Far From the Madding Crowd 1st Thread: Chapter 1 - 8

[Connie]

I'm so glad to see you in the group, Sara, even if you only have time to lurk for now.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Me too! Welcome indeed Sara, and I hope you will be able to indulge in a re-read of this beautiful novel before too long 😊

[Carolien]

This quote by James Rebanks in The Shepherd's Life: A People's History of the Lake District about his farming family history in the Lake District seems to summarise Gabriel Oak's position for me who managed to improve his position and then lost all again. "My grandfather was born in 1918 into a fairly anonymous and unexceptional farming family. At that time they mostly lived and farmed down in the heart of the Eden Valley. The written records, for what they are worth, show that my grandfather belonged to an agricultural family struggling by from generation to generation, occasionally making it into the ranks of the relatively established farmers, before sinking back into being tenants, or farm-workers, or in the workhouse, or worse." Even today, the loss of 200 sheep would be devastating to a farmer.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

That really brings it home. Thanks for that gem, Carolien!

It's at the other end of the country, but sheep farming in the Lake District and Dorset are quite similar. In general Dorset has gentler slopes and kinder weather - but not always. Are you still in the Lake District now with the "erdicks and sweddles" (herdwicks and swaledales: varieties of sheep) Carolien?

Dorset sheep are sturdier and unusual for their capability for "out-of-season" breeding. We can tell that, as Gabriel still has sheep expecting lambs in Winter!

[Carolien]

I'm not quite up in the Lake Districts, much milder Cheshire in my case.

Rebanks writes in fact about how his grandfather would cross-breed the herdwicks and swaledales to sell to lowland farmers as these were prized for the hardiness of the herdwicks.

[Lee]

Carolien wrote: "This quote by James Rebanks in The Shepherd's Life: A People's History of the Lake District ."

"The written records, for what they are worth, show that my grandfather belonged to an agricultural family struggling by from generation to generation, occasionally making it into the ranks of the relatively established farmers, before sinking back into being tenants, or farm-workers, or in the workhouse, or worse."

Wow, this really shows the cumbersome and lengthy path it took a farmer in England to become an "established farmer". I'm afraid I don't know the equivalent in US farming communities in the 19th century......except that perhaps they were more solitary pioneers who would still encounter Indians as they laid claim to wild lands....There was no landed gentry to compete with!

I am currently reading an early novel by John Muir, the Scottish naturalist who came to America from Scotland in the 1840's. His father cleared a spot in the forest to begin his farm, and encountering the indigenous Indians was a daily occurrence. Culture shock here!

[Werner]

Lee wrote: "I'm afraid I don't know the equivalent in US farming communities in the 19th century.... There was no landed gentry to compete with!"

Hmmm! That's truer for most parts of the U.S. than it is for 19th-century England; but there are parts where it definitely didn't apply. In the lowland South, because of their supply of relatively cheap labor on a large scale, the slave-owning planter class were able to buy up and farm much more land (and generally better land) than the poorer whites could afford. They were definitely a landed gentry, and the slave system worked to keep them that way and to sharply limit lower-class social mobility.

In New York state, beginning with the Dutch in the 17th century, much of the farmland was granted to wealthy investors in the Dutch West India Company, called patroons, whose great estates were essential feudal manors worked by large numbers of renters, and sometimes slaves. This continued under British rule, and even after the Revolution. The feudal system there was only abolished by the New York state constitution of 1846, following the anti-rent riots of 1839-46 by the cash-strapped tenant farmers. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patroon and https://www.britannica.com/event/Anti... .) I haven't been able to find a figure for the percentage of New York land owned by the patroons, but it would be significant.

Even in other parts of the country, some farmers were able to amass more land than others, from a variety of circumstances, and some did develop into a sort of landed gentry (sometimes even referred to as "squires," like some of their English counterparts). Prior to the Homestead Act of 1862, which distributed 160-acre tracts to individual citizens for free, the U.S. government sold public lands for a profit, and wealthy land speculators bought up a lot of it.

[Lee]

Your point are good for colonial America and the Deep South up until the Civil War. But the pioneers moving west largely were claiming land taken from Native Americans, and there was no lengthy history of landed gentry. We were a nation of the Wild West and the pioneers after the Civil War.

[Werner]

Lee wrote: "Your point are good for colonial America and the Deep South up until the Civil War. But the pioneers moving west largely were claiming land taken from Native Americans, and there was no lengthy his..."

Yes, land ownership on the Great Plains, and in the mountain west and far west, was (at least initially) distributed much more equally than it had been further east. The Homestead Act made a real difference there. (Throughout the 19th century, though, the bulk of the population still lived in the eastern states, although the population of the West rose sharply and steadily after 1862 because of the influx of pioneers, many of them immigrants from Europe,)

[Lee]

Great info on American pioneers and early settlements. There are definitely some similar social patterns between the very young UAmerica and England.

[Werner]

Lee wrote: "Great info on American pioneers and early settlements. There are definitely some similar social patterns between the very young UAmerica and England."

