to probably seemed more believable in a Victorian milieu, next to any single occurrence in any novel penned by Dickens the improbable events that litter Hardy's novels seem impeccably realistic, but to a contemporary reader the role of coincidence and accident can seem a little forced and artificial. But the importance of the minor details; the unopened door, the unopened letter, are necessary for Hardy because his characters are completed by their downfalls. Had Clym merely grown tired of Eustacia, or had Eustacia merely left then they would both seem superficial and petty rather than tragic. The immensity of their suffering as they grapple with their consciences proves that they were meant for better things had fate not trapped them with tests that they were doomed to fail. At the close of his brief preface Hardy writes that "it is pleasant to dream that some spot in the extensive tract whose southwestern quarter is here described, may be the heath of that traditionary King of Wessex---Lear." It comes as no surprise that this was one of Hardy's pleasant dreams since King Lear exemplifies a distilled form of classic tragedy that is rampant in his work.
Occasionally I have come across novels in which compelling characters move convincingly through well constructed plots and yet, I feel somehow unsatisfied at the end, as if all those pages turned were just ephemeral paper after all and nothing had happened. This is never the case with Thomas Hardy, because although he has his faults he is a thoughtful serious writer who is worthy of his vast and somber heath.
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bookshelves:
to-read
From one of Monty Python's albums:
Commentator: Hello, and welcome to Dorchester, where a very good crowd has turned out to watch local boy Thomas Hardy write his new novel "The Return Of The Native", on this very pleasant July morning. This will be his eleventh novel and the fifth of the very popular Wessex novels, and here he comes! Here comes Hardy, walking out towards his desk. He looks confident, he looks relaxed, very much the man in form, as he acknowledges this very good na...more
From one of Monty Python's albums:
Commentator: Hello, and welcome to Dorchester, where a very good crowd has turned out to watch local boy Thomas Hardy write his new novel "The Return Of The Native", on this very pleasant July morning. This will be his eleventh novel and the fifth of the very popular Wessex novels, and here he comes! Here comes Hardy, walking out towards his desk. He looks confident, he looks relaxed, very much the man in form, as he acknowledges this very good natured bank holiday crowd. And the crowd goes quiet now, as Hardy settles himself down at the desk, body straight, shoulders relaxed, pen held lightly but firmly in the right hand. He dips the pen...in the ink, and he's off! It's the first word, but it's not a word - oh, no! - it's a doodle. Way up on the top of the lefthand margin is a piece of meaningless scribble - and he's signed his name underneath it! Oh dear, what a disapointing start. But he's off again - and here he goes - the first word of Thomas Hardy's new novel, at ten thirtyfive on this very lovely morning, it's three letters, it's the definite article, and it's "The". Dennis?
Dennis: Well, this is true to form, no surprises there. He started five of his eleven novels to date with the definite article. We had two of them with "It", there's been one "But", two "At"s, one "On" and a "Dolores", but that of course was never published.
Commentator: I'm sorry to interrupt you there, Dennis, but he's crossed it out. Thomas Hardy, here on the first day of his new novel, has crossed out the only word he has written so far, and he's gazing off into space. Oh, ohh, there he signed his name again.
Dennis: It looks like "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" all over again.
Commentator: But he's...no, he's down again and writing, Dennis, he's written "B" again, he's crossed it out again, and he has written "A" - and there is a second word coming up straight away, and it's "Sat" - "A Sat" - doesn't make sense - "A Satur" - "A Saturday" - it's "A Saturday", and the crowd are loving it, they are really enjoying this novel. And it's "afternoon", it's "Saturday afternoon", a comfortable beginning, and he's straight on to the next word - it's "in" - "A Saturday afternoon in" - "in" - "in" "in Nov" - "November" - November is spelled wrong, he's left out the second "E", but he's not going back, it looks like he's going for the sentence, and it's the first verb coming up - it's the first verb of the novel, and it's "was", and the crowd are going wild! "A Saturday afternoon in November was", and a long word here - "appro" - "appro" - is it a "approving"? - no, it's "approaching" - "approaching" - "A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching" - and he's done the definite article "but" again. And he's writing fluently, easily with flowing strokes of the pen, as he comes up to the middle of this first sentence. And with this eleventh novel well underway, and the prospects of a good days writing ahead, back to the studio.
