Quote:
Originally Posted by dynabook
I have read "Far from the Madding Crowd" and enjoyed it. My daughter told me to read "Tess" and I have been meaning to read it for a long time. I realize Hardy is not sympathetic to his characters but my reaction is irrational, I agree.
--MH
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Hardy is extremely sympathetic to his characters. It's the rest of the world that isn't. And strangely that's true of the world around him as well as the world inside his novels.
After writing "Tess" he stopped writing novels for a while, as I recall, because of the public's shocked reaction. It was thought that since Tess was an unwed mother even though that was due to being raped, that there was nothing important to say about her. In fact initially his publishers refused to publish it.
Wikipedia says he gave up writing novels because of the reaction to "Tess" and "Jude". Both of these are wonderfully sensitive novels.
I've read quite a few of his novels and all of those I've read have been excellent. Yes they're sometimes tragic but beautifully so.
Barry