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3.63 AVERAGE
3.63 AVERAGE
loved this book. deep, smart character sketches. i only found it a little bit long in a few places, but those were nyquil-induced moments. i thoroughly enjoyed this book and left it feeling like i knew who the characters were and what they wanted from life. what a satisfying read.
Doi ochi albaștri este un roman care a început bine, dar mi-a fost foarte greu să-l termin. Deși mi-a plăcut ideea unui triunghi amoros, în ultima treime a cărții lucrurile au început să se complice fără niciun motiv. Personajele, pe care nu am reușit să le îndrăgesc din cauza trăsăturilor exagerate, mi s-au părut toate infantile în deciziile luate. Recenzia o găsiți pe blog.
3,5*
Nu pot să spun că este o carte ce m-a mișcat de la început. Sfârșitul,în schimb, compensează și este într-adevăr unul de nota 10. Din toate cele aproape 450 de pagini, ultimele 100 au fost cele mai pline de emoții.
Urmărim povestea unei tinere care se lasă pradă sentimentelor mai des decât și-ar dori sau ar trebui de fapt. În același timp, un bărbat care nu a știut ce este iubirea și nu dorea să afle curând, își descoperă adorația pentru ea după un oarecare timp petrecut împreună. Dar el o ia de bună, știe ca nu avea sa plece singură de lângă el, așa ca, în ciuda aparentelor cuvinte drăgăstoase, de fapt încetează să o trateze cu iubirea ce spunea că o posedă și fuge cu prima ocazie de frica propriilor angajamente,ajungând să regrete amarnic decizia.
Probabil judec cartea și dintr-o perspectivă modernă, nu neg, dar sunt de părere, cu toate că stilul de povestire a lui Thomas Hardy îmi este drag, că povestea de dragoste înfiripată în a doua parte a cărții nu este întru totul plauzibilă.
Suntem, cel puțin sper, cu toții conștienți că iubirea, pe cât înseamnă momente tandre și ridicare sufletească, înseamnă și compromisuri! De ce dacă Knight o iubește atât cât pretinde, nu poate trece peste istoricul ei? Din nou, nu am fost impresionată de primele 350-400 de pagini, dar ultimele m-au lăsat cu niște întrebări, pe care din păcate nu pot să le adresez autorului așa că probabil le voi avea de acum încolo.
Am încercat, pe cât posibil să caut răspunsul unora recitind anumite pasaje, revizitând anumite scene ale cărții și pot să spun, cu regret, că nu am găsit decât unul :comunicare. Dacă este ceva ce cartea asta lasă în mintea cititorului sunt următoarele :
-Trăiți o singura dată!
-Pentru a face șederea pe acest pământ mai plăcute :comunicați! Spuneți de ce aveți nevoie și ascultați de ce au alții nevoie! (Dacă Elfride i-ar fi explicat lui Stephen de ce fuge, poate calea lor ar fi fost diferită, dacă mai târziu, Knight i-ar fi mărturisit tot ei motivul plecării, din nou, finalul ar fi trebuit sa fie cu totul altul!)
O recomand celor care au credința că sunt romantici incurabili. Dar un mic sfat :nu o gândiți prin prisma voastră de acum, ci a personajelor care trăiau în acea vreme.
Nu pot să spun că este o carte ce m-a mișcat de la început. Sfârșitul,în schimb, compensează și este într-adevăr unul de nota 10. Din toate cele aproape 450 de pagini, ultimele 100 au fost cele mai pline de emoții.
Urmărim povestea unei tinere care se lasă pradă sentimentelor mai des decât și-ar dori sau ar trebui de fapt. În același timp, un bărbat care nu a știut ce este iubirea și nu dorea să afle curând, își descoperă adorația pentru ea după un oarecare timp petrecut împreună. Dar el o ia de bună, știe ca nu avea sa plece singură de lângă el, așa ca, în ciuda aparentelor