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Read in July, 2008
Eustacia Vye has haunted the dark corners of my literary memory since I first encountered her on the forbidding moors of Egdon Heath back in high-school. Under the great tutelage of my English professor, who introduced me to such luminary characters as Tess, Raskolnikov, Esmeralda & Quasimodo, Madame Bovary, Yossarian, Jan Valjean, and countless others who continue to fuel and inspire, I recall reading this text and feeling utterly fascinated yet lost amid the rush of emotion and landscape. ...more
Eustacia Vye has haunted the dark corners of my literary memory since I first encountered her on the forbidding moors of Egdon Heath back in high-school. Under the great tutelage of my English professor, who introduced me to such luminary characters as Tess, Raskolnikov, Esmeralda & Quasimodo, Madame Bovary, Yossarian, Jan Valjean, and countless others who continue to fuel and inspire, I recall reading this text and feeling utterly fascinated yet lost amid the rush of emotion and landscape. Almost two decades later, I'm disarmed by the adult themes I most definitely did not catch upon first read. Return of the Native does not leave the reader breathless and listless for more like Far From the Madding Crowd. This story is much more over-laden with melodrama and religious undertones that disconcert both the feminist and contemporary reader.
Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright and Damon Wildeve are not empathetic characters. We can relate to their Promethean dreams, but their petty, confined hearts dampen any compassion we might otherwise feel. Thankfully Hardy recognizes the smallness of his creations and serves each their due fate. Yet the punishment for these willful creatures is much too rigidly Christian-like to be satisfyingly creative. We long for something wilder in imagination rather than reverting to the Victorian codes of conduct.
Despite the garish twists and turns of plot that will make most contemporary readers cringe, Hardy does shine a harsh light on Love and Marriage. He picks apart the varied natures of Love, the different forms of devotion and its many incarnations over time. We fall in love with the quick of our own pulse and project our secret desires and ideals onto someone who we presume will remove us from the confines of our existence. What we come to realize in Hardy's texts is that no one but ourselves can free us from our own expectations or our lot in life. These characters truly believe that the grass is always greener in the other pasture and they let their imaginations and desires get the best of them.
What kept me gripped amid the throes of tiresome passion in this bizarre love pentagon was, of course, Hardy's lush prose and attention to Place and Nature, which I can never tire of. He wonderfully slips back and forth between high and low culture. We see this in his Greco-Roman & Biblical allusions, which he weaves together with the cadence, mannerisms and nuance of the village folk. The people of Egdon Heath are the chorus, the Fates, and the mouthpiece to the landscape. We glean important information from their rumor mill, while they plant dangerous ideas and desires into the hearts and minds of the main characters. If the earth, trees, and water could talk, the chatter of Grandfer Cattle, Charley and Christian would be their eternal conversation. The singular character who lingers in our imagination, long after the willful and ephemeral spirits of Eustacia, Clym, Damon & Thomasin have spent themselves, is Egdon Heath, a masterpiece that only the artist Thomas Hardy could create. ...less
Read in July, 2008
I kept falling asleep at the beginning of this book. Finally I gave up. I mentioned to my friend Rich that I'd stalled out, and he quoted his high school English teacher, whose words predicted Rich's own experience of the novel: "For the first fifty pages, we would think Return of the N the worst book we had ever read and after that it would seem the best book we had ever read." So I pressed on, and sure enough, around page fifty the book grabbed me and didn't let go till I finished. ...more
I kept falling asleep at the beginning of this book. Finally I gave up. I mentioned to my friend Rich that I'd stalled out, and he quoted his high school English teacher, whose words predicted Rich's own experience of the novel: "For the first fifty pages, we would think Return of the N the worst book we had ever read and after that it would seem the best book we had ever read." So I pressed on, and sure enough, around page fifty the book grabbed me and didn't let go till I finished.
