3 Thomas Hardy Books
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure & The Trumpet Major
What is it about Thomas Hardy's tragic books that keeps me coming back for more? Possibly, although I consider myself a happy person, I tend to see life as a tragedy with some comic moments more than the other way around. I am constantly under a cloud of melancholia, but I enjoy it greatly.
As an author I like at least a little hope at the end of a story. Hardy doesn't really deliver in this area, but still, I love his books.
Tess falls asleep in the first few pages of the story, and, because of this mistake, a horse is killed. The family horse. Things go downhill from there. Through truly brilliant and sensual writing about the agricultural world we feel the ripeness of Tess. The near perfection of womanhood bitterly destroyed by a cruel man she's hired out to. A possible relation. A cad. But he's far better than her perceived savior, Angel. His purity and "goodness" mask a pathetic and weak soul. Tess' mistake is ever having put faith in such a loser. (Sorry, but this always happens with Hardy. I get so annoyed)
Hardy's characters ALWAYS love the WRONG people! But in the lush worlds he describes so well there seem to be no good mates. Or is it you attract what you deserve? If you're weak and fragile or stupid and naive maybe only the lowlifes see value in you. (Thank God I'm reading Trollope at present--much more lighthearted and fun and equally--possibly better written--than Hardy. What do you think?)
Just for Hardy's descriptions of the natural world you should read this one if you haven't. I'm a big fan of the English countryside and the rural life so his passages when Tess was working for the dairyman were a feast for the imagination (even as Angel was falling in love with Tess and annoying me to no end).
You're going to get me with a poor orphan boy being abused in the first chapter. My maternal instinct goes into overdrive and that's what happened here for me. Poor Jude is raised by a cold aunt. Jude's lack of fatherly guidance is the real tragedy. He has to learn everything the hard way and I mean HARD. The disappointments keep piling up!
In Tess, Hardy uses the fertile landscape to echo Tess herself. In this book it's beautiful old church and school buildings crumbling down. His dreams as a child center around religion and books. He wants to be a great and learned religious man, but he has only one set of books. His naivete causes him to romanticize the nearby old city--if only one day he could get there and be accepted into college and the church! But this same naivete causes him to fall under the sway of a conniving and simpleminded farmgirl who seduces him and tricks him into marriage (as the reader pulls her hair out--no! don't do it!!!!).
Jude's dreams crumble, and he's forced into stonework. After a series of setbacks, he finally escapes to the city, getting a job repairing the old structures that were so much a part of his childhood dreams.
Even though it's a Hardy book, I still hoped that poor, foolish Jude would meet a nice girl. Spoiler alert: he doesn't. Sue is a modern girl, doesn't believe in conforming to old standards, but seems learned to Jude the country bumpkin. While Hardy may have been trying to highlight the tragic consequences for people who don't follow societal norms, I couldn't help but feel that maybe if they did just follow the norms none of the bad stuff would have happened.
Sue was a TOTAL nightmare. At least the country girl was stupid and outright horrible. Sue was written about as if she had some goodness in her. I, for one, did not see it at all. Her self-absorption leads to the death of a child. Jude is so passive in his own life and a real husk of a man in the end that I found it hard to sympathize with him.
A shorter work by Hardy but delivering the same sense of frustration. LOL. Why, oh, why do I like these books? Set in a time of impending war with France, John, the trumpet major, falls for another annoying woman. If I hadn't read Tess first, I would have assumed Hardy just didn't like women.
John is a very good man--too good for this world really. Anne on the other hand is flighty and to be honest I don't even know why she was at the center of the story. There was nothing compelling about her at all.
I thought I was going to love and cheer for John, but he was so self-sacrificing and timid in love that I ended up becoming bored of him. When John's selfish and adventurous brother comes home from sea he swoops in and steals Anne's heart--which would be fine if I thought this brother would make a good husband in the long run. I wasn't given that sense at all.
Ironically, John goes off bravely to war having failed even one brave moment for love.
HOW THOMAS HARDY'S PERSONAL LIFE SHAPED HIS WRITING
Have you read anything by Thomas Hardy? Which novel did you like best? Let me know!