The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

So, basically, since I read and LOVED Far From the Madding Crowd, I am officially no longer afraid of Thomas Hardy. And since Amanda from The Zen Leaf had told me a kazillion times that The Return of the Native was her favorite Hardy, and that there was a wonderful audiobook version narrated by . . . wait for it . . . ALAN RICKMAN (be still, my heart!) I gave it a try. (Also because it was one of a dozen or so books left on my Classics Club list.)

Seriously, Alan Rickman could read the telephone book and I would listen. In fact, the first chapter is kind of pastoral and descriptive, and nothing actually happens, but I just listened to his delicious voice read. Which was just fine.

Just an excuse to include a photo of Alan Rickman. 

But I digress. This is one of Hardy's earliest novels, and it's essentially a love quadrangle about three men and two women and who's going to end up with whom, and how many lives are messed up in the interim. Or, as Amanda put it so succinctly, "an 1800s soap opera set on Egdon Heath." Let's see. Thomasin Yeobright is about to marry Damon Wildeve, but due to a problem with the marriage license, the wedding doesn't go through as planned and she's horribly embarrassed. And her aunt objected to the marriage anyway. Then Damon is having second thoughts, because his old flame Eustacia Vye cannot stand being second fiddle to anyone, so she's trying to get her hooks back into him, and he's waffling. Meanwhile, Diggory Venn in love with Thomasin, and tells her aunt he still wants to marry her, even though she turned him down a couple of years ago.

And here comes Clym Yeobright, Thomasin's cousin. He had a good job in Paris but has given it up and now Eustacia thinks she might go after him instead because he's sophisticated and lived in Paris. She wants out of Egdon pretty badly. Basically, Eustacia is an 1840s Scarlett O'Hara, but more selfish, if you can imagine, and not so much willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the farm. Meanwhile, Diggory Venn is waiting and watching everyone. He is the moral center of the book.

Cover of the BBC Audiobook to which I listened.
No turkeys were harmed during the listening of this audiobook.
(And not a single turkey is mentioned in the book, but, whatever, BBC Audio!)

Meanwhile, there is are a bunch of side characters who are alternately rustic, amusing, and just as dumb as soup. They exist for comic relief, and some parts of this book are just laugh-out-loud funny. Some parts made me yell at the audiobook (in the car, which is a good thing -- very embarrassing otherwise!) -- and some parts are slightly ridiculous. But Hardy really is an amazing writer, with great character development and amazing descriptions. If I had read the print book instead of listening to the awesomeness that is Alan Rickman, I would actually have found a brilliant and insightful example and included it.

Overall, I have to agree with Amanda -- it's really a great book, with some serious melodrama, though unlike Amanda, I absolutely disliked Eustacia and was waiting to see if she would get her comeuppance. I had some suspicions about how it would all shake out, and I was not disappointed, though there are some pretty good plot twists. I don't know if I liked this book quite as much as Far From the Madding Crowd, but I'm on a roll with Hardy and I have two of his shorter novels on the TBR shelf which I'd like to attempt this year: A Pair of Blue Eyes and Under the Greenwood Tree. Has anyone read either of them? Which do you recommend?

Unfortunately, I can't count this for the Back to the Classics Challenge since I finished it at the very end of 2015, but it's one more book crossed off on my Classics Club list! Only eleven books left!

Reading England Challenge 2016

Once again, I'm signing up for the Reading England 2016 Challenge, hosted by o of Behold the Stars. The challenge is to read a certain number of books set in different British counties throughout the years. I have no shortage of British books on my TBR shelves; the challenge for me will be to spread them out throughout the different counties. It can be a little tricky because some books are set in multiple counties, and county names and borders have changed over the years.

I'm signing up for Level 3, 7-12 counties. I finished books from seven different counties so far in 2015 so I think I can achieve that number next year as well. Here are the possible reads I've been able to match with particular counties:

Berkshire: Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Buckinghamshire: Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

Cambridgeshire: Maurice by E. M. Forster

Cornwall: Basil by Wilkie Collins
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier

Cumbria: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransom

Dorset: Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy
Thank You, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

Gloucestershire: The Code of the Woosters by P. G. Wodehouse

Hertfordshire: Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers

Kent: The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Darling Buds of May by H. E. Bates
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham
The History of Mr. Polly by H. G. Wells

Lincolnshire: The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

London: New Grub Street by George Gissing
A Dance to the Music of Time (First Movement) by Anthony Powell

Norfolk: Armadale by Wilkie Collins

Northamptonshire: Mistress Masham's Repose by T. H. White

Oxfordshire: Crome Yellow by Aldous Huxley

Somerset: Every Eye by Isobel English
Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer
The Belton Estate by Anthony Trollope

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P. G. Wodehouse

Staffordshire: Adam Bede by George Eliot

Surrey: The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Sussex: Mapp and Lucia by E. F. Benson

The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer

The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells

That turned out to be quite a list! There's no way I'll get through all of these but it was fun to search through Wikipedia (if you're interested, just search for "novels set in England by county.")