One of the main characters in this novel is named Diggory Venn, and I thought of Venn diagrams while reading this book, which is about intersecting circles of romantic desire. (It turns out, though, that the novel was published in 1878, and John Venn didn't introduce his diagram until 1881.) Still, the diagram seems to evoke the complicated connections among the five major characters, whose very names are wonderful: Diggory Venn, Clement (Clym) Yeobright, Eustacia Vye, Thomasin Yeobright, and Damon Wildeve.
In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield mentions that he likes Eustacia Vye. I still can't figure out why. She is a great character, though--proud, imperious, impetuous. Hardy describes her as "the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well," he writes, for "She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman." Indeed, this character who might have been at home as a goddess on Olympus meets a tragic end amid the mortal constraints of the desolate Egdon Heath.
I like reading Hardy during the summers (I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles over the summer nine years ago, and tried and failed to read Jude the Obscure the following summer. (Maybe I should go back and give it another try, too.) The bleakness of his vision is easier to take when the world is green and sweet leisure is plentiful. This one's somewhat less bleak than Tess, though, given its ending which, according to a footnote from Hardy, was made sunnier because of "certain circumstances of serial publication."...less
Read in August, 2006
Good medicine. I hated this book when I had to read it in high school. Maybe because I’d assumed from the title that it was going to be about American Indians. (In my defense, I’d been forced to read The Last of the Mohicans the previous year, and may have thought high school literature was all about the aboriginals.) Maybe because the entire first chapter is a description of Egdon Heath; one that still elicited a groan from me when I started listening to the audiobook a few weeks ago.
Th...more
Good medicine. I hated this book when I had to read it in high school. Maybe because I’d assumed from the title that it was going to be about American Indians. (In my defense, I’d been forced to read The Last of the Mohicans the previous year, and may have thought high school literature was all about the aboriginals.) Maybe because the entire first chapter is a description of Egdon Heath; one that still elicited a groan from me when I started listening to the audiobook a few weeks ago.
This is the first book in an experiment my friend Toronto and I are conducting, which consists of buddying up to read books that one or the other of us hated when we were assigned to read them in high school or college. Our goal is to discover whether further experience in life and literature will change our minds about the texts.
Well. All I can say is, I am now utterly fascinated with Thomas Hardy.
The book offers many clever turns of phrase and arresting insights, but what really got me excited at this point in my life (read that: writing life) is the structure. I found myself caught up in my conflicting hopes for the characters, all of which hang on Eustacia’s actions. I had a very clear idea of the pros and cons of her choice between Clym and Wildeve, and I couldn’t decide which would be the best. Compromises and rewards, either way. Then Hardy takes us in a direction I wasn’t considering and the outcome is satisfying because it had been set up in advance while I was focused on the more obvious possibilities.
So very like life.
I haven’t read Hardy’s more famous books Far From the Madding Crowd or Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I may need to soon. I’m also interested in his autobiography. I mean, the guy was born in 1840, wrote books that were very forward thinking and risky at the same time that Dickens and Georg Eliot were being published, and died in 1928. He seems such a part of another time and way of thinking, yet he was alive and kicking in the 20th century. I guess all of our lifespans are kind of phenomenal.
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bookshelves:
novels
My favorite among Hardy's novels, starts with a beautiful description on magnificent landscapes of Egdon Heath, where we're going to witness another chain of love and frustrations, happiness and tragedies one after the other, ending to a scene where we / characters would say, wish I / they would chose another option to not end in such a diaster ... but does it help?
بازگشت بومی توسط سیروان آزاد به فارسی برگردانده شده و در 1369 چاپ و منتشر...more
My favorite among Hardy's novels, starts with a beautiful description on magnificent landscapes of Egdon Heath, where we're going to witness another chain of love and frustrations, happiness and tragedies one after the other, ending to a scene where we / characters would say, wish I / they would chose another option to not end in such a diaster ... but does it help?
بازگشت بومی توسط سیروان آزاد به فارسی برگردانده شده و در 1369 چاپ و منتشر شده است.
