What do you think?
The Mayor of Casterbridge
‘I’ve not always been what I am now’
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character’, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character’, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
445 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1886
Thomas Hardy, OM, was an English author of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. He regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for financial gain.
The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
Ratings & Reviews
Community Reviews
Edited June 23, 2018
this is hardy's most perfectly-constructed novel. there are others that are more appealing, to me, (am i allowed to say that?), but this one is such a perfect cause-and-effect, every-action-has-a-reaction kind of book, that it should really be his most popular and successful, instead of tess, which by comparison, is pure melodrama.
mayor is full of the trappings of melodrama - convenient and inexplicable deaths, characters long out of the picture returning at the least opportune times, overheard conversations and love triangles and deathbed confessions, and yet it is so much more than that - it is the long, drawn-out punishment of a man who makes an impulsive mistake, tries to redeem himself, and finds that when thomas hardy is writing your life, it just isn't going to work out for you, sorry.
this book has more psychological insight than tess, and henchard is a much more complex and nuanced character than any found in tess' world. tess' punishments result from her gender, her innocence, the hypocrisy of society, and a mismanaged letter. henchard is no ingenue.
nor is this like jude, where a basically good but misguided man falls victim to circumstances - michael henchard is an unlikeable character through and through. but the fact that he tries to be a better man, and even pulls it off for a while, should be enough, right? even though he is arrogant and hot-tempered, even though he sold his wife and baby in a drunken impulse? is he not even a candidate for redemption? he regrets his mistakes, and even though he continues to make more, his awareness of his character flaws should be enough to avoid his fate, right?
nope. this is hardyland. hardy doesn't take kindly to people trying to rise above their circumstances, nor does he take kindly to people getting off scot-free from their mistakes, good intentions or not. tess and angel pay, jude and sue pay, and michael henchard will pay.
along with the very hardy-esque theme of "stay put and be good," this book is another shining example of hardy's facility with descriptive prose involving pastoral settings, and the idea of progress, and its effect on the working man.
coincidences abound, but always acting as an agent of fate, which was hardy's god. fate is capricious, but determined, and there is no escaping it.
is why i love thomas hardy.
come to my blog!
mayor is full of the trappings of melodrama - convenient and inexplicable deaths, characters long out of the picture returning at the least opportune times, overheard conversations and love triangles and deathbed confessions, and yet it is so much more than that - it is the long, drawn-out punishment of a man who makes an impulsive mistake, tries to redeem himself, and finds that when thomas hardy is writing your life, it just isn't going to work out for you, sorry.
this book has more psychological insight than tess, and henchard is a much more complex and nuanced character than any found in tess' world. tess' punishments result from her gender, her innocence, the hypocrisy of society, and a mismanaged letter. henchard is no ingenue.
nor is this like jude, where a basically good but misguided man falls victim to circumstances - michael henchard is an unlikeable character through and through. but the fact that he tries to be a better man, and even pulls it off for a while, should be enough, right? even though he is arrogant and hot-tempered, even though he sold his wife and baby in a drunken impulse? is he not even a candidate for redemption? he regrets his mistakes, and even though he continues to make more, his awareness of his character flaws should be enough to avoid his fate, right?
nope. this is hardyland. hardy doesn't take kindly to people trying to rise above their circumstances, nor does he take kindly to people getting off scot-free from their mistakes, good intentions or not. tess and angel pay, jude and sue pay, and michael henchard will pay.
along with the very hardy-esque theme of "stay put and be good," this book is another shining example of hardy's facility with descriptive prose involving pastoral settings, and the idea of progress, and its effect on the working man.
coincidences abound, but always acting as an agent of fate, which was hardy's god. fate is capricious, but determined, and there is no escaping it.
is why i love thomas hardy.
come to my blog!
Edited January 22, 2020
“Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”
Hardy sure was a depressing fellow.
As with Tess and Jude, the eponymous mayor of Casterbridge in this book takes one figurative beating after another. Just when you think things might be starting to look up, when it seems he's found his footing and is turning his life around, Hardy says "nuh-uh" and throws another load of shit at him. I know he was challenging social norms and critiquing the bourgeoisie and whatever else, but good god man, give these poor characters a break!
Michael Henchard stands apart a little bit though because - I feel - unlike Tess and Jude, he himself is something of an antagonist in the lives of other goodhearted and modernistic folk. He is actually rather unpleasant and probably deserves a lot of what he gets, which is why it's quite an achievement that Hardy makes me sympathise with him. I wanted him to get better, do better, be better. I didn't like him, of course, but then there are many ways I can be made to feel about characters and “like” is always the least interesting one.
