** spoiler alert ** 3.5 stars
A depressing story about depressing people. The main character, Michael Henchard, takes foot-shooting to an artistic level by being unpleasant and self-centered at all the wrong times to the wrong people. Mean and petty-minded, he can't not act like a jerk and ass (drink or no drink), which of course brings him all kinds of hurt which he by turns feel is deserved and undeserved. Either he's at heart an unpleasant person, or his extended period of sobriety leads to dry drunk behavior. Many times he knows he's sabotaging himself, but can't stop doing what he does on impulse. A demon is driving him, and his feet-first jump into the bottle again would have happened, regardless of events IMO. He was just waiting for that 21-year vow to expire.

Needless to say, I didn't much care for him and only wished that he had tossed himself off the bridge for suicides that Hardy had described with such care, rather than dying in some inn from starvation and chronic depressive madness (or whatever it was). Hardy did a bait and switch on me there.

I can't name any character who I was entirely sympathetic to. Even Farfrae seemed like a blind dolt, although he was far more likeable than most of the lot. But I can't shake the feeling that it didn't feel much like a STORY that I got involved in. It was more like watching a bunch of depressed and fatally flawed little toys moved around and crushed by unfeeling and bored Fate.

That said, I like Hardy's writing. It's easy on the ear, although that might have been helped considerably by the reader, Nigel Anthony, who has a VERY pleasant voice and made each character's voice distinctive, even the old women (one of whom sounded like Letitia Cropley from The Vicar of Dibley). So, well done! It kept me listening to the end, whereas if I'd been reading the book, there's a slim chance I might have set it down and never picked it back up again - if the plot had started to outweigh my enjoyment of the writing.

I'll gladly read more Hardy, but it will be awhile.