Hardy hard? Hardly...

Quite often you'll see Harriet and I write about the same books around about the same time. That's because we're in the same book group in Oxford... and usually she is much more prompt than me at actually getting around to writing about the things. Today's post is no different - I'm writing about Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native, and she did so here.

I thought I'd cracked Hardy, last year. I made my second attempt with Jude the Obscure, and loved it - it even ended up on my Top Ten of 2010. And so I was excited when Harriet suggested that our book group read The Return of the Native - I wanted to get some more Hardy under my belt, now that I'd discovered that I loved him.

Hmm. Well, that didn't pan out quite as expected. You'll have to forgive my post title - I put it in because it amused me, not because it was true. Whilst I'd been surprised that Jude swept me along like a modern page-turner, I found The Return of the Native something of a slog.


The novel kicks off with a few pages describing Egdon Heath, which are apparently famous and much-loved. Well, you know me and descriptions of landscape - I was flicking past these pages before too long. And we come to a group of yokels discussing and dancing on the hillside. This crowd did give for a moment or two of something I didn't expect at all - humour!

Want of breath prevented a continuance of the songs; and the breakdown attracted the attention of a firm-standing man of middle age, who kept each corner of his crescent-shaped mouth rigorously drawn back into his cheek, as if to do away with any suspicion of mirthfulness which might erroneously have attached to him.

That occasioned a little chuckle, and I liked this next bit from later in the novel so much that I went and read it aloud to my housemate:

"Strange notions, has he?" said the old man. "Ah, there's too much of that sending to school in these days! It only does harm. Every gateost and barn's door you come to is sure to have some bad word or other chalked upon it by the young rascals: a woman can hardly pass for shame some times. If they'd never been taught how to write they wouldn't have been able to scribble such villainy. Their fathers couldn't do it, and the country was all the better for it."

(In my village, I must say, the local vandals tended towards the pictorial.) None of these characters end up being particularly important, however, and it's all a rather lengthy introduction to some of the novel's main players - Eustacia Vye and Damon Wildeve. Eustacia is all flashing eyes and passionate proclamations; Damon is all wry comments alternating with romantic gestures. Awkward, then, that he's about to marry someone else - a girl so virtuous and accepting that I can't even remember her name.

Naturally everyone is in love with everyone else. Throw the reddleman Diggory Venn into the mix (a reddleman being someone who transports sheep-dye around the countryside, and is covered head to toe in the stuff), and the 'native' himself Clym Yeobright, and we've got a love-hexagon or -septagon or somesuch going on. To be honest, it all felt a bit like a watered down version of Jude the Obscure, even though that novel came later. All the partner-swapping, and going back and forth between people; false promises and broken vows; wild and amorous announcements followed by bitter renouncing, etc. etc. This excerpt is fairly representative:

She interrupted with a suppressed fire of which either love or anger seemed an equally possible issue, "Do you love me now?"

"Who can say?"

"Tell me; I will know it!"

"I do, and I do not," he said mischeviously. "That is, I have my times and my seasons. One moment you are too tall, another moment you are too do-nothing, another too melancholy, another too dark, another I don't know what, except - that you are not the whole world to me that you used to be, my dear. But you are a pleasant lady to know, and nice to meet, and I dare say as sweet as ever - almost."

This sort of histrionics does occasionally result in humour where I imagine Hardy didn't intend it. The following is possibly my favourite quotation from Victorian literature, and one I intend to put to good use in moments of over-dramatic angst:

"Your eyes seem heavy, Eustacia!"

"No, it is my general way of looking. I think it arises from my feeling sometimes an agonizing pity for myself that I ever was born."

Well, quite, Eustacia. It comes to us all.

I can't decide whether The Return of the Native really is much worse than Jude the Obscure or if I was simply not in the mood for Hardy. And I wasn't, especially since I had to speed-read the second half for book group... to which only one other person came!

Perhaps I'm not being fair, and I have enjoyed ripping into Hardy a bit - it somewhat makes up for the slog I had reading it. I'd love (as I always love) someone to come along and disagree with me - there must be someone who loves this novel? Maybe I would if I read it in a different mood. As it is... I'm back to the drawing-board with Thomas Hardy.

In which we learn that Our Vicar is usually right...

Please note... I accidentally scheduled two posts to come out in the space of half a day... don't miss my thoughts on Matty and the Dearingroydes by Richmal Crompton, if you fancy some indulgent middlebrow reading!