The novel opens eighteen years before the main story. Michael Henchard is unemployed, unhappy and on the road with his wife and daughter when he stops at a fairground tent for some rum-laced furmity. A few bowls later and he is drunk. In a moment of drunken foolishness, he gets angry at his wife and declares to all present that he will sell her to the highest bidder. What starts as a joke is taken too far, and when a passing sailor offers him five guineas, intoxication and pride make him go through with it. His wife, Susan, takes her daughter and leaves - quite gladly - with the sailor.
The next morning, Henchard realises the horror of what he has done and makes a vow not to drink for as long as his age at that moment (21 years).
Eighteen years later, the sailor has been lost at sea and Susan follows the trail of her true husband to the town of Casterbridge, hoping he will take pity on her and her daughter. There she discovers a sober, well-respected Michael Henchard in the mayor's seat. Could this be a second chance for them both?
Could it hell. Sorry, but this is Hardy. He wasn't going to let anyone get away with anything that easily. There's twists around every corner in this book. He really pushes how much we can feel pity for Michael Henchard. Henchard essentially orchestrates his own downfall time and again by behaving selfishly and jealously. I found myself despising him at times, and yet in the end I could only think: Henchard, you poor, poor bastard.
I enjoyed the moral challenges and complexity the book offered. I also really enjoyed the rural setting and the town of Casterbridge. My least favourite part of the book was Elizabeth-Jane, though she got a little more bearable towards the end. Maybe.
I do have one question, though.
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Edited October 25, 2019
Michael Henchard an itinerant, young, annoyed farm worker, walking with quiet wife Susan, infant daughter Elizabeth -Jane, looking for employment, the time, the early 1830's, in southern England, after an exhausting journey they reach a country fair, in a small village, enter a crowded tent, with dubious humans, serving alcohol, he imbibes vigorously, (a weakness that will cause much trouble, and haunt him the rest of his life) soon inebriated, the highly distressed man, in a stupor, sells Susan to an unknown sailor named Newson, what began as a joke reaches an unforeseen conclusion. In the morning sober, and very ashamed, he seeks his wife and daughter everywhere, but they have left the area and the nation...Almost twenty years later, a drastic change, this Mr.Henchard is now the influential Mayor of Casterbridge (Dorchester) , a successful businessman in the corn and hay trade, only a few miles from his crime, a secret that still causes him much pain and suffering, he has vowed and kept this oath, not to partake any intoxicating beverages for 21 years, his age during the scandalous incident. Recently hiring the bright, young, reluctant, affable Mr. Donald Farfrae, from Scotland, with a vague dream of going to America, to pursue his fortune there, but after a protracted , difficult negotiation, on the road out of town, Henchard, persuades Farfrae to stay, he runs the business better than the owner. Michael has it all, a beautiful , girlfriend, Lucetta Templeman, too, from an impoverished family, on the island of Jersey, he has compromised, but promises will wed, the eager woman, she helped him back to health when the mayor, became dangerously ill there, nurses fall in love with their needy patients regularly . Yet life has frequent complications, the smooth voyage of his career hits a reef, his long suspected dead wife Susan returns, she also hides a deep secret, bringing his daughter Elizabeth-Jane, too...what to do? The respected mayor of Casterbridge, a widower he says, will quietly marry his wife again, for appearance sake... the townsmen are flabbergasted, a poor, sickly, uneducated woman, with a grown daughter, a stranger, Mr.Henchard, could have any single woman, from a good family, in the city, later Mr. Farfrae and shy Miss Elizabeth-Jane, start to look at each other, both with kind eyes . A major novel from the always interesting writer, Thomas Hardy, dark waters may flow through these pages , but they will take you back to a place that will engross, and this is the ultimate goal of any book.
Edited December 12, 2017
Ooof, finally finished this trudge trudge trudge of a book, and it isn’t even that long. Maybe I’m getting feeble but Thomas Hardy’s manytentacled sentences and trillion 19th century rural slang words presented a north-face-of-the-Eiger challenge for my little brain – strange words like clane, felloe, furmety, gaberlunzie, twanking, diment, rantipole and comminatory and many many more, and sentences like this (deep breath) :
As the lively and sparkling emotions of her early married life cohered into an equable serenity, the finer movements of her nature found scope in discovering to the narrow-lived ones around her the secret (as she had once learnt it) of making limited opportunities endurable; by a species of microscopic treatment, of those minute forms of satisfaction that offer themselves to everybody not in positive pain; which, this handled, have much of the same inspiriting effect upon life as wider interests cursorily embraced.
