FAR FROM the MADDING CROWD

Can anybody write better prose than Thomas Hardy? The descriptive writers of the 1800s were truly amazing. When I compare their works with modern day writers (with some exceptions, of course), I am sickened to think that maybe current writers have regressed. Haven’t they read the classics? Or are they all just commercial writers, penning novels for dollars only. Does anybody just write for the art alone? There are some, I’m sure. I will talk about that later. Yes, I know that most of the late 1800s authors first put their novels in magazine serials (in Hardy’s case, The Cornhill magazine, in 1874), but that’s because everybody, including Charles Dickens, had a hard time getting anybody to publish their novels until it was tested in serial form. Even Mark Twain had to self publish (he eventually started his own company, publishing his own works and some of Dickens works in the USA). And no...these writers didn’t get paid by the amount of words they wrote, as some people think. Writers like Hardy and the above mentioned Dickens and Twain were amongst the avant-garde of the writing period. So why isn’t creative writing... creative anymore? 

To substantiate Hardy’s descriptive ability, just read the opening lines in this classic novel, “When Farmer Oak smiled, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.” Wow! Or how about when Farmer Oak meets the beautiful Bathsheba (I love that name) sitting atop a loaded wagon on her way to her aunt’s farm, Hardy writes, “The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by tables and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle, and ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses, together with a caged canary-all probably from the windows of the house just vacated. There was also a cat in a willow basket, from the partly-open lid of which she gazed with half-closed eyes, and affectionately surveyed the small birds around.” Did Hardy just describe a scene that is now perfectly clear in your mind, or what? Okay, so what is this Victorian literature classic novel all about? Is it like Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights? Yes, it’s a love story but not exactly, although kinda comparable. I am going to leave the plot somewhat arcane. Anyway, lets meet the characters.

There are four main characters, but I’ll mention five. The first is the lovely twenty two year old Bathsheba Everdene, who inherits her uncle’s prospering farm in Weatherbury, England. Then we have the three men who love her (that sounds like trouble). The first is Gabriel Oak, who was a projected gentleman farmer himself until one of his untrained sheep dogs drives his sheep over a cliff (I thought that was funny). He winds up working for Bathsheba as her main sheepherder. Next we have the gentleman farmer, Mr.Boldwood, who is indifferent to women until he gets a Valentine from Bathsheba saying, “marry me”, which was a joke unbeknownst to Mr. Boldwood. Then we have Sgt. Frank Troy, who is engaged to Fanny Robin but is smitten by Bathsheba when he runs into her while she is walking on her farm. She is insulted at first then enamored when he tells her that...she is beautiful. The fifth character is also beautiful but becomes tragic when on her way to marry Sgt.Troy shows up in the wrong church for their wedding. She is Fanny Robin, a ‘woe is me’ character. Does this sound like a recipe for disaster? Your heart will flutter for this poor girl.

Who will win Bathsheba’s heart (does she even have one?), and will there be any belligerence among the three suitors? Bathsheba is an intriguing character that seems to have a little bit of the anti-heroine Becky Sharp in her at times (From William Makepeace Thackeray’s, Vanity Fair : a novel without a hero). I’ve probably disseminated less about this story then any of my previous reviews, most likely because this novel is really a study of human ethics and emotions. And by the way, I was totally bowled over with Hardy’s composition and story. Do I recommend this novel? Is the Pope catholic?

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: I said in the first paragraph that there are a few writers that write for art alone. Wow, who? Okay, there is one contemporary author, and her name is Donna Tartt, who takes ten years to complete a novel. Enough said? On the foregone side, I submit the name Ernest Hemingway.

Wikipedia.com says about Hemingway, “Hemingway's legacy to American literature is his style: writers who came after him emulated it or avoided it. After his reputation was established with the publication of The Sun Also Rises, he became the spokesperson for the post–World War I generation, having established a style to follow. His books were burned in Berlin in 1933, "as being a monument of modern decadence", and disavowed by his parents as "filth". Reynolds (Hemingway’s biographer) asserts the legacy is that "he left stories and novels so starkly moving that some have become part of our cultural heritage." In a 2004 speech at the John F. Kennedy Library, Russell Banks (a novelist)  declared that he, like many male writers of his generation, was influenced by Hemingway's writing philosophy, style, and public image.”

And as for Donna Tartt, can this lady write, or what? Just read The Goldfinch, and you will fall in love with her artistic prose. Amazon.com says about that award winning novel, “The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."--Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review

Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love--and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.”

There are other writers who display the love for writing, but the two authors mentioned above came into my mind instantly. This is a subject that I will talk about in my next “Rambling Comments.”

Picture of Thomas Hardy (born 6/2/1840, died 1/11/1928)