Anyone else signing up for the Reading England Challenge? What other challenges are you signing up for next year?

Sylvia's Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell

Once again, the Classics Spin picked a winner! I'd had this book on the TBR pile for several years, ever since I read Gaskell's Wives and Daughters, one of my all-time favorite books. I read Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, a few months ago, but in my opinion Sylvia's Lovers is the superior book.

Set in the late 1700s, this is the story of Sylvia, a young woman living in Yorkshire, and the two men who love her. The story begins with an incident of press-gangs, who were basically kidnapping men and forcing them against their will to become sailors for the British Navy, serving in the war against the French. A whaling ship, just returning after months at sea, is intercepted by a press-gang, and instead of returning to the welcoming arms of their loved ones, are immediately pressed into service and forced to return to sea to fight.

The press-gangs were feared and hated in the late 18th century, and are key plot points in the story. Young Sylvia Robson is 17 and the prettiest girl in town. Her cousin Philip Hepburn, a draper, has always been in love with her, but she finds him dull and pedantic. Her head is turned by a daring sailor, Charlie Kinraid, who is wounded in a skirmish against a press-gang. Charlie has a reputation as a heartbreaker, and Philip is jealous. A tragedy occurs, and Philip withholds information which could either hurt Sylvia, or give her hope.

Meanwhile, a young woman who works with Philip is in love with him, and another draper's clerk is in love with her. Basically, it seems like nobody will be happy in this story. Philip struggles with moral dilemmas, and the threat of war and the press gangs loom, and tragedy ensues.

Overall, I liked this book much better than I expected. I'd been put off reading it for years, mostly because I didn't think it would measure up to Wives and Daughters or North and South, two of Gaskell's best-loved works. Also, I found Mary Barton to be kind of preachy. It's a Gaskell's only historical novel, but I've been more interested in the Victorian period than the Napoleonic era. However, a couple of months ago I started reading the Poldark series, and though that's set in Cornawall, the opposite end of England, it's nearly the same time period, and that gave me a little courage.

I was also dreading it a little because I'd heard much of it is written in dialect, which it is, and that was somewhat hard to get through. However, I found the story pretty compelling; in particular, I thought Philip was a really well-rounded character, and I thought Gaskell did a good job with his moral dilemma. I did find Sylvia to be a fairly flat character, however. Honestly, she didn't have much personality -- other than being the prettiest girl in town, there's not much to her. She's a basic stock ingenue, like Charles Dickens' creations, which disappointed me. Also, the ending does sort of wallow in melodrama.

Overall, a good read, though not quite up to the standard of Gaskell's very best work. It was a pleasant surprise and now I'm nearly finished my Classics Club list, only 13 books to go! I'm looking forward to the next Classics Club spin!

I'm also counting this for the Reading England Challenge (Yorkshire).

Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

Well, it took a movie adaptation, but I think I am finally converted to liking Thomas Hardy. I had read Tess of the D'Urbervilles several years ago, which I thought dragged on forever, and The Mayor of Casterbridge later, which was better, but I didn't love it. However, with Far From the Madding Crowd I'm beginning to see the appeal of Hardy.

If you don't know the story, here's a brief setup. Independent and beautiful, but poor, Bathsheba Everdene first draws the attentions of sheep farmer Gabriel Oak. She rejects his proposal, and after a reversal of fortunes, she ends up giving him a job as a shepherd at the farm she has just inherited. Bathsheba has also caught the attentions of a wealthy older farmer, Mr. Boldwood, whom she also rejects. Bathsheba doesn't think she can be tamed by any man and wants to run the farm on her own. Both Oak and Boldwood wait patiently, loving her from afar, until the dashing bad-boy Sergeant Troy arrives and turns Bathsheba's head, and surprise! -- things do not end well for some of the characters. 