اگرچه ترجمه ی عنوان رمان به "بازگشت بومی" صحیح بنظر می رسد، اما بصورت یک مفهوم جامع که در زبان انگلیسی خوانده می شود، در نمی آید.
native در اینجا هم به معنای بومی و هم به معنای طبیعت بومی در نظر گرفته شده است چرا که قهرمان کتاب در طول کشاکش های بسیار برای فرار از منطقه ای که در آن زاده و بزرگ شده است، عاقبت در آب های همان خاک، گم و گور می شود. شاید غرض این بوده که مرگ او بازگشت او از بلند پروازی های اوست، بازگشت او به بوم، بازگشت بومی به معنای محلی، متعلق به محل یا چیزی شبیه به این.
با این همه چون ترجمه ی فارسی را ندیده ام و نخوانده ام، این یک قضاوت مجرد و انتزاعی ست....less
bookshelves:
late19th-centurylit
Read in June, 2008
recommended to El by:
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (191/1001)
Thomas Hardy knew the stuff which made good soap operas by modern standards: lots of intrigue, plenty of folks who just can't manage to keep it in their pants, a bundle of miscommunications and a setting as familiar as its own character on which all of the above to occur.
The native here is Clym Yeobright who falls in love with Eustacia Vye and abandons his aspirations much to his mother's (and, eventually, Eustacia's) chagrin. On the other side of the table there is Clym's sweet - if not ju...more
Thomas Hardy knew the stuff which made good soap operas by modern standards: lots of intrigue, plenty of folks who just can't manage to keep it in their pants, a bundle of miscommunications and a setting as familiar as its own character on which all of the above to occur.
The native here is Clym Yeobright who falls in love with Eustacia Vye and abandons his aspirations much to his mother's (and, eventually, Eustacia's) chagrin. On the other side of the table there is Clym's sweet - if not just a little simple - cousin, Thomasin, who has snagged Damon Wildeve. Prior to Clym's return to Egdon Heath Eustacia carried on quite the relationship with Damon. Further complicating matters as only Aaron Spelling would fully appreciate, Clym's mother does not approve of her son's match, and oh, there's the reddleman, Diggory Venn, who secretly adores Thomasin. Across the heath these characters suffer a lot of heartbreak and meet destruction, all while the heath (the other character I mentioned) remains the same - which is really what life is all about, isn't it? As Brenda cried over her break-up with Dylan and his subsequent relationship with Kelly, Beverly Hills, throughout all of the tears and the tumult, remained the constant.
It's just that in Hardy's case he was a hundred years ahead of his time and those crazy Victorians were offended in all of their delicate nature. God love 'em....less
recommends it for:
people who want to die
If I could give this book negative stars, I would. I think this is officially the worst book I've ever read. If you like soap operas, read this book, because it's got love triangles and tons of he-said/she-said drama. But what makes this book really friggin' awful is that Thomas Hardy spends an entire chapter dedicated to the heath that the characters live on. He spends an ENTIRE CHAPTER describing the settting! It's clear he only did that to make more money-- which brings me to a point I'll get...more
If I could give this book negative stars, I would. I think this is officially the worst book I've ever read. If you like soap operas, read this book, because it's got love triangles and tons of he-said/she-said drama. But what makes this book really friggin' awful is that Thomas Hardy spends an entire chapter dedicated to the heath that the characters live on. He spends an ENTIRE CHAPTER describing the settting! It's clear he only did that to make more money-- which brings me to a point I'll get to later-- and he puts it right in the beginning (I think it's the second chapter) so you can be like, "Well, what the fuck, when can we talk about the he-said/she-said drama?"
Then, if that weren't enough: historically, he wrote an ending. But it was a sad ending and everyone hated it. So he actually puts out another chapter, all, "J/K!" with a happy ending, and people sop it up with their ocular biscuits. What?! Are you serious?! So if you decide not to heed my advice and read this terrible book anyway, don't read the last chapter, because it's tacked-on nonsense that Hardy put in just to make some extra cash and keep his audience.