You like that one? Heck, I got another :
While life’s middle summer had set its hardening mark on the mother’s face, her former spring-like specialities were transferred so dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child, that the absence of certain facts within her mother’s knowledge from the girl’s mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection in Nature’s powers of continuity.
Yeah……….. time to lie down for 20 minutes.
I guess I got what I thought I was going to get with this book – an intricate tale of the playing out of the intertwined fates of four characters who marry each other, lie about their origins to each other, lie about each others’ origins to each other, don’t marry each other, have the hots for each other, love each other, hate each other, betray each other, turn the tables on each other and in general bamboozlerize each other until the poor reader’s head is spinning. The plot is as constricted and convoluted as a box of pythons; it’s like a Coen Brothers movie, like Blood Simple or Burn After Reading. It’s a lethal quadrille.
The sexual politics of this unlikely tale are just weird. The young (around 21 I guess) Michael Henchard auctions off his wife in the first (famous) scene and then lives as a bachelor for the next 18 years. He explains:
Being something of a woman-hater, I have found it no hardship to keep mostly at a distance from the sex.
The next big emotional entanglement he makes (after 18 years of celibacy) is with…. a man. An entrancing young Scotsman to be precise, we could be thinking maybe Ewan McGregor in Shallow Grave or David Tennant as Doctor Who. Henchard (by now hizzoner The Mayor of Casterbridge) practically falls in love with this guy. Then suddenly back comes the wife he sold with daughter in tow and the merry dance begins. Swing your partners, one two three.
Reading this Hardy novel was like watching an old mournful elephant skilfully pick up three peas and juggle them expertly with his one enormous trunk and then turn round and plod massively back into the trackless jungle smashing bamboo plants and ripping creepers apart as he went, one large tear trickling down his cheek.
As the lively and sparkling emotions of her early married life cohered into an equable serenity, the finer movements of her nature found scope in discovering to the narrow-lived ones around her the secret (as she had once learnt it) of making limited opportunities endurable; by a species of microscopic treatment, of those minute forms of satisfaction that offer themselves to everybody not in positive pain; which, this handled, have much of the same inspiriting effect upon life as wider interests cursorily embraced.
You like that one? Heck, I got another :
While life’s middle summer had set its hardening mark on the mother’s face, her former spring-like specialities were transferred so dexterously by Time to the second figure, her child, that the absence of certain facts within her mother’s knowledge from the girl’s mind would have seemed for the moment, to one reflecting on those facts, to be a curious imperfection in Nature’s powers of continuity.
Yeah……….. time to lie down for 20 minutes.
I guess I got what I thought I was going to get with this book – an intricate tale of the playing out of the intertwined fates of four characters who marry each other, lie about their origins to each other, lie about each others’ origins to each other, don’t marry each other, have the hots for each other, love each other, hate each other, betray each other, turn the tables on each other and in general bamboozlerize each other until the poor reader’s head is spinning. The plot is as constricted and convoluted as a box of pythons; it’s like a Coen Brothers movie, like Blood Simple or Burn After Reading. It’s a lethal quadrille.
The sexual politics of this unlikely tale are just weird. The young (around 21 I guess) Michael Henchard auctions off his wife in the first (famous) scene and then lives as a bachelor for the next 18 years. He explains:
Being something of a woman-hater, I have found it no hardship to keep mostly at a distance from the sex.
The next big emotional entanglement he makes (after 18 years of celibacy) is with…. a man. An entrancing young Scotsman to be precise, we could be thinking maybe Ewan McGregor in Shallow Grave or David Tennant as Doctor Who. Henchard (by now hizzoner The Mayor of Casterbridge) practically falls in love with this guy. Then suddenly back comes the wife he sold with daughter in tow and the merry dance begins. Swing your partners, one two three.
Reading this Hardy novel was like watching an old mournful elephant skilfully pick up three peas and juggle them expertly with his one enormous trunk and then turn round and plod massively back into the trackless jungle smashing bamboo plants and ripping creepers apart as he went, one large tear trickling down his cheek.
