Bionic Jean’s Comments (group member since Jul 27, 2022)

Bionic Jean’s comments from the Works of Thomas Hardy group.

Well there is some comfort, as I've just discovered that the reason for the short window when the hedges have to be cut, is not an arbitrary council bye-law or something, but that the fledgling birds whose nests were in the bushes, have to be protected until Sept 1st, by which time they have presumably flown free 🙂

The "hopping casement-comers" are clearly these birds, and I can well see that the woman is "wishing that the birds and animals were not foodless, and taking her crops" (Connie). Wildlife can be an enemy to country people, although scarecrows are used as often as shotguns, and more often than not it is a symbiosis, since the birds keep down the parasites which might otherwise decimate crops.

John - I sympathise. Sometimes whether an action is truly "progress", is debatable.

I admit I read this poem, enjoying the language, but was flummoxed. So thank you very much Greg for the breakdown and analysis, and John for choosing it and explaining the background and context. When I had read all your comments carefully, I went back to the poem, and all was made clear 🙂

As an aside ...

Today I have come across an example of urban people's modern take on "the hard lives of the poor farmers who work the land" in Dorset (Greg). And perhaps it was ever thus ...

At the moment I'm in my caravan, next to the coast, and the hedges surrounding the widespread fields around are being cut. There's only a small window of time in which to do this, and burn the excess, just as there's only a small window in which to burn the corn stubble in the fields.

Evidently though some have complained about the excessive smoke! And (what seems worse to me) the farmer has apologised! 😲 But we are guests in a county which observes the farming methods. Just as in all Thomas Hardy's works, everything necessarily revolves around the faming year, which is central to the existence of those who work on the land. It is a hard life, as the poem makes clear.

If others are privileged enough to have a little part of this beautiful place for a while - which we all love precisely because it has traditional English fields and meadows, with grazing and crops - "back to nature" as it were - how dare we complain at a necessary part of its routine? (Just shut your windows, people!)

It reminded me a little of when in the Lake District a couple complained about the lack of "nice wide roads" such as they had back home (in the US) . Yet what they most admired was the quaint little villages dotted around between the fells. Somehow they could not see that you can't have the convenience of motorways and keep this kind of landscape!

I thought the farmer was being remarkably controlled when he reportedly said that: "unfortunately he cannot control the weather". (It's windy.)

Apologies for my rant! For me, this kind of episode enriches the experience we feel when we read Thomas Hardy. It is a world we can glimpse, which is not entirely lost, but which we are in danger of not valuing enough.

Linking the thread to our list now, thanks!

I also wondered that at the time, Bridget! But they are too "neat" and level and there are more buildings around; well designed and very well kept! Not ramshackle huts and little cottages. Now the roads are wide and tarmacked (not narrow stony tracks) and there are big roundabouts for traffic.

Back here again and it is pouring with rain! No wonder Dorset is such a green county. Dorchester High St. looks just the same though.

Though remember I said that Poundbury (an area adjacent to Dorchester which also features in The Mayor of Casterbridge) had been developed by the then Prince Charles (now King) into a perfect ecological town? Well I was interested to see that none of the grassy areas and verges have been mown, so it actually now looks as if it is surrounded by fine wheat! I expect this is for the insect life to thrive.

Connie wrote: "Maybe Hardy was a man ahead of his time to write about the "ponderings" of plants!.."

I like this idea Connie. Thanks - and also to John of course - for the information and everyone for your insights into this poem.

It made me wonder whether Thomas Hardy was visiting Abbotsbury subtropical gardens, which are quite near where he lived. Many exotic plants and flowers thrive there, which do not normally survive an English climate. You can tell from the name of this botanic garden really, that it has its own micro-climate in a sheltered woodland valley on the Jurassic Coast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbotsb...
https://www.abbotsburygardens.co.uk/

The poem is now linked.

Yes, getting on for 2K can happen with Dickens Brian ... and thanks 😄 I'd never come across "gabby" before, (though I know "blabbermouth" and "gobby") so had to look it up. Based on "gabble" I suppose.

