Thursday, April 9, 2015
Apr. 9th, 2015 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bearshortyIt's been a really long and tiring week. I had to comment on a lot of rough drafts. And this weekend I need to finish grading Paper 3 before receiving a whole batch of new papers next week. It's that time of the semester.
But I did find the time to finally, finally finish Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd , which meant today I could finally start on Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warning new short story collection. I brought it with me to read on the train and it was just lovely. I'm not a big fan of horror but I enjoy fairy tales and his brand of storytelling has a lot of that fairy tale horror. Today I got to sit on the train, eat french fries (one food I can buy out during Passover) and also eat an apple and just read. It felt like a luxury.
Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd
A few years ago I randomly watched Mayor of Casterbridge miniseries with Ciaran Hinds, Polly Walker and James Purefoy (it was like the Rome reunion - I love that show). I enjoyed the miniseries and I really wanted to read the book right after that. I knew of Hardy, of course, but I never read him. I knew that we shared a birthday, 140 years apart, but that was the extent of it. I bought the book and savored the language and the story. I think I was surprised that the story was centered around an anti-hero who really did try to be better.
After that I went on Amazon and decided to pick another Hardy book. I heard of the title Far From Madding Crown, so I downloaded it, knowing nothing about it. I did learn somewhere that Katniss Everdeen from the The Hunger Games got her last name from the protagonist of this Hardy book, Bathsheba Everdene. But that was pretty much it. I started reading last year but after a fifth of the book got distracted. This year I was determined to finish so I started again from the beginning. The beginning and the end of the book were a pretty fast read, but the middle section was a little slow and with the semester in full swing it took a while.
But I'm very glad I read it. Overall, I really liked it. There are spoilers below.
First time I tried reading this book, I wasn't a big fan of Bathsheba, the main character, but I changed my mind pretty quickly on this second go. She is not perfect by any means and I think Hardy excels in creating people that seem three dimensional - with faults and quirks and problems but also with redeeming qualities. Bathsheba is vain and impulsive but she is also very young in the beginning of the book and learns through experience. She is honest too, sometimes brutally so and independent, which is rare for 19th century literature. And she wants to be better. Yes, she makes a mistake marrying a handsome man who is all flash with no substance, but she is young and in love and learns that sometimes passion is not what one needs in a life partner and other qualities matter. There are three love interests - a love square! - one a love of passion that leads to unhappiness for both parties, second a love of obsession (which also does not end well for Boldwood, the suitor, who becomes quite creepy) and the steady love, a love born out of friendship and respect which is the lasting one. Gabriel is probably the only really 'good' or 'perfect' character. He is a just an ordinary guy, hardworking and plain spoken and he is the observer of the story. It's nice to see him win Bathsheba over, over many years and slow growing respect and friendship.
I already downloaded a few more Hardy books to my Kindle - they are free, after all. I think I want to read at least one Hardy book every year.
But I did find the time to finally, finally finish Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd , which meant today I could finally start on Neil Gaiman's Trigger Warning new short story collection. I brought it with me to read on the train and it was just lovely. I'm not a big fan of horror but I enjoy fairy tales and his brand of storytelling has a lot of that fairy tale horror. Today I got to sit on the train, eat french fries (one food I can buy out during Passover) and also eat an apple and just read. It felt like a luxury.
Thomas Hardy Far from the Madding Crowd
A few years ago I randomly watched Mayor of Casterbridge miniseries with Ciaran Hinds, Polly Walker and James Purefoy (it was like the Rome reunion - I love that show). I enjoyed the miniseries and I really wanted to read the book right after that. I knew of Hardy, of course, but I never read him. I knew that we shared a birthday, 140 years apart, but that was the extent of it. I bought the book and savored the language and the story. I think I was surprised that the story was centered around an anti-hero who really did try to be better.
After that I went on Amazon and decided to pick another Hardy book. I heard of the title Far From Madding Crown, so I downloaded it, knowing nothing about it. I did learn somewhere that Katniss Everdeen from the The Hunger Games got her last name from the protagonist of this Hardy book, Bathsheba Everdene. But that was pretty much it. I started reading last year but after a fifth of the book got distracted. This year I was determined to finish so I started again from the beginning. The beginning and the end of the book were a pretty fast read, but the middle section was a little slow and with the semester in full swing it took a while.
But I'm very glad I read it. Overall, I really liked it. There are spoilers below.
First time I tried reading this book, I wasn't a big fan of Bathsheba, the main character, but I changed my mind pretty quickly on this second go. She is not perfect by any means and I think Hardy excels in creating people that seem three dimensional - with faults and quirks and problems but also with redeeming qualities. Bathsheba is vain and impulsive but she is also very young in the beginning of the book and learns through experience. She is honest too, sometimes brutally so and independent, which is rare for 19th century literature. And she wants to be better. Yes, she makes a mistake marrying a handsome man who is all flash with no substance, but she is young and in love and learns that sometimes passion is not what one needs in a life partner and other qualities matter. There are three love interests - a love square! - one a love of passion that leads to unhappiness for both parties, second a love of obsession (which also does not end well for Boldwood, the suitor, who becomes quite creepy) and the steady love, a love born out of friendship and respect which is the lasting one. Gabriel is probably the only really 'good' or 'perfect' character. He is a just an ordinary guy, hardworking and plain spoken and he is the observer of the story. It's nice to see him win Bathsheba over, over many years and slow growing respect and friendship.
I already downloaded a few more Hardy books to my Kindle - they are free, after all. I think I want to read at least one Hardy book every year.