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It was quite an easy and straightforward read, and I really liked the character of Gabriel Oak. Bathsheba was a little frustrating at times, but I give Hardy credit for creating a strong, complex female character. It's a great story, with great writing and great characters. I can definitely see that Hardy was also a poet:

It was now early spring—the time of going to grass with the sheep, when they have the first feed of the meadows, before these are laid up for mowing. The wind, which had been blowing east for several weeks, had veered to the southward, and the middle of spring had come abruptly—almost without a beginning. It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts. (Chapter XVIII). 

Having now read most of Dickens and an awful lot of Trollope, I can see how different both of them are from Hardy. Hardy's books are more pastoral and poetic, Dickens' works have more gritty characters and settings, with social commentary and melodrama, and Trollope's books are usually middle and upper-class characters, with some sly satire. Hardy also makes a lot of insightful observations. Here's what he has to say about Bathsheba:

When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength she is worse than a weak woman who never had any strength to throw away. One source of her inadequacy is the novelty of the occasion. She has never had practice in making the best of such a condition. Weakness is doubly weak by being new.  (Chapter XXIX)

Cary Mulligan as Bathsheba and Matthias Schoenaerts as Gabriel Oak. 

I confess, I probably would not have attempted this book if I had not seen the movie adaptation first -- I usually prefer to read the book first, but my husband surprised me by taking me to a movie with period costumes so I could hardly refuse. I now have the courage to tackle more Hardy. I have two of his books on my TBR shelves, A Pair of Blue Eyes and Under the Greenwood Tree; also, The Return of the Native is on my Classics Club list. 

Bloggers, how do you like Thomas Hardy? Has anyone else seen the movie? And which book by Hardy should I read next? 

Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

Mary Barton was the first novel published by Elizabeth Gaskell, author of one of my very favorite books, Wives and Daughters. I'd had it on the TBR shelves for several years, and now that I'm getting down to the final books on my Classics Club list, I thought it was time to give it a try. (This also counts for the Reading England Challenge.)

Set mostly in Manchester around 1840, Mary Barton is the story of two working-class families, the Bartons and the Wilsons. Barton and Wilson both work for the mills. Mr. Barton has a pregnant wife, a daughter Mary, aged about 13. Mr. Wilson has small twin sons, probably toddlers, and an older son, Jem, who's about 18. Mrs. Wilson has a disability from an accident she suffered before she was married. 

Mrs. Barton is grieving because her sister, Esther, has run off to be with a man, and they fear the worst. Soon after, tragedy strikes both families; Mr. Barton is depressed and becomes more and more involved with labor unions and the Chartist movement. 

Meanwhile, Mary has grown into a beautiful young woman, apprenticed at a dressmaker. Jem becomes a skilled worker, working with the factory machines. He's in love with Mary but her head's been turned by the attentions of Harry Carson, the mill owner. Times are bad at the mills, with job cuts at the worst possible time. Resentment between the workers and the mill owners comes to a head just as Mary's two lovers have a confrontation. After another tragedy, Mary is caught up in the middle of all this, and her loyalties are tested.

I liked this book, but it doesn't have nearly the charm or the characters of Wives and Daughters, North and South, or even the quirky Cranford. I found the characters rather one-dimensional, especially Mary, and the story itself is on the preachy side. It's also a little melodramatic and predictable. Still, it's interesting to read one of her early works. Mary Barton shows glimmers of  Elizabeth Gaskell's great talent as a writer. I still have Sylvia's Lovers on the TBR shelves, plus some of her Gothic tales. Has anyone read either of those?

Lady Anna by Anthony Trollope

"Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you!" 

Okay, that's actually a quote from Pride and Prejudice (Lady Catherine DeBourgh, to be exact) -- but it's so perfect for this book, I couldn't resist.  Lady Anna is one of Anthony Trollope's stand-alone novels, and it's basically about a girl who is defying her family to marry the man she loves.  

So, the setup:  the wealthy Earl Lovel, a widower in his late forties, marries a beautiful girl named Josephine Murray, who is from a good family, and they live somewhat unhappily (well, she's unhappy) at his dreary estate in Cumberland. About a year into the marriage, when she's expecting her first child, Lovel drops a bombshell on his young wife: the marriage isn't legal -- he still has a living wife in Italy! This technically makes Josephine his mistress and the child will be illegitimate.  Lovel then sails off into the sunset on his yacht back to Italy, presumably to ensnare another mistress, rubbing his hands together and twirling his mustaches diabolically all the while. Shocking!!

