Far From the Madding Crowd in Around the World in 80 Books

Feb 25, 2021 superawesomekt rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, british-literature

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the poor.

...Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or wak'd to ecstasy the living lyre.

...Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flow'r is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air ...more

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Mar 12, 2013 Stil de scriitor rated it it was amazing

Thomas Hardy scrie al patrulea său mare roman într-o perioada de început a literaturii engleze, fără să conștientizeze măcar că peste ani, acest roman va fi citit de o întreagă lume. Cartea este văzută ca un joc al destinului, împletind în cuprinsul său mai multe destine umane. Pentru unele personaje, finalul cărții este unul fericit, pentru altele însă, oferă multe surprize dintre cele mai neplăcute.

http://www.stildescriitor.ro/2014/06/... ...more

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Jul 24, 2010 SarahC rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: english-setting, victorian

I am glad to say that I enjoyed this, my first Thomas Hardy novel. I had gathered that he was a writer of more intensity than even many other Victorians. This IS an intense story involving relationships and choices in life.

And I understand now too the appeal of Hardy's settings in his Wessex countryside. This is depicted as a beautiful place, very stirring to the senses in all ways, and also a place where a special sort of timelessness exists. All his many variety of characters are part of this ...more

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Sep 10, 2015 Erica rated it it was amazing

I loved this book. Inordinately. It suddenly rivals (and in a lot of ways, overtakes) Pride & Prejudice as my favorite British romance. In fact, I think it's kind of a reverse/updated P&P for people who have experienced a bit more of life than your average P&P lover. I saw the film a few months ago, and it spurred me to pick up the book. While I would suggest seeing the film first to anyone, I also now heartily suggest the novel, because it is of course so much richer than the film.

I probably al I loved this book. Inordinately. It suddenly rivals (and in a lot of ways, overtakes) Pride & Prejudice as my favorite British romance. In fact, I think it's kind of a reverse/updated P&P for people who have experienced a bit more of life than your average P&P lover. I saw the film a few months ago, and it spurred me to pick up the book. While I would suggest seeing the film first to anyone, I also now heartily suggest the novel, because it is of course so much richer than the film.

I probably also loved it because I read it over the dreariest part of winter--Hardy's attention to landscape details and the cycles of farm life in late 19th century Britain were amazing. His characterization of Bathsheba and Oak were lovely. The book is full of symbolism and references to Shakespeare and Greek & Roman mythology. A true delight for the well-read.

loc 447: "Fitness being the basis of beauty, nobody could have denied that his steady swings and turns in and about the flock had elements of grace."
loc 2387: "It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts."
loc 2540: "Bathsheba's was an impulsive nature under a deliberative aspect. An Elizabeth in brain and a Mary Stuart in spirit, she often performed actions of the greatest temerity with a manner of extreme discretion."
loc 2764: "Every green was young, every pore was open, and every stalk was swollen with racing currents of juice. God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had gone with the world to town."

Great message in the main characters' initials: "BE" and "GO"

loc 3562: "Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new."

loc 3570: "And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a mine."

--Modern Library Edition ...more

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