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priya_can_read's review against another edition
Long, emotionally intense, with lots of intricate plot details, MANY historical footnotes... and I'm already reading huge tomes for school!! Will pick it up again someday soon, though.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual violence, Animal cruelty, Misogyny, Toxic relationship, Animal death, and Racism
Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Grief, Rape, Classism, Death of parent, Physical abuse, Abandonment, and Alcohol
I mean, it's a Thomas Hardy novel. It is sad and weepy, but the language is such a treat, and it's a fascinating look into the time period, and the tensions between the trend of rapid industrial development in Britain and its agrarian heritage.vistacanas's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Bathsheba loved Troy in the way that only self-reliant women love when they abandon their self-reliance. When a strong woman recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.
This is one of the rare occasions when seeing the movie prompted me to read the book. I loved the movie! It pretty much nailed the lives of my adult life…my ex-husband, my ex-lover, and the ultimate love of my life. So I ran and bought the book, but held off reading it until the memory of the book faded.
I so wanted to love this book as much as I loved the movie…but, I didn’t.
The theme and character development were excellent, but they weren’t enough to make up for the shortcomings for me.
First, this is a hardcore classic. The language and many references, including lots of biblical ones, were very dated making footnotes a regular occurrence and a lot of nuances missed (unless you wanted to conduct research (which I did not).
Second, oftentimes descriptions of the environs would drag on for multiple paragraphs. Zzzzzz…
And, finally, the most important part of the whole story felt like an afterthought. I don’t want to spoil it, but let’s just say that Mr. Hardy should have spent way less time describing the countryside and way more time on the last chapter!
If not for my love of the movie, I don’t think I would have finished this book. I read mostly at night and it acted like a Benadryl stretching my total read time to over a month.
I’m really glad the filmmakers brought this story to the current generation because the theme and message really are fantastic.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic relationship, Misogyny, Grief, and Classism
Moderate: Stalking, Child death, and Death
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