March 11, 2021
*4.5 stars *
Edited October 8, 2007
I give it five stars because it seems nearly a perfect example of its type of craft. This book has an intertwined and flawless plot that is never overcomplicated; it is full of wonderful language, rich with regional variation, for instance the tenor of Donald Farfrae's Scottish is exceptionally musical and not like the speech of his peers. There were moments reading this book I felt so much under the sway of the author's power that I could observe him wirte himself into one tight plot corner and then another and then skillfully find his way out from all . Plot plot plot. There's a lot to learn here. Everything they told us in graduate school started here: plot springs from character; don't coddle your characters--reveal their weaknesses, build plot around their flaws. Let their mistakes haunt their lives forever. Don't get bogged down in narrative tangents. The simplicity of this tale makes room for its psychological richness--not the same as complexity, just depth. I wish I could do this. In comparision to the other 19th century realists with whom Hardy is often compared, Hardy it seems to me is the purest of them all. He doesn't get lost in well-meaning documentarian slumming as Zola did, and he has less of the pathos of Wharton or James. That said I prefer Wharton and James--somehow their characters seem yet more tragic. I'm not sure why--perhaps there is a teeny bit less subtely and elegance to Hardy's writing. His is sure footed, Anglo-saxon, stubborn, forceful. And yet with beautiful moments of authorial reflection. We'll have to take a poll....
Edited September 21, 2021
Michael Henchard is the perfect example of being your own worst enemy - even after a second chance to redeem past mistakes he just will not see past the toxic pools of power that spill over his life; he can never be happy with who he is and what he has been given - highest recommendation.
Edited November 3, 2020
Man stuck in his own character!
There is something endearing and sweet about the brutal consistency of Michael Henchard's eternal fight against his own bad temper. He is not a bad person as such - not bad in the psychopath fashion of careless evil doing at least.
Quite the contrary. He wants to be fair in life, but life keeps infuriating him to the point of boiling over, again and again. Even when he has murder in his heart, he makes sure to be fair in the fight, and therefore calculates that he needs to bind one of his arms before engaging in a deadly match - lest the opponent be without a fair chance! His kind of destruction is not the backstabbing kind. On the first pages, he sells his wife to the highest bidder, and that public shame remains his theme for the rest of his life.
Even in his most outrageous anger, he punishes himself more than the victims of his rage.
Woman, too, seems stuck in irrational emotionality though, I quickly add, in case it may seem as if Hardy tried to prove the "rational sex" to be the only one pitifully guided by impulses and fleeting states of mind.
Lucetta's life and death is a Tragedy Of Strong Feeling, Quickly Changed! In that respect, she and Henchard are the perfect couple, but it makes sense too, considering their characters, that they should never be together properly, as their feelings and impulses move like clashing waves...
After these two personae dramatis have left the stage, those less burdened by character remain to get on with life, settling in calm boredom most probably.
After Tess, I found this novel to have a soothing effect on my nerves, with some comic qualities I didn't expect, but appreciated all the more. If one could choose one's personality, it is doubtless better to be an Elizabeth-Jane or a Donald Farfrae. But as Hardy shows: ONE CAN'T! And it is good entertainment for the others when Men and Women of Character enter the game...
Curtain to standing ovations! Reading bliss in dark autumn weather!
There is something endearing and sweet about the brutal consistency of Michael Henchard's eternal fight against his own bad temper. He is not a bad person as such - not bad in the psychopath fashion of careless evil doing at least.
Quite the contrary. He wants to be fair in life, but life keeps infuriating him to the point of boiling over, again and again. Even when he has murder in his heart, he makes sure to be fair in the fight, and therefore calculates that he needs to bind one of his arms before engaging in a deadly match - lest the opponent be without a fair chance! His kind of destruction is not the backstabbing kind. On the first pages, he sells his wife to the highest bidder, and that public shame remains his theme for the rest of his life.
Even in his most outrageous anger, he punishes himself more than the victims of his rage.
Woman, too, seems stuck in irrational emotionality though, I quickly add, in case it may seem as if Hardy tried to prove the "rational sex" to be the only one pitifully guided by impulses and fleeting states of mind.
Lucetta's life and death is a Tragedy Of Strong Feeling, Quickly Changed! In that respect, she and Henchard are the perfect couple, but it makes sense too, considering their characters, that they should never be together properly, as their feelings and impulses move like clashing waves...
After these two personae dramatis have left the stage, those less burdened by character remain to get on with life, settling in calm boredom most probably.
After Tess, I found this novel to have a soothing effect on my nerves, with some comic qualities I didn't expect, but appreciated all the more. If one could choose one's personality, it is doubtless better to be an Elizabeth-Jane or a Donald Farfrae. But as Hardy shows: ONE CAN'T! And it is good entertainment for the others when Men and Women of Character enter the game...