We are indeed lucky to have such an informed group of readers and friends overlapping in both places 🙂

Thank for all these lovely messages! I've missed your comments this week Bridget, so it's good to see you back in full flight! I am similarly stretched (with lots of canine complications ... I'll share these here later) and in 2 days' time (Tuesday) will be back in Thomas Hardy country 🙂

Um "gabby", Brian? Hopefully it was all on-topic ...

but thank you for bothering to compute our total discussion points 🙂 And many of these comments were lengthy too, as you'll have noticed. "Getting on for a thousand comments" is a good rule of thumb for a chapter-a-day novel, and a good recommendation to anyone considering a deeper dive into a Thomas Hardy novel than many group reads would be able to offer.

Now that we have finally closed our copies of The Mayor of Casterbridge, we have begun a season of our weekly poems. So don't miss these, with a new one in our "currently reading" folder every weekend or so. Our first few will be led by our poetry expert John.

And thank you to everyone who made our group read of The Mayor of Casterbridge so enjoyable, especially my co-hosts Bridget and Connie. The threads are now in their own folder, and will remain open in perpetuity, for further comments.

"Opulence" is exactly the right word to describe this poem! The main impression I had at the end was the lush language, and I had to read it again to get the meaning! I may well have been lost without the title.

Yes I agree, it must surely have been written in response to the negative response by some to his final two novels. I feel his pain at "I have borne such" and also his stoicism with "Truth will be truth alway".

Thanks John - linking now.

It's been a pleasure for us all I think, Connie 🙂

Brian wrote: "It seems to me that TMOC is packed with the most surprises of Hardy's works ..."

Yes, Thomas Hardy himself said that it was the novel which was damaged most by the serial format, with the need to insert "cliffhangers". At least one of the information posts here lists some of these - plus the ones he removed for the book editions - which makes us wonder whatever the serial must have been like! Quite a Victorian "shocker" 😆

It's good to get your take on things, Brian. You have made me wonder about the prevalence or not of violent episodes in Thomas Hardy's works.

I think usually they tend to be critical and major, rather than incidental, and that may be the difference here. Not much changed as a result of this forced "fight" did it, apart from it adding to Henchard's despair. The feeling remind me of the scene in Far From the Madding Crowd where (view spoiler)[ Francis Troy, having married Bathsheba Everdene, throws farmer Boldwood's proffered coins at his feet (hide spoiler)] as opposed to the later very dramatic and devastating (view spoiler)[ fatal shooting of Troy by Boldwood. (hide spoiler)]

I too very much appreciated Peter's close analysis of the punctuation, as well as Connie's of the structure.

There are a few familiar names, and we commented in the thread that they add authenticity to Hardy's "Wessex" 🙂

Glad you've seen some of the sites and buildings Brian. I'll be back there in less than a fortnight - YAY!

It does set the tone for the novel, doesn't it Brian? And would be so easy to miss ... Thanks for highlighting it.

The next sentence is even more embittered. The narrator is describing Susan (although she is referred to merely as "the wife" at this point) and says that her expression conveying life's unfairness is the result of civilisation.

What a cry of embittered anguish from those destined to be shot. Heavily anthropomorphised of course, but we can see where Thomas Hardy's sympathies lie. And as you've identified Connie, birds and what they can variously symbolise and represent, are a theme he returns to again and again.

It's a short powerful poem, which packs a punch to the gut. Here we have birds destined to to be killed - even bred for the purpose. So we have their Fate, their imprisonment, their short lives and their painful death after briefly soaring into an ecstasy of apparent freedom. I can see why Thomas Hardy felt such an affinity with them. These themes crop up time and time again in his works.

It's now linked to our list. Thank you so much Connie, for presenting and leading these related poems. We look forward to more!

I don't usually do this, but maybe I can take up this segue ...

Since several have said how much they like the chapter-a-day format, I'd like to alert you to the annual Big Read which is starting right now in "Dickensians!" It's of Martin Chuzzlewit and the first thread is LINK HERE. Chapter 1 is on Saturday.

