"To compensate a little for the treachery and weakness of my memory, so extreme that it has happened to me more than once to pick up again, as recent and unknown to me, books which I had read carefully a few years before . . . I have adopted the habit for some time now of adding at the end of each book . . . the time I finished reading it and the judgment I have derived of it as a whole, so that this may represent to me at least the sense and general idea I had conceived of the author in reading it." (Montaigne, Book II, Essay 10 (publ. 1580))

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Return of the Native (Thomas Hardy, 1878)

(275 pp)

I like this, though not as much as Hardy novels previously read (this one, and in particular this one).

Entirely set in village/rural/heath-country.  A countryside with which I'm not familiar, but I am pretty confident Hardy did an amazing job of describing - that part alone is captivating.

Diggory Venn is a "reddleman"; the book starts out as he assists Thomasin Yeobright (who had rejected his earlier marriage proposal); we meet her brother (Clym - who is the returning native), Damon Wildeve (proprietor of an inn), Eustacia Vye (thought perhaps to be a witch!), and various of their family members and the villagers.

The characters sort out their relationships.  I like that Hardy creates complex characters; no really bad ones, though the plot line is a little too tidy as it wraps up.


Posted by at
Labels: ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)