Thomas Hardy

I love Thomas Hardy—both the novels and the poetry. “The Mayor of Casterbridge” is probably my favorite, followed by “Return of the Native” and “Tess of the D’Urbervilles.” I only finally read “Jude” a few years ago—expected to like it more than I did.

The Mayor of Casterbridge is excellent.

Love the fact his narratives regularly end in unhappy conclusions.

I loved Jude the Obscure.

“Done because we are too many” brilliant

On our first trip to England we found out there was a 30th anniversary showing of the movie Far From the Madding Crowd, the Julie Christie/Terence Stamp version and all the locals that appeared as extras in the film were invited gratis (we had to pay of course). It was playing in Dorchester, Dorset, as it should have been. Makes for a great memory, it's my favorite Hardy book (and movie). It was thrilling, for me anyway, sitting there with all the townspeople from the movie.

How do you have a discussion ON something? I only know how to have a discussion ABOUT-- or maybe OF-- something.

He was great in Mad Max: Fury Road

Oh dear, R5.

"Both “discussion on” and “discussion about” are correct and widely accepted in English. Their usage can vary slightly based on context and regional preferences."

In my high school sophomore year in English Lit, a young teacher new to our school had us read "Tess of the d'Urbervilles". I loved it and for the first time I felt I was introduced to "Literature"- something complex and more intellectually and emotionally involving than popular and genre fiction. It was also the first time I probably interacted on a deeper level with a work of art outside the time span of my immediate family's existence (mainly for me >1945)

I hope all kids get to have this kind of experience. I feel like it really has influenced my life (and I'm a nobody).

I hate to be a nay-sayer, but Hardy's one-tragedy-fits-all insistence that life was nothing grates.

The child Jude is an unforgivably hideous authorial confection, reflecting nothing of how children think or speak then, now or ever. "T'would be better had I died in damnation" croaks out the ten-year old. "Let's take Little Nell, hang a penis off her and make her a murderer", said no one interested in human behavior ever.

The Woodlanders is a truly great novel, where good intentions, missed communication and happenstance create the situation organically. Otherwise I am too aware of forced coincidence.

Other than that, his titles are the best thing about him. "Return of the Native"..."Jude the Obscure"..."Far From the Madding Crowd." Superb.

His poetry is terrible.

"I hate to be a nay-sayer, but Hardy's one-tragedy-fits-all insistence that life was nothing..."

In the late 19th C that Hardy writes about, R9, life was nothing for many. Women had very few rights, the rural poor were invisible, hypocrisy prevailed in a conservative society obsessed with class and material success.

"I hate to be a nay-sayer, but Hardy's one-tragedy-fits-all insistence that life was nothing..."

In the late 19th C that Hardy writes about, R9, life was nothing for many. Women had very few rights, the rural poor were invisible, hypocrisy prevailed in a conservative society obsessed with class and material success.

Hardy's poetry is not terrible. He gave up on it too soon, but at least his signal theme was presented in a briefer form in poetry than in his novels.

I love his sense of place, his passionate detachment, and his commitment to take us to the bitter end. If only a feeling of "it was fun while it lasted" would have been stirred into his sensible awareness of futility and human errors of hope.

R12, compare any one of Hardy's works to that of T.S. Eliot to see the difference between the idea of a thing and its actuality.

Eliot, at his most despairing, still allows for what F. Scott Fitzgerald called the inexhaustible complexity of life.

"The inexplicable splendor " makes no appearance in Hardy - and his work is poorer for it.

Goals.

"In recent years he travelled about in a donkey chaise."

Better than a Tesla (or as it is called on the street, 'ass-cart.'

May I recommend the movie version if "Return of the Native"? Never was an actress so perfect in all respects to portray a fictional character than---and I joke not---CZJ as Eustacia Vye.

Back in the day I taught a British Literature to high schoolers. Included were "RotN," "The Three Strangers," the trenchant "The Man He Killed," and the lovely "The Oxen." Couldn't do much more in a survey course!

Link to all Hardy poems.

Thank God for Cliff Notes!

For a novelist obsessed with suicidal ideation, Cliff Notes are 100% appropriate.

I've only ever read 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and it sort of put me off Hardy. Maybe I should give him another chance.

Perhaps try one of these instead, R20.

Love 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and, one of my favorite books, 'Jude the Obscure.'

I just finished reading Two on a Tower, one of his lesser known novels. The two central characters are well drawn and the prose is gorgeous. I found the plot slightly lacking, but the focus on astronomy was a unique backdrop.

The only Hardy I've read is Far from the Madding Crowd. I enjoyed the movie a lot more.

Given this month marks the anniversary of the Titanic sinking, I'm posting Hardy's poem "Convergence of the Twain" (subtitled "Lines on the Loss of the 'Titanic'"):

In a solitude of the sea / Deep from human vanity, / And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

Steel chambers, late the pyres / Of her salamandrine fires, / Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

Over the mirrors meant / To glass the opulent / The sea-worm crawls - grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

Jewels in joy designed / To ravish the sensuous mind / Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

Dim moon-eyed fishes near / Gaze at the gilded gear / And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" . . .

Well: while was fashioning / This creature of cleaving wing, / The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

Prepared a sinister mate / For her - so gaily great - / A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

And as the smart ship grew / In stature, grace, and hue, / In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be; / No mortal eye could see / The intimate welding of their later history,

Or sign that they were bent / By paths coincident / On being anon twin halves of one august event,

Till the Spinner of the Years / Said "Now!" And each one hears, / And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

R3 The “Done because we are too many” scene in Jude has to be one of the most nihilistic in literature.

"Never was an actress so perfect in all respects to portray a fictional character than---and I joke not---CZJ as Eustacia Vye."

My performance was amazing considering that I was only 4 years old at the time!

I've read all his novels and as many of his short stories as I've come across. Also some of his poetry.

His writing style is so subtly compelling, it keeps you reading, even though so much of his fiction is pretty dark.

Nobody EVER mentions this novel, but I really enjoyed his "The Hand of Ethelberta."

I also enjoyed "Desperate Remedies," another novel of his nobody ever mentions.

R26, also one of the most forced and willfully stupid.

I read The Mayor of Casterbridge while in bed for a week suffering from flu. I enjoyed it at the tome, but remember very little except for a great reliance on coincidence.

I have read three Hardy novels: Return of the Native, Far from the Madding Crowd, and The Mayor of Casterbridge, all lively, excellent reads with well-defined characters and interesting situations.

I recommend a newcomer start with the Mayor of Casterbridge.

I've read his novels and quite like them, though I suspect I might have less patience for them today. In most cases its his style rather than the content than the content that wins out for me. A bit odd but elegant in its way.

And I love his Wessex landscapes of Dorset, Somerset, Devon. For me it's an extraordinarily evocative landscape and one that Hardy captures rather beautifully. His 1840s cottage and much larger house of the 1880s are well worth seeing if you find his work interesting at all, and the landscapes are, for me, some of the best in the UK.