What a sellout....less
Read in July, 2008
recommends it for:
fans of British literature
I read this book years and years ago when I was really into Hardy, but this time around I listened to the audio version. The reader used many different voices, some with an accent so thick I had trouble understanding the English! But then, I'm American . . .
The audio version was unabridged, and a well-woven tragedy, as most Hardy novels are. His characterizations are so rich, and he used characters so economically - each one becoming a real player at some point, with the possible exceptio...more
I read this book years and years ago when I was really into Hardy, but this time around I listened to the audio version. The reader used many different voices, some with an accent so thick I had trouble understanding the English! But then, I'm American . . .
The audio version was unabridged, and a well-woven tragedy, as most Hardy novels are. His characterizations are so rich, and he used characters so economically - each one becoming a real player at some point, with the possible exception of Granfa' Cantle, who provides only binding and color, unless my memory is failing me (OK, OK all you my friends, I hear you!)
I enjoyed listening to this book, although at 14 CDs it took the downside of forever. I was left wanting to hear The Mayor of Casterbridge again, but in a way I feel like the time would not be requited as these seem to be largely pointless stories that aren't even on the radar of most people I rub shoulders with. Still, Hardy is considered great literature . . ....less
A classic, which means not that it is better than other books, but that enough English majors have stabbed at it and analyzed it to death that it makes a good test case for high school students to hone their dull, cumbersome skills on. The symbolism was no doubt obvious to learned individuals of the time, but without Barron's booknotes (far superior to Cliff's notes) my high school self would never have understood the pagan and satanic symbolism that permeates the text. Knowing that, for example...more
A classic, which means not that it is better than other books, but that enough English majors have stabbed at it and analyzed it to death that it makes a good test case for high school students to hone their dull, cumbersome skills on. The symbolism was no doubt obvious to learned individuals of the time, but without Barron's booknotes (far superior to Cliff's notes) my high school self would never have understood the pagan and satanic symbolism that permeates the text. Knowing that, for example, the heath (scrub brush area in England) is where the term "heathen" comes from, made the text noticeably more interesting.
I really should have picked up on the guy in the red leather though. I did in fact, notice it was odd, but my late 20th century self saw that as more along the lines of fetishism than demonic imagery. Ah, what changes the last century has wrought. ...less
bookshelves:
the-classics
Read in April, 2008
Okay, this book is a linguist's brain candy. Hardy uses language that is intended to be savored. One of the difficulties of reading a text like this is the degrees of seperation I have from the words UNLESS I read them aloud. Odd, to me, how much different the text lives in the spoken word. I was reading the first chapter to my daughter outloud and (while she knocked off to sleep before paragraph 2) I was enthralled with it. Made me want to read the whole thing aloud. Frankly, though, the descri...more
Okay, this book is a linguist's brain candy. Hardy uses language that is intended to be savored. One of the difficulties of reading a text like this is the degrees of seperation I have from the words UNLESS I read them aloud. Odd, to me, how much different the text lives in the spoken word. I was reading the first chapter to my daughter outloud and (while she knocked off to sleep before paragraph 2) I was enthralled with it. Made me want to read the whole thing aloud. Frankly, though, the description of the environment was my favorite part of the book. The characters, like so many of Hardy's, were utterly unlikeable. It isn't that I didn't relate to them, it is that they rang so hollow and were, intentionally, so ordinary. This novel wasn't the screaming success that Tess was for Hardy, but it was a good read if you enjoy words....less
Read in March, 2008
This is a book I read originally my freshman year of college, but I recently reread it to teach in my AP English class.
It is a book with specific description of the setting; in fact, the setting becomes as important as a the characters. It reads much like a modern soap opera. Eustacia Vye is a discontented young woman with lofty dreams of leaving Egdon Heath. She uses men to get to her goals, but none of them fulfill her dreams. She eventually commits suicide.
The novel is steeped in the ...more
This is a book I read originally my freshman year of college, but I recently reread it to teach in my AP English class.
