Product Description

Independent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in Wessex, Hardy's novel of swiftpassion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15262 in Books
• Published on: 2003-02-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

About the Author
Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 and wrote both poetry and novels, including The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. He died in 1928. Rosemarie Morgan teaches in the English department at Yale University. Shannon Russell holds a post doctoral Fellowship specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature at Oxford.

Customer Reviews

The Watcher and the Watched: Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd
Reading this novel again in 36 degrees of heat in Tunisia was a delightful and slightly unusual experience! As I sat moderately baking in occasional shade, Bathsheba and Oak wrestled out their very pragmatic romance amidst the debris and lives of other characters whose impracticality and passion proves their undoing. The novel recommends survival through work and co-operation and this core value in the narrative far from being dull and tame compared to the heated, reckless drives of others,provides humour and finally healing. The scenes where Oak saves the gas ridden sheep and the stacks communicate Oak's consummate competence and care and Hardy 's sensory skills are marvellously suggestive and psychologically apt:

'He felt a zephyr curling about his cheek and turned.It was Bathsheba's breath - she had followed him, and was looking into the same chink.'

Far From The Madding Crowd is full of 'peeping tom' moments where characters watch each other through hedges,chinks and doors! This moment is beautifully laid out, the metaphor 'zephyr' registers the magic of Bathsheba's physicality...even more, her very breath, her life force enchants Oak. She is as special and magical to Oak as any legend from the Greeks. The simplicity of this shared watching explores their natural equality and the unconscious attraction of Bathsheba for Oak. How beautifully erotic is this scene and yet how it reveals their hesitancy and delay.

Hardy allows Bathsheba her eventual happiness which is rare indeed in the so-called 'great' novels, and he is also astute in granting Bathsheba autonomy in characterisation. She remains true to her perverse, challenging self and we do not see a shadowy, chastened figure at the end, though this Bathsheba has learnt about consequences!

' I have thought so much more of you since I fancied you did not want even to see me again.'

Human nature is perverse! This admission is fully in keeping Bathsheba's vanity and wilfulness. Yet is also reinforces the honesty and intimacy that has existed between them. Such intimacy elevates their relationship and makes their future marriage and happiness certain.

A final glimpse, simply because it is highly Impressionistic and tender and would not be out of keeping in a Katherine Mansfield story or a Monet painting:

'Ten minutes later, a large and smaller umbrella might have been seen moving from the same door, and through the mist along the road to the church.'

The tenderness of the ordinary here is palpable. Oak and Bathsheba are granted some privacy away from the speculative eye of reader and community and under their umbrelllas remains sanctuary and promise!

Wonderful!

A true English novel
I have now read this book twice, and both times the same thing has struck me, the ultimate paradox that this book contains unpredictable predictability. This may sound like I am slowly going mad, but hear me out.

**If you don't want the ending ruined, then please stop reading here.**
The very fact that at the start and throughout the book, you are not sure who the elegant Bathsheba will end up marrying is concluded when she marries Oak. When I read this concluding chapter i put down the book and thought, surley I knew that was going to happen? The true intelligence of this book is to make you forget what your own thoughts of how the book will end, and go into a state of being simply nudged along by Hardy's elegant prose. Therefore, whenever you come to a certain point, you will find that you thought that was going to happen, but as you read it you didn't.
The novel is not particularly long or strenuous to read, however, it is so beutifully pastoral that it makes you yearn to go back to that time and live as they did. This very English novel is a work of beauty that can only be compared to Tess of the D'Urbevilles in terms of strucure. This is where Hardy's genius comes from, he has a style of writing that is so easy to get into the swing of that you would never believe that it was written over 100 years ago. To conclude, it is not as good in my opinion as Tess, but it is more than worth the effort of reading as it really is one of the most English of all English novels.

An interesting classic
I found this book slow at the beginning, and in all honesty I did consider giving up on it. However, I am glad I didn't. I enjoyed it once I felt it got going! This is the first Hardy book I've read and my goodness, he definitely has a way with words! His descriptions were capturing, although sometimes maybe a little long winded!

As for the story and characters, well I wasn't a fan of Bathsheba. I admired her independence, but she seemed thoughtless and manipulative. At the end I did find myself feeling a bit sorry for her with the whole Troy shabang, and the Baldwood ordeal, but for the most part I felt a lot of what happened to her was the repercussion of her own actions.

Oak however, he I did like. He was strong and silent, and he was there when he was needed. He seemed selfless and just a gentle, ideal man. It was interesting how Hardy introduced him first, even though the story followed Bathsheba. I think this shows the significance of his character and actually made me like him instantly. First impressions weredefinitely key in this book.

The story, well predictible for the most part, but that didn't spoil the story. Every question I had throughout the book was answered and I was satisfied at the end. I think it was quite radical, with Bathsheba taking on the roles she did, most unusual for the time. That aspect gave the book a little more depth.

Overall, a good read.

7/10