Ever since I read and loved Tess of the D’Urbevilles last January I’ve been meaning to check out some of Thomas Hardy’s other work. Unfortunately I found Far from the Madding Crowd nowhere near as enjoyable as Tess.
The plot revolves around the beautiful and flighty Bathsheba Everdene, who must choose between three suitors: the lovely, constant and only likeable character in the entire book Gabriel Oak, the heart breaker Sergeant Troy or the middle-aged farmer Boldwood.
The book starts out lavishing the reader with the same gorgeous writing about country life that I loved in Tess, but as the story got going this diminished. It’s far more like in the style of Jane Austen than Tess, but this wasn’t what I disliked about it. I disagreed with all of the choices Bathsheba made and found her annoying rather than endearing, I didn’t like the way any of the action played out and the only character that I even remotely cared about was Gabriel Oak. I also found the plot very slow moving, but I’ve been pretty busy so I only had the chance to read the book in small sittings and that may have contributed to that opinion.
It was an alright read, but it just didn’t interest me that much and I was expecting more given my earlier enjoyment of Tess. It won’t be my last foray into Hardy’s work though, I purchased a copy of A Pair of Blue Eyes recently and hope to read it soon.
That’s disappointing for you – I hate it when other books by the same author aren’t as good. And there’s nothing you can do with annoying characters – you can’t talk sense into them!
Hope you enjoy A Pair of Blue Eyes more!
I love The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy. It’s one of my favorite classics. I have yet to read Tess D’Urbervilles.
Tess is my favourite! I do quite like this one though, although I think Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude te Obscure are better. I haven’t read A pair of Blue Eyes yet so it will be interesting to see what you think.
Nice review, Dominique! I haven’t read much of Hardy, but one of my teachers told us the story of ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ when we were in school, and I have also heard the story of ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ from one of my friends. I have seen the movie version of ‘The Woodlanders’ and I liked it. I liked the way Hardy always had a woman as the central character in the story, which was very different from other male writers of his era. I also remember reading about controversies which came out when some of his books were published because his women characters became more and more liberal and fought for and decided on their own destiny. My sister read ‘Far from the Madding crowd’ when she did her bachelors in literature, and I still remember the first line of the book ‘When Farmer Oak smiled…’
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