It is a book with specific description of the setting; in fact, the setting becomes as important as a the characters. It reads much like a modern soap opera. Eustacia Vye is a discontented young woman with lofty dreams of leaving Egdon Heath. She uses men to get to her goals, but none of them fulfill her dreams. She eventually commits suicide.
The novel is steeped in the pagan traditions of the heath, and though the characters change and fade away, the heath is stronger and more lasting than any of the people who inhabit it.
This is a Thomas Hardy classic, but I prefer Tess of the D'Ubervilles to this one....less
bookshelves:
to-reread
Read in January, 1985
recommends it for:
romantics
i loved this book, when i first read it, oddly enough, as i'm male, and it was assigned for school (odder still, it was written by a male [but i guess they did that, back then], and i often loved the books i was assigned for school). it led me, if you'll believe it, into the arms of my first real girlfriend (now a well respected poet, so you can see why, prob'ly). i loved the female protagonist. recently, i attempted to reread it, but was a little thrown by some of the idiom, at which poi...more
i loved this book, when i first read it, oddly enough, as i'm male, and it was assigned for school (odder still, it was written by a male [but i guess they did that, back then], and i often loved the books i was assigned for school). it led me, if you'll believe it, into the arms of my first real girlfriend (now a well respected poet, so you can see why, prob'ly). i loved the female protagonist. recently, i attempted to reread it, but was a little thrown by some of the idiom, at which point i turned to spark notes for a little clarification. spark notes proceeded to give away the entire plot IN THE DRAMATIS PERSONAE! now, i have to wait to forget it, again; luckily, this shouldn't take long. thanks, xanax!...less
Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
People who like good writing
Hardy is a lovely writer to loll around in. His prose is lush but still flows. A lot of what I know about agrarian England has come from reading him.
But on my second reading of Return of the Native, some years after the first, I hit the doldrums at about the halfway point and had to give it up. The stormy, headstrong woman with a whim of steel who takes whatever man she wants is just too familiar a character for me to keep reading unless she's got some really stunning trick up her sleeve....more
Hardy is a lovely writer to loll around in. His prose is lush but still flows. A lot of what I know about agrarian England has come from reading him.
But on my second reading of Return of the Native, some years after the first, I hit the doldrums at about the halfway point and had to give it up. The stormy, headstrong woman with a whim of steel who takes whatever man she wants is just too familiar a character for me to keep reading unless she's got some really stunning trick up her sleeve... and I got tired of waiting for it.
Nevertheless, this reminded me of what I like about Hardy, and I'll move on to one of the books I <i>haven't<i> already read the next time I get the notion....less
bookshelves:
makes-you-think---
recommends it for:
passionate souls
When I first read this book I thought it was a poor man's Wuthering Heights. On some level I still do, since Hardy's style was clearly still evolving at this point. But I appreciate so many parts of it so much more now. Hardy's portrait of Eustacia Vye is truly a masterpiece. Her fiery character is one of the best portrayals of a strong female character in anything I've read. Read as a promethean character, Eustacia then gains so much death and her character seems much more cohesive. The o...more
When I first read this book I thought it was a poor man's Wuthering Heights. On some level I still do, since Hardy's style was clearly still evolving at this point. But I appreciate so many parts of it so much more now. Hardy's portrait of Eustacia Vye is truly a masterpiece. Her fiery character is one of the best portrayals of a strong female character in anything I've read. Read as a promethean character, Eustacia then gains so much death and her character seems much more cohesive. The other stare of the story? The Heath itself. Hardy's words about the landscape are better than poetry-- his ability to paint a landscape through words is fully realized in Tess....less
Read in June, 2008
Another wonderful tale from Thomas Hardy.
As usual his plot twists are delicious. His misunderstandings are heart breaking. And his punishments are merciless.
I love the way he revisits scenes to give value to another character's point of view.
I always enjoy watching his characters grow and change either for the better or the worse. In The Return of the Native, I found myself unable to have one singular opinion of any of the characters. Just when I would begin to think that one ...more
Another wonderful tale from Thomas Hardy.
As usual his plot twists are delicious. His misunderstandings are heart breaking. And his punishments are merciless.
I love the way he revisits scenes to give value to another character's point of view.