Curtain to standing ovations! Reading bliss in dark autumn weather!
Edited November 24, 2015
I'd heard Hardy was a bit of a chore, so instead of his chunky novels I went slender with The Mayor of Casterbridge as my first. I'm not sure it was a wise choice.
Not because I thought it was bad by any means. The writing's quite good, the story held my interest, but jeez louise, this is bleak stuff! It's bleaker than Bleak House! Are all this books like this? I'm not normally depressed, but I may have to put myself on suicide watch just to get through another one of his novels!
Seriously though, I don't mind a dose of miserable realism now and then, and I liked that peek into an odd and terrible matrimonial tradition. Stories based on drunken missteps that linger into lifelong regrets do not generally lend themselves to frivolity and this book is not about happy happy good times. Back in merry ole England (and no doubt many other places) if a man no longer loved his woman, he could get rid of her and potentially make a profit. What a world...
Some day I'll get around to meeting Tess of the d'Ubervilles, but I fear by the end of the encounter I may want to get as Far from the Madding Crowd as possible!
Not because I thought it was bad by any means. The writing's quite good, the story held my interest, but jeez louise, this is bleak stuff! It's bleaker than Bleak House! Are all this books like this? I'm not normally depressed, but I may have to put myself on suicide watch just to get through another one of his novels!
Seriously though, I don't mind a dose of miserable realism now and then, and I liked that peek into an odd and terrible matrimonial tradition. Stories based on drunken missteps that linger into lifelong regrets do not generally lend themselves to frivolity and this book is not about happy happy good times. Back in merry ole England (and no doubt many other places) if a man no longer loved his woman, he could get rid of her and potentially make a profit. What a world...
Some day I'll get around to meeting Tess of the d'Ubervilles, but I fear by the end of the encounter I may want to get as Far from the Madding Crowd as possible!
Edited July 28, 2021
تدور الرواية حول رجل يدعى مايكل هنشرد مسافر مع زوجته سوزن وابنته الصغيرة اليزابيث جين
وفى أحد الخيم كان تباع فيها الطعام وتمزجه السيدة بالخمر لمن يرغب فسكر مايكل وفى لحظة سكر و نوبة غضب قرر بيع زوجته وما بدأ هزلا أنقلب ليصبح شئ جاد وعرض البحار نيوسن أن يشتريها فذهبت زوجته سوزان معه .
وفى اليوم التالى يفيق مايكل ليكتشف بشاعة ما فعل ويبحث عن زوجته وابنته والبحار لكن لا يستطيع العثور عليها ويندم ندم شديدا ويقرر ترك الخمرة و أقسم ان لا يقرب الخمر لسنوات تعادل عمره .
" مضيت بعيدا بسبب الشراب ، بعيدا جدا وحل بي الخراب ! لقد أتيت بسبب ذلك فعلا جللني بالخزي إلى يوم مماتي. وقد ترك في أثرا كبيرا إلى حد أنني أقسمت ، في ذلك الزمان والمكان ، ألا أشرب ماهو أقوى من الشاى عددا من السنين يساوى عمري آنذاك "
وبعد سنوات عادت سوزن مع ابنتها اليزابيث تبحث عن زوجها مايكل بعدما توفي البحار وعرفت بسذاجتها حين ظنت ان عملية بيعها للبحار شرعية وانها مجبرة على الذهاب معه وبالصدفة عرفت ان مايكل موجود فى قرية كاستربردج فقررت الذهاب للبحث عنه بعد ان اخبرت ابنتها ان هذا الرجل قريب لهم من بعيد فهى لم تخبرها يوما بما حدث .
وذهبت السيدتان إلى القرية للبحث عن هنشرد وهناك تفاجئت انه هو العمدة فترددت أن تذهب للقاءه . وفى ذلك اليوم جاء الى القرية ايضا مسافرا الاسكتلندى دونالد فارفري وألتقي بهنشرد الذي حاول إقناعه بأن يترك فكرة السفر ويستقر فى البلدة ليكون مسئولا عن اعماله . فهل سيستطيع إقناعه ؟ وكيف ستكون احوالهم بعد ذلك ؟
وماذا ستفعل سوزن وكيف ستخبر هنشرد بعودتها هى وابنتهم اليزابيث؟ وكيف سيكون رد فعل هنشرد على لقائهم بعد كل هذه السنين ؟ وهل ستعرف اليزابيث بالسر الخطير الذي حدث منذ سنوات ؟؟
الرواية فى البداية واجهني معها بعض الملل لكثرة التفاصيل كما هو معتاد مع الروايات الكلاسيكية لذا واجهت صعوبة فى البداية ثم جذبتنى الاحداث والرواية و غصت بأكملي فى تفاصيلها واندمجت مع الأحداث والشخصيات وأنفعلت مع ما يحدث معهم ورغبت أن أعرف ماذا سيفعلون وكيف ستنتهى الرواية ! بإختصار كانت رحلة ممتعة ولطيفة حتى وان واجهتنى معها بعض الصعوبات فى البداية خاصة . لكنها كانت تجربة ولقاء ممتع تفاجأت انى مع الوقت أحببته وكنت متشوقة للأحداث .