Most of the books I write about on Stuck-in-a-Book are either new(ish) novels, or older ones which are a little more obscure. In those cases it's fine to assume that the blog reader starts off not knowing a huge amount about the book in question, and it's also fine for me to lay down my opinion - for better or worse. That's not quite the same with Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. In fact, even writing 'by Thomas Hardy' makes me feel a little patronising, because of course you all know that it's by Thomas Hardy. You also probably know a lot about it, even if you haven't read it - and it can be taken for granted that the novel is well written, can't it? So where to go from here...

We can have a lesson in how Our Vicar is usually right. He's off in Cornwall at the moment, on holiday with Our Vicar's Wife and a couple who are friends of the family (and saved Colin's life once or twice, incidentally!) so he won't see this for a while, but... he's been recommending Thomas Hardy to me most of my life. The same story happened with Oxford by Jan Morris, which he gave me (or possibly lent me, I should find out...) when I went to university, and which I finally read last year. It's great, by the way. And, although I did read Tess of the D'Ubervilles back in 2003 or thereabouts, and started The Mayor of Casterbridge once upon a time, I had never really turned my attention Hardywards.

But it really is a rather brilliant novel. And, despite my misgivings, very readable as well. I always think of the Victorians as wordy and difficult, but I more or less raced through Jude the Obscure. I suppose, with a publication date of 1895, it is on the edge of the Victorian period - but still. My misconceptions were put right.

For those who have been happily oblivious to the work of Dorset's finest, Jude the Obscure is about a country lad with big ambitions. Those ambitions centre around getting to Christminster University - i.e. Oxford under a thin disguise. It's all getting a little Oxford-centric, following on from Trapido's novel the other day, but my favourite section of the novel was this first part. Especially poignant is the scene where Jude looks out over the misty fields to Christminster, with all his aspirations and hopes intact. I'm not usually affected by visual description, but Hardy really knows his onions. Cue long and rather beautiful extract:

In the course of ten or fifteen minutes the thinning mist dissolved altogether from the northern horizon, as it had already done elsewhere, and about a quarter of an hour before the time of sunset the westward clouds parted, the sun's position being partially uncovered, and the beams streaming out in visible lines between two bars of slaty cloud. The boy immediately looked back in the old direction.

Some way within the limits of the stretch of landscape, points of light like the topaz gleamed. The air increased in transparency with the lapse of minutes, till the topaz points showed themselves to be the vanes, windows, wet roof slates, and other shining spots upon the spires, domes, freestone-work, and varied outlines that were faintly revealed. It was Christminster, unquestionably; either directly seen, or miraged in the peculiar atmosphere.

The spectator gazed on and on till the windows and vanes lost their shine, going out almost suddenly like extinguished candles. The vague city became veiled in mist. Turning to the west, he saw that the sun had disappeared. The foreground of the scene had grown funereally dark, and near objects put on the hues and shapes of chimaeras.

Isn't that some spectacular writing? But, as I hinted, his ambitions don't stay long intact. Hardy's reputation for being all a bit tragic isn't misplaced. This is, after all, a novel including characters who say: "All is trouble, adversity and suffering!" and "Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; and we can't get out of it if we would!" Warms the cockles, doesn't it? And of course things start to go wrong for Jude - not least owing to the women in his life, Arabella and Sue. The back-and-forth qualities of the relationships in the novel led to one inspired comment by a member of my book group, that it was all a bit like Abba.

But I don't find Hardy gratuitously gloomy. Jude the Obscure is definitely driven by more than tragedy - I think Sue and Jude are incredibly complex characters, especially Sue. She is spontaneous, but often regrets it or changes her mind afterwards; selfish but caring; passionate but fickle; headstrong but self-doubting - so many believable contradictions go into the make-up of her character.

For those who have been hesitant about approaching Hardy, I really encourage you to give Jude the Obscure a read. Although it will never be a bedtime story or beloved companion, it's one of the most impressive, complex, and well-written novels I've read for a while.


Books to get Stuck into:

I can't think of anything like Jude the Obscure, so instead I'll recommend some of my favourite Victorian novels. I haven't actually reviewed any on here, because I read them six or seven years ago, but...

Agnes Grey - Anne Brontë: by the most neglected Brontë sister, and my personal favourite. This doesn't have the power of Wuthering Heights, but it's infinitely more likeable - and, in its neat structure, practically the perfect novel.

Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell: We all loved the TV series, and Gaskell's novel is a delight. A bit disjointed, because the first few chapters were initially supposed to be the whole thing, but we can forgive her that when she gives us such wonderful characters and amusing incidents.

Our Mutual Friend - Charles Dickens: don't be scared of Dickens. This rambling novel has dozens of characters, but they're all brilliantly drawn, and I always find Dickens absolutely hilarious.