The Return of the Native in Classics Without All the Class

Jul 07, 2009 rachel rated it liked it

Shelves: 2008, re-read, 2011

Now that I'm an all-around happier person than I was when I read the bulk of the Hardy that I have read (Jude, Tess, Far From the Madding Crowd, in addition to this), I'm terrified to go back and re-read the others. Because listening to this book the second time around, all I could think was, "Man, if I had the way with words that Thomas Hardy had, I wouldn't use it for quite this much gloom." But that gloom is pretty much the essence of Hardy. This makes me worry that maybe I don't love Hardy n Now that I'm an all-around happier person than I was when I read the bulk of the Hardy that I have read (Jude, Tess, Far From the Madding Crowd, in addition to this), I'm terrified to go back and re-read the others. Because listening to this book the second time around, all I could think was, "Man, if I had the way with words that Thomas Hardy had, I wouldn't use it for quite this much gloom." But that gloom is pretty much the essence of Hardy. This makes me worry that maybe I don't love Hardy now as much as I used to. That maybe his tragedies don't speak so much to my soul anymore. That maybe now they seem a little more silly than tragic. Sadface. :(

But the pastoral aspect of his books, the organic quality of his natural writing still does appeal to me (except for the part when a hard rain hitting a female character was described as like the stinging of scorpions, because that is ludicrously purple and also Thomasin may be small but I doubt she's so delicate she's felled by raindrops) and that's what makes the difference between liking and not liking this book overall. I haven't lost my appreciation for how his landscapes reflect the feelings of his stormy human characters, and in what is either Hardy being unable to help himself or some Victorian karmic retribution, how his characters who reject life in the heath suffer sin and death.

Hardy also has this great Dickensian flair for creating colorful minor characters. Particularly the novel's deus ex machina, the reddleman, who is literally colorful in addition to bringing an eerie sense of premonition with him whenever he appears. Plus I could have stayed forever in the third chapter with the gossipers on the heath, before the formal introduction of the main five.

I suppose what I want is some sweet medium, between little suffering and happy endings and...well, Hardy. My last book read, North and South, fit that bill. Charlotte Bronte's work probably does too. To boot, neither of the aforementioned suffer from the dramatics of a character like Eustacia Vye, who was (irrationally? or justifiably?) pissing me off by the end of this one.

A particular word about the audiobook and dramatics: Alan Rickman does a fabulous job of acting a flouncing Victorian woman. I'd recommend the audio version if only for that. ...more

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