I read Tess of the
d’Urbervilles many years ago, which was my only experience with Thomas
Hardy. I wasn’t sure I wanted to read
more, but since I am on a 19th century English literature craze and
a friend on Good Reads gave it 5 stars I decided to wade in.
The story grabs you from the
beginning as a poor farmer, traveling on a country road with his wife and baby
girl, stops at a fair and drinks himself into a drunken fit of insanity and
sells his wife and child to a sailor for $5. The multi-layered consequences of this action
create a very intriguing story.
This man, Henchard, may be
the most narcissistic, jealous character in all literature. His desire to control the people in his life
caused immense needless suffering, but much of it was to himself. The desire to control was the first great sin
of Satan in the pre-existence, and I am not sure it is not the worst one of our
mortal sojourn.
Henchard was sympathetic at
times, because he saw what he was doing and sometimes tried to repent but
didn’t ever really learn from the chaos he perpetually created. He wanted to be forgiven and loved again after
his change of heart and frankly, I thought he was given another chance too many
times. He seemed to make the same mistakes over and
over. Because I grew up with an
alcoholic father I understood this trait in someone with a drinking
problem. I wondered if Hardy understood
it also.
Henchard frightened me and so
does Hardy’s writing. I like happyish
endings and I feared the worst in some of Henchford’s actions. The story has
many interesting turns that kept me constantly captivated and I felt at peace
with the ending. I highly recommend this book.
A&E did an excellent production of this movie available on Netflix. It follows the story line very nicely.
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