Like I say, I've always taken a dim view of advertising one group in another, (and although many of you know how nuts I am about Dickens, I try not to mention any of his works/characters unless they are directly relevant). But the notifications are so appalling now that if I can alert just one person to something they would regret missing, it will be worth it. I hope you agree!

It would indeed Brian, and I echo Bridget's welcome and encouragement to post additional thoughts in the relevant thread Please do read some of the discussion as you go if you can. Each chapter is linked at the start, to make it more accessible.

I don't think there has been an opera yet, but it was staged in London in 1926, so during his lifetime. It was written by John Drinkwater and Thomas Hardy was able to go to a performance in Weymouth. He received a great ovation, and referred to it in his diary as a:

""flying matinee". Beautiful afternoon. Scene outside the theatre finer than within".

I'm puzzling over what he meant! 🤔

Connie wrote: "Literary critics have suggested that the newspaper wrapping the cage may represent public opinion..."

I knew the poem, but had never thought of this aspect. Thanks for relating it to The Mayor of Casterbridge Connie; it fits very aptly.

Thanks also for the photo of an English goldfinch, which is the one Thomas Hardy had in mind. "Carduelis carduelis" is found in Britain and Ireland. Some apparently migrate to warmer climates in winter, but many stay in the UK and can be seen in large flocks, forming a "charm". It can also be called a European goldfinch to differentiate it from others.

(This poem thread is now linked to our list)

The most interesting difference for me in the American and British editions concerns Elizabeth-Jane, and suggests a different view of her.

In both the original serial and the American edition, Elizabeth-Jane knows that Newson is still alive, and she has in fact been meeting him for some time without Henchard's knowledge. (Once we know this, we can see that parts of the text near the end where we assume she is secretly meeting Farfrae, could just as easily have been when she was meeting Newson). In the English edition the situation is reversed.

This is the version of the story that we mostly read, I think. Henchard knows of Newson's return, but Elizabeth-Jane does not. So in effect in the American edition Elizabeth-Jean deceives Henchard, while in the English edition he deceives her. This seems a whopping difference to me!

Consequently, in the English edition it is the realisation that she is about to be reunited with her real father (since Hardy had abandoned his "two sisters" version) - rather than her forthcoming marriage to Farfrae - that causes Henchard to leave Casterbridge.

Bridget summarised the resulting variations for us superbly. This edition necessarily omitted Henchard's return to see the wedding , bringing the goldfinch.as a present, only to be rejected by Elizabeth-Jane; this episode was retained (as Bridget explained) in the American edition. Taken together, these changes cause Elizabeth-Jane to appear in a less sympathetic light in the American version.

All these variations, plus others, are detailed in the Norton edition.

I find I have a peculiar attitude to it all. Perhaps because these characters are so familiar to me, they are "real" in my mind. So I have a sort of mix-and-match approach, retaining different parts of the various editions, according to what best fits my view of how they "really are"! 😆 (An example of this is Elizabeth-Jane, whose motivations seem to be a bit muddled by the end.)

But maybe it's not so shocking. After all, I suspect that Thomas Hardy himself struggled to accord what he had written, constantly striving to accommodate it to his belief in his invented characters as real living beings too.

One major one is that in the serials, Henchard and Lucetta were married 2 weeks before Susan's return, on the assumption that Susan was dead. Hardy had originally planned to have an irregular sexual liaison between Henchard and Lucetta, but needed to conform to the public's perception of decency (on both sides of the Atlantic), In the early book editions they do not marry but have a non-sexual relationship. By 1895 the book had reached the shape it is most often printed in most essentials, including that of Henchard and Lucetta's previous liaison as Hardy had originally planned.

There are other chance encounters, sometimes secretly observed, and also letters which were passed through intermediaries in the serial were greatly simplified.

Bridget has explained about two alterative endings. The goldfinch episode came and went in various editions, but stayed in the Wessex edition of 1912 (the later Mellstock edition of 1920 only has minor changes.