(Sometimes the history enthusiast in me takes over. :-) ) Yes, most of the white settlers of the very young America came from England, and brought English ideas and lifeways with them. But for the next few centuries, the availability of a lot of uncultivated land to the west would create a social dynamic different from what prevailed in England, and gave poor farmers even in the most stratified areas a bit more "wiggle room," chances of betterment and opportunity, than the old country offered.

[Bridget, Moderator]

Really interesting posts Lee and Werner. Lots to think about historically.

For what it's worth, I have a personal anecdote to add to the conversation. My college roommate (decades ago now!!) came from a farming family in southern Illinois. I went to her home/farm many times over the years. From visiting there, and from my conversations with her, I came to realize that even today farming is really hard work. Farmers take on an incredible amount of risk when they plant their crops, and then are subject to the whims of Nature (some would say God). That aspect of farming hasn't changed over the years.

It occurs to me that farmers (more than bankers for example) live a life subject to fate, chance, whims, chaos. What does that do to the ethos of the community? It might explain why there is such an overlap between folklore and the bible in Hardy's writing. The farmers are searching for some control over the risks they are taking.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Bridget wrote: "It occurs to me that farmers (more than bankers for example) live a life subject to fate, chance, whims, chaos. What does that do to the ethos of the community? It might explain why there is such an overlap between folklore and the bible in Hardy's writing. The farmers are searching for some control over the risks they are taking...."

This is a really interesting idea Bridget! Of all the Victorian authors I know, it is Thomas Hardy's characters who hold beliefs drawn from folklore and superstition alongside Christian teachings. To us now, this seems extraordinarily inconsistent.

Also Thomas Hardy is the author we think of (as well as George Eliot) writing pastoral novels. I have often tried to reconcile his rustic characters' views in my mind, and usually just assumed they were due to lack of education. Now though, I can see that their unconscious motivation could be exactly what you have suggested. Thank you!

[Lori]

A comment on Chapter 4:

I’m sorry this is so late and will try to limit comments so far back in the story but I just can’t resist mentioning this line of Gabriel’s when he was proposing marriage to Bathsheba:
“And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be-and whenever I look up, there will be you.”
I can’t speak for other ladies, but I absolutely melted when I read that. It does give a little insight, I think, as to Gabriel’s ideas on the stability of marriage and also adds some support to Jean’s comment about Oak being solid.

Interestingly, this line was used in the series The Vicar of Dibley and delivered by the actor, Richard Armitage in a special edition.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Lori wrote: "Interestingly, this line was used in the series The Vicar of Dibley and delivered by the actor, Richard Armitage in a special edition..."

Oh was it? That must somehow be a tribute, I feel. It is so memorable ... (Funnily enough not 5 minutes ago I was watching Richard Armitage as Lucas North in "Spooks"!)

It's also so poignant that this assurance is what Gabriel thinks will convince Bathsheba (and yes, probably would make half his female readers fall in love with him!) yet because Bathsheba is not in love with him - nor perhaps ready to love anyone - it makes her even more adamant in her refusal. 😟

Lori - your comments are welcome at any time 😊

[Lori]

Jean - Thank you, you are always so kind.

Yes, I would say borrowing that quote from FFTMC was definitely meant to be a nod to Thomas Hardy and was used in the same context, that is to say between two characters contemplating marriage.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

😊

[Brian]

Hardy didn't name Gabriel Oak randomly. He is a solid and serious man. "... his special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static ...".

Lines I love: Gabriel, having walked to the cottage where Bathsheba lives with her aunt, is told falsely by the aunt that Bathsheba has "ever so many young men (courting her)." His response is so Gabriel Oakish - brutally, even painfully honest and humble: "That's unfortunate ... I'm only an every-day sort of man, and my only chance was in being the first comer." And of course Oak dreaming of their married life together - one of Hardy's unforgettable lines: "And at home by the fire, whenever you look up, there I shall be - and whenever I look up, there will be you."

As the fire scene begins, listen to Hardy's powers of description in full command: "His weary face now began to be painted over with a rich orange glow, and the whole front of his smock-frock and gaiters was covered with a dancing shadow pattern of thorn-twigs - the light reaching him through a leafless intervening hedge - and the metallic curve of his sheep-crook shone silver-bright in the same abounding rays."

Chapter 7 - Wow! I had forgotten the accidental and brief nighttime encounter of Gabriel and the mystery woman. I don't think this ever had a bearing on things to come, so I think Hardy just wanted very much to let there be a moment where he could put two very sympathetic characters together.

It's so apparent that Hardy has a deep love for rural folk and their unassuming ways - I love the scene in Warren's Malthouse, as Gabriel's arrival gives the old friends there a little-needed excuse to retell stories they've been telling all their lives.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Brian - thank you so much for sharing these observations. The lines you quote are some of my favourites too - and that evocative description.

I'm looking forward to your further thoughts.

[Brian]

Thank you, Jean. I'm always excited to get back to any of Hardy's wonderful novels. There was a poll elsewhere on Goodreads recently about favorite writers, and Hardy is right there at the top for me.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Yes, I can tell from what you pick out that you are definitely on his wavelength! (He is in my top few too, obviously 😊)