Fast-forward almost 20 years.  The Earl comes back to this estate with another wife in tow, also Italian.  He claims the original Italian wife is dead, and he refuses to acknowledge the daughter he'd left behind in England, who with her mother has been abandoned by all their friends and relatives (who now claim that they knew all along the marriage was a sham.) Mrs. Murray and her daughter, Anna, have had only one friend and supporter all these years -- a tailor named Mr. Thwaite, who has sacrificed much of his own income to help Mrs. Murray in lawsuits against the Earl.  

Then, another wrinkle -- Earl Lovel dies intestate.  So, who gets the estate?  The title automatically goes to a distant cousin, young Frederick Lovel, a second son and military officer who never expected to inherit a dime (much like Matthew Crawley of Downton Abbey).  The money, however, is another story -- does the money go to the new Earl, the direct descendant?  Or is the closest relative his daughter Anna? And what about those Italian women?  It's a mess.  

Meanwhile, some clever lawyers have an idea -- the two English cousins should join forces, discredit the Italians -- and -- wait for it -- get married! Yes, this would solve everyone's problems. Anna and Frederick are both of marriageable age, and this way, they both share in the fortune.  

But naturally, there are more problems. Anna is actually in love with Daniel Thwaite, son of the aforementioned tailor, who was her childhood friend and playmate -- in fact, the only friend who stuck with her for her entire life.  But is she really in love with him, or just feeling a sense of gratitude?  And shouldn't she be aiming her sights somewhat higher, since she's an aristocrat?  Shouldn't she stick with her own kind?  

If the answers were easy, it wouldn't be a Trollope novel.  There's lots of legalese, discussion about social classes, and a lot of arguments between mother and daughter.  It's a domestic novel with a lot to say about class conflict.  

I really enjoyed this novel.  It's a fairly fast read for a Trollope work.  Trollope actually wrote the entire novel while on a journey to Australia, and considered it one his best novels.  I think it's good but it doesn't have quite the complex structure of some of the longer novels, like The Way We Live Now and He Knew He Was Right.  I did find it a bit one-note in places -- some of the characters seemed to keep making the same arguments over and over, and some of them seemed a bit one-dimensional.  But it's definitely great reading, and a good introduction to Trollope if you're afraid of some of the giant Victorian doorstoppers. 

I'm counting this as my Classic With a Name in the Title for the Back to the Classics Challenge. 

Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon

So -- just back from vacation, where I did actually have time to get some reading done, what with long flights, layovers, and jet lag.  I can hardly go on a vacation without a big fat Victorian novel, and this time I read Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon, the queen of the Victorian sensation novel.

Set in the 1850s, this is the story of the Aurora Floyd, who is young, spoiled, and rich.  Her father is a wealthy banker who fell in love late in life with -- gasp! -- a beautiful actress from a poor family.  Knowing a good thing when she saw it, Eliza Prodder married rich Archibald Floyd, nearly 20 years her senior.  However, they seemed genuinely happy despite all the sneering from the rich neighbors, but sadly, Eliza died in childbirth after just a year of marriage, leaving behind the eponymous Aurora Floyd and her doting but bereaved father.

Fast-forward seventeen years -- Aurora is beautiful, spoiled and used to getting her own way.  After some naughty behavior, she's shipped off to school in France.  She returns home to Kent after a year, looking poorly.  There are hints of some secrets -- is she being secretly blackmailed?  However, Aurora perks up eventually and is joined by her sweet cousin Lucy as a companion during the Season of balls during which all young ladies are essentially on the marriage market.  Two potential suitors stand out -- Talbot Bulstrode, the proud heir of a long line of aristocrats who is short in cash; and John Mellish, a blustering but lovable Yorkshire squire.  Both fall in love with Aurora, and at first it seems like Bulstrode is the lucky winner, though Lucy is secretly in love with him and pining away.

However, there's trouble in paradise.  A few months after their engagement, Talbot learns from a cousin that Aurora ran away from school and was MIA.  Suspicious, he confronts her, but she refuses to reveal her secret, and he breaks off the engagement.  Eventually, she marries Mellish, who promises never to ask her secrets and love her and trust her no matter what.  Of course, this promise comes back to haunt him when a handsome groom named James Conyers comes to work for her husband.  His appearance throws everything into turmoil, and that's when the book really gets rolling.