I always enjoy watching his characters grow and change either for the better or the worse. In The Return of the Native, I found myself unable to have one singular opinion of any of the characters. Just when I would begin to think that one couldn't get much lower in my esteem, s/he would do something that would redeem his or her humanity. But by the end, I felt gratified in all outcomes.
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Read in October, 1989
I agree with others that were forced to read this book in high school; I disliked it's ongoing descriptions of the heath and believed it to be a silly book. Ironically, this book has remained most powerfully in my mind beyond most others in my life. It has affected me deeply in ways most unexpected to me. Later in life, I've come to appreciate that the more enduring a story / writing and vividness of description, the more profound the work itself. In this way, The Return of the Native is wort...more
I agree with others that were forced to read this book in high school; I disliked it's ongoing descriptions of the heath and believed it to be a silly book. Ironically, this book has remained most powerfully in my mind beyond most others in my life. It has affected me deeply in ways most unexpected to me. Later in life, I've come to appreciate that the more enduring a story / writing and vividness of description, the more profound the work itself. In this way, The Return of the Native is worth reading by any and all. Despite what may appear to be a difficult entry into the story, it will be well worth your while....less
Read in January, 2002
We had to read this my senior year of highschool. Now, I was notorious for not finishing novels in school, but this one I actually went all the way to the end... because I was hoping it'd get better. Oh my was this boring. Hardy spent way too much time describing the setting, and the plot was not grabbing and even unrealistic. I remember my teacher said that, "If you can get through this book, you can read anything!" and when I told another English teacher that we were reading this, sh...more
We had to read this my senior year of highschool. Now, I was notorious for not finishing novels in school, but this one I actually went all the way to the end... because I was hoping it'd get better. Oh my was this boring. Hardy spent way too much time describing the setting, and the plot was not grabbing and even unrealistic. I remember my teacher said that, "If you can get through this book, you can read anything!" and when I told another English teacher that we were reading this, she said that it was the worst book she ever read. ha ha! I'm glad that at least English teachers can agree with me. ...less
bookshelves:
currently-reading
I just began this book, and I am finding it different from most of the other Hardy novels that I have read in that it is much more fucosed on the natural envirmonment and its effect on the characters. The other books of his that I've read of his, including Far from the Madding Crowd, which I've just finished, are very tied to place in terms of the characters being the product of and ruled by their cultural environment and the manmade constructs, both physical and social. I don't know yet how,...more
I just began this book, and I am finding it different from most of the other Hardy novels that I have read in that it is much more fucosed on the natural envirmonment and its effect on the characters. The other books of his that I've read of his, including Far from the Madding Crowd, which I've just finished, are very tied to place in terms of the characters being the product of and ruled by their cultural environment and the manmade constructs, both physical and social. I don't know yet how, if at all that will affect what I get out fo the book, but I just found it to be a striking distinction....less
bookshelves:
fiction-read
Read in October, 1990
This, quite simply, is one of my favorite books. The only way I can describe it is that it's like A A Milne's '100 acre wood' for grown-ups.
Complete with a few maps and sketches, Hardy paints such a rich picture of his 'Egdon Heath' that you almost feel that you're walking around in it with the characters. Indeed, the Heath itself is really the main character in this novel. Hardy conveys the idea that small, sometimes petty, sometimes kind, peo...more
This, quite simply, is one of my favorite books. The only way I can describe it is that it's like A A Milne's '100 acre wood' for grown-ups.
Complete with a few maps and sketches, Hardy paints such a rich picture of his 'Egdon Heath' that you almost feel that you're walking around in it with the characters. Indeed, the Heath itself is really the main character in this novel. Hardy conveys the idea that small, sometimes petty, sometimes kind, people will come and go, but that the Heath has always existed and always will; almost amused by the passing of it's human inhabitants....less
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other editions
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The Return of the Native (Modern Library Classics)
isbn: 037575718X
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The Return of the Native (Oxford World's Classics)
isbn: 019284072X
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The Return of the Native (Penguin Classics)
isbn: 0140431225
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