أحب ان أوجه شكرى لصديقتي أسماء على تعريفى بهذه الرواية وصحبتها فى القراءة ❤❤🌷🌷
هذا اول لقاء لي مع توماس هاردي ولن يكون الأخير
٨ / ٣ / ٢٠٢١
وفى أحد الخيم كان تباع فيها الطعام وتمزجه السيدة بالخمر لمن يرغب فسكر مايكل وفى لحظة سكر و نوبة غضب قرر بيع زوجته وما بدأ هزلا أنقلب ليصبح شئ جاد وعرض البحار نيوسن أن يشتريها فذهبت زوجته سوزان معه .
وفى اليوم التالى يفيق مايكل ليكتشف بشاعة ما فعل ويبحث عن زوجته وابنته والبحار لكن لا يستطيع العثور عليها ويندم ندم شديدا ويقرر ترك الخمرة و أقسم ان لا يقرب الخمر لسنوات تعادل عمره .
" مضيت بعيدا بسبب الشراب ، بعيدا جدا وحل بي الخراب ! لقد أتيت بسبب ذلك فعلا جللني بالخزي إلى يوم مماتي. وقد ترك في أثرا كبيرا إلى حد أنني أقسمت ، في ذلك الزمان والمكان ، ألا أشرب ماهو أقوى من الشاى عددا من السنين يساوى عمري آنذاك "
وبعد سنوات عادت سوزن مع ابنتها اليزابيث تبحث عن زوجها مايكل بعدما توفي البحار وعرفت بسذاجتها حين ظنت ان عملية بيعها للبحار شرعية وانها مجبرة على الذهاب معه وبالصدفة عرفت ان مايكل موجود فى قرية كاستربردج فقررت الذهاب للبحث عنه بعد ان اخبرت ابنتها ان هذا الرجل قريب لهم من بعيد فهى لم تخبرها يوما بما حدث .
وذهبت السيدتان إلى القرية للبحث عن هنشرد وهناك تفاجئت انه هو العمدة فترددت أن تذهب للقاءه . وفى ذلك اليوم جاء الى القرية ايضا مسافرا الاسكتلندى دونالد فارفري وألتقي بهنشرد الذي حاول إقناعه بأن يترك فكرة السفر ويستقر فى البلدة ليكون مسئولا عن اعماله . فهل سيستطيع إقناعه ؟ وكيف ستكون احوالهم بعد ذلك ؟
وماذا ستفعل سوزن وكيف ستخبر هنشرد بعودتها هى وابنتهم اليزابيث؟ وكيف سيكون رد فعل هنشرد على لقائهم بعد كل هذه السنين ؟ وهل ستعرف اليزابيث بالسر الخطير الذي حدث منذ سنوات ؟؟
الرواية فى البداية واجهني معها بعض الملل لكثرة التفاصيل كما هو معتاد مع الروايات الكلاسيكية لذا واجهت صعوبة فى البداية ثم جذبتنى الاحداث والرواية و غصت بأكملي فى تفاصيلها واندمجت مع الأحداث والشخصيات وأنفعلت مع ما يحدث معهم ورغبت أن أعرف ماذا سيفعلون وكيف ستنتهى الرواية ! بإختصار كانت رحلة ممتعة ولطيفة حتى وان واجهتنى معها بعض الصعوبات فى البداية خاصة . لكنها كانت تجربة ولقاء ممتع تفاجأت انى مع الوقت أحببته وكنت متشوقة للأحداث .
أحب ان أوجه شكرى لصديقتي أسماء على تعريفى بهذه الرواية وصحبتها فى القراءة ❤❤🌷🌷
هذا اول لقاء لي مع توماس هاردي ولن يكون الأخير
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