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

May 18, 2020 Karen rated it liked it

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3.5 stars. I've now read two books by Hardy, Jude the Obscure is the other one. I'm still not quite sure what I think of Hardy. Yes, he is a good writer and I like the descriptions of Rural England. I'm not quite sure I like his characters or plots.

Bathsheba Everdene is a poor girl, yet very beautiful. While visiting her aunt, she meets Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer and saves his life. Oak, falling in love with Bathsheba asks her to marry him. She refuses and returns home.
Oak loses his farm throu ...more

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Jul 25, 2022 Jen Pratt rated it really liked it

I quite enjoyed this book! I actually started reading it after seeing this quote was from this book: “I shall do one thing in this life - one thing certain - that is, love you, and long for you, and keep wanting you till I die.” Thomas Hardy has a great style of writing that reminds me a bit of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. This story has quite the mix of characters. Bathsheba is young and strong-willed. She ends up with three men vying for her affection, some more while-heartedly than others ...more

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Jan 05, 2014 Rebekah rated it really liked it

Shelves: genre-classics, e-book, 1001-import, genre-classics-classic-literatu, genre-book-club, genre-historical-fiction, genre-literature, genre-novels, rating-4, genre-literature-19th-century

This book was quite the doozy! It's been awhile since I've read 19th century literature and I had forgotten how patiently the authors set up the setting and introduce all of the characters. The first 51% of the book was boring, with an abundance of long flowery scenes of pastoral bliss. Around the half-way point, the book really took off plot-wise and was gripping to the very end. Hardy's characters are shockingly well-developed and interesting.

From today's perspective and cultural lens, there This book was quite the doozy! It's been awhile since I've read 19th century literature and I had forgotten how patiently the authors set up the setting and introduce all of the characters. The first 51% of the book was boring, with an abundance of long flowery scenes of pastoral bliss. Around the half-way point, the book really took off plot-wise and was gripping to the very end. Hardy's characters are shockingly well-developed and interesting.

From today's perspective and cultural lens, there are some moments that are ridiculously misogynistic and the narrator, who I assume to be Hardy, keeps throwing out these sexist generalities about "women" that are pretty eye-rolling. (At one point our heroine proclaims that is is better for a wife to be a victim of domestic violence - insulted, beaten, starved - rather than face the shame of running away! "There is one position worse than that of being found dead in your husband's house from his ill usage, and this is, to be found alive through having gone away to the house of somebody else"). Truth of the matter is, though, Bathsheba lives in a paternalistic sexist society and does the best she can to survive and thrive in it. Hardy also shows how damaging that worldview is to both the female and male characters. Bathsheba has to constantly live in a place where men take one look at her, declare themselves to be madly in love, claim her for marriage, and then berate her when she says she needs time to think! Two of her three suitors both view her as primarily an object that they want to win, albeit in different ways (one through money and the other through charm). She is also coerced into acquiescing by the two potential rival suitors, also in different ways. One basically terrorizes her with a sword (in one of the more disturbing scenes of sex and violence I have read in awhile) and the other makes her think he will go insane if she refuses him. Romantic, huh?

Overall, I think I can mark myself a Hardy fan. I read Tess of the d'Urbervilles in high school and still vividly remember some of the scenes. This book similarly looks at gender and class politics with well-developed characters and settings that stick out in your mind. This book took on a pretty morbid Gothic twist reminiscent to me of Wuthering Heights and I ended up talking about this book with my mother while reading it, sending her updates. Also the parallels with the Biblical heroine of Bathsheba are obvious and striking and interesting to discuss. ...more

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Feb 02, 2022 Ted Dettweiler rated it really liked it · review of another edition

My first Thomas Hardy novel. I like stories like this set in the English countryside in a bygone era. Thomas Hardy excelled at bringing the setting to life for me. The principal characters are all quite interesting in their development.

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