If it's a Thomas Hardy novel, it's a tragedy. *sad face*I was first exposed to Hardy in high school, being assigned Jude the Obscure for AP English. Entering the Navy, I was determined to continue to read, read, read, both -brow high and low, and eventually made my way through Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Far from the Madding Crowd. The Woodlanders was never on my radar, though, and it wasn't until I went on a "free for Kindle" purchasing binge, was I reminded of Hardy and the novels of his that I had never read.The Woodlanders follows the tale of the folk of Hintock, Great and Little, and more specifically Grace Melbury, daughter of a successful businessman who has endeavored for her to be educated far beyond the status of most country girls of the day. Although her father has promised her to the son of a man the father once wronged, ambition soon rules the day, and the daughter is made to seek after greener pastures. What follows is heartache, betrayal, indignation, sorrow, death, and then hope. And then sorrow again. Seriously, in the last couple of chapters I'm like, "OMG, everyone is going to end up dead in a pool of blood!" Thankfully, it didn't turn out that way, but Hardy manages to twist the knife of tragedy once more into the one character who was always honest and noble. *tut* Damn you, Thomas Hardy!!Hardy's prose is lyrical, because he was also a poet. Those novels of his I read when younger were Penguin Classics editions, the ones with the black banner across the top and old paintings as the cover art. They were annotated, thankfully, because when reading Hardy one needs a dictionary of 19th century antiquated words and a guide to the various laws which governed inheritances. My trusty Kindle helped (some) with the words, but there was one legal matter that I still can't quite grasp (another example of our noble and honest hero being betrayed by Hardy).I'm only giving this four stars instead of the five I would probably give Jude and Tess because I feel the plot is not as rich and deep as theirs. Hardy also does not give as thorough a psychological examination of the characters as I feel he did in his other works, and finally, because The Woodlanders, as a title, does not match the panache of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, and Far from the Madding Crowd. It sounds more like a story about the meeting of tiny little elven folk who live betwixt here and there in the shadows of the forest.This was a lovely book to read, however, and I had a hard time putting it down. Hardy provides a beautiful portrait of a lady...oops, wrong author...examination, rather, of a time when social mores and stations were rigidly enforced, as well as bringing to life the lovely Wessex countryside. In all seriousness, Hardy was a master at this type of novel, and he truly deserves his reputation and place as one of the all time greatest writers of the English language.
I have a thing for Thomas Hardy. Maybe my husband should be worried.Normally mothers have to take the blame for everything, but this novel is about a father and his love for his daughter. It compels him to give her a good education at a finishing school: when the girl returns to her hometown there is nowhere for her to show her accomplishments or use her skills. It also makes her grow apart from her childhood sweetheart, the man her dad would like her to marry. This is the paradox at the heart of the novel.As a result, this girl, Grace, is going to find herself torn apart between Giles, who is deeply and constantly in love with her, and Fitzpiers, the new doctor in the area. It is very intriguing how her dad tries to engineer first a relationship with Giles and then with Fitzpiers, and then back to Giles and so forth, so Grace does not really know her own feelings and falls into a relationship almost by default. This is the case with Grace and Fitzpiers. They fancy themselves in love, they will themselves to fall in love. By contrast, Giles and Marty South, victims of unrequited love, are steady and unmoved in their feelings regardless of circumstances. I wonder whether Thomas Hardy is suggesting that civilization and education complicate things a bit too much.The structure of this book is awesome. It starts off and finishes with the two single appearances of the same character, the barber. Also, like in "A Pair of Blue Eyes", Hardy manages to get the protagonist out of her clothes at a key point in the story. The part where Giles behaves so gentlemanly towards Grace as to risk his own life as a result, seems a bit farcical to me and difficult to believe, but then I am a twenty-first century reader. I really liked how at the end of the book Grace's dad and his friends, coming back from a search party, judge how the situation between Grace and Fitzpiers is going to go from then, and retell various stories about marriage, Hardy's leit-motiv.I have never been a great fan of the countryside, but I appreciate the beauty of English villages and this is a side of Hardy that I really enjoy too.How I wish he were a member of goodreads and could clik on the "I like" button after reading my review.
Do You like book The Woodlanders (1998)?
A few years back I had my husband sit down and watch "The Mayor of Casterbridge" DVD with me. At the end he turned to me and said, "What? It can't end like that!" I smiled and said, "It's Thomas Hardy." When you read a Hardy book, you must brace yourself for the tragedy. (The added benefit of this is that when you read one that does have a happy ending, it will come as a pleasant surprise!) Even though I'd never read this book before, and I didn't know what exactly was about to happen, throughout the story there were times when I wanted to shout to the characters, "whatever you are about to do, DON'T DO IT!" Since you just know it will have tragic consequences. But yet I keep coming back to Hardy. Why? Because he is just so good. I love being enveloped in his world of Wessex. He famously makes the land a character in his books, by richly describing the landscape, the changing seasons, the greenery, the pathways. In this book it is in the woodlands amongst timber merchants, cider makers and others who make their living with the trees and wood in 1880s southern England. He creates a vivid picture of the setting and the mood. Also, these characters are complex and real. Even the bad guy, (view spoiler)[ Fitzpiers, is not 100% bad. The bad girl, Mrs Charmond, is conflicted, and trying to resist temptation even though she is and always has been weak. Likewise even a sympathetic character is not entirely good. For example, I was shocked when Marty wrote the snarky graffiti on Giles' house. Granted, I get it that she was trying to nudge Giles into getting over Grace so he could potentially notice her, and he never even looked at her anyway, so she had nothing to lose, but still. Kind of an ugly way to do it. Also, she pulled out her trump card and wrote the spiteful letter to Fitzpiers about Mrs Charmond's wig. I like that Hardy makes the special effort to make his characters so believable, so relatable. No one is perfect, although he does get close to over-idealizing Giles by the end. (hide spoiler)]
—Kelly-Louise
Great Hardy book, as always. This one has the usual--pastoral setting, wealth versus poverty, class status, heavy foreshadowing. I hadn't read any Thomas Hardy in a while (I think I re-read The Mayor of Casterbridge last winter, maybe), and it's always a pleasure to come back to him. Warning: as with most Penguin classics, you don't want to read the introduction first, since it contains major plot spoilers. Annoying! Some of us are reading for pleasure, not study--save it for an afterword! This edition had an annoying feature I hadn't encountered before: the footnotes had spoilers. On two occasions, I went to read the footnote, only to find it was just there to comment on action that hadn't yet occured.
—Lee Anne
I have read this book twice. It is excellent. Very atmospheric. It is set in Little Hintock, a remote wooded village in Blackmoor Vale in his fiction Wessex, in the early part of the second half of the 19th century. It is a good example of Hardy's feeling that "happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain".I realized the other day, that there is an element of its plot that is similar to that of Rapunzel (where Dame Gothel cut short Rapunzel's braided hair and cast her out into the wilderness to fend for herself . .. and when the prince called that night, the enchantress let the braids down to haul him up) in that a wealthy landowner pays a young village girl to cut her hair, and weaves it into her own . . .
—Jim