This book had a lot of great elements to it -- a strong heroine with flashing dark eyes, two men competing for her hand in marriage, blackmail, scandal, gossip, a detective -- it's a classic Victorian sensation novel.  A couple of years ago, I read Lady Audley's Secret by the same author, and loved it.  It's the second book I've read by Mary Elizabeth Braddon.  Aurora Floyd has a lot of the same themes, but I felt liked it dragged a little in comparison.  There's an omniscient narrator that editorializes a bit too much for my taste.  I did find some of the plot points pretty obvious, and the author definitely depends on the deus ex machina as a too-convenient plot savior more than once.  Overall, though, I'm accepting this book as a product of its time -- Mary Elizabeth Braddon was pretty groundbreaking as a Victorian author, not just as a woman author.  She wrote more than 80 novels, which is impressive for any author, during any time period.  Most of them are out of print but a lot of them are available for free on Gutenberg.org.

I'm counting this as my Classic by a Woman Author for The Back to the Classics Challenge, and this also counts for the Reading England Challenge.

Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham

Liza of Lambeth is the first novel published by W. Somerset Maugham, in 1897.  I've been a big fan of Maugham's work ever since I read Of Human Bondage as a freshman in college, so I thought Liza would be a good choice for my Classic Novella selection for the Back to the Classics Challenge. (It also counts towards the Reading England Challenge). 

This is the story of Liza Kemp, a young woman of about eighteen or twenty who lives in Vere Street in Lambeth, a neighborhood of London.  Liza is pretty and spirited, and she doesn't seem very satisfied with her life.  She lives with her widowed mother, who seems to do nothing but drink and complain about her rheumatism, and her boyfriend Tom bores her.  At the beginning of the story, it's a beautiful day in August, and the neighbors are hanging around outside when an organ player wanders down the street.  Spontaneous dancing breaks out as Liza is walking home in a new dress, and she joins in.  The sight of Liza dancing in that new dress catches the eye of a new neighbor, Jim Blakeston, who changes Liza's life forever.  He's married, with a houseful of children, and he's old enough to be her father.  But Jim is so different than her boyfriend, Liza starts a relationship with him that sends her on a downward spiral.  

It's quite short, only 137 pages, and one could easily read it in a day or possibly even a single sitting, but I had to put it down a few times because I did find the story quite depressing. It's quite obvious to the reader that this isn't going to end well, and it doesn't.  Maugham was working as a doctor in working-class London at the time he wrote the book, and it struck me that he must have seen many girls  like Liza. 

It was a little difficult to read because all the characters speak in a dialect which I can only assume was Cockney. (Please feel free to correct me in the comments I'm incorrect.) Though the story is well written, and the characters are well developed, I can't say I really recommend it because I found it so sad.  I did appreciate it as fan of Maugham, but I can't say I'd ever want to read it again.  I've read The Painted Veil and Up at the Villa several times but Liza of Lambeth won't be on my list of favorites. 

Reading England 2015 Challenge

As usual, I have no business signing up for any challenges since I can't even write a decent blog post for two whole months, but o from Behold the Stars is hosting one that's so intriguing, I can't resist (and yes, I'm still signing up for the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge.  More on that later).

Anyway, it's a Reading England Challenge for 2015.  Basically, the idea is to read different books set in the different counties of England.  I have about ninety books on my TBR shelves that I've classified as Brit Lit, so there have to be some I can use, right?  

Details of the challenge are here, but I'm signing up for level 2, four to six counties. Here are some possible selections (and if I have the appropriate counties wrong, please let me know.) I'm also open to suggestions.

I'm trying to limit my choices to classic books.  Here's what I've come up with so far from the TBR shelves and other books on my radar:

Buckinghamshire:  Lark Rise to Candleford by Flora Thompson

Cornwall:  Frenchman's Creek by Daphne du Maurier

The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

Cumbria: Lady Anna by Anthony Trollope

Devon:  A Pair of Blue Eyes by Thomas Hardy

Dorset: Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

Kent: Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham

Lancashire:  Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell

London:   New Grub Street by George Gissing

Liza of Lambeth by W. Somerset Maugham

Norfolk:  Armadale by Wilkie Collins

Somerset:  No Name by Wilkie Collins

The Belton Estate by Anthony Trollope

Aunts Aren't Gentlemen by P. G. Wodehouse

Yorkshire:  Sylvia’s Lovers by Elizabeth Gaskell

Of course I have lots more books by Trollope on the TBR shelves, but a bunch of them are the Palliser novels which I think take place mostly in London, plus some Irish novels.  One could do an entire challenge of novels set in London, and I think the idea is to spread the reads out amongst various counties.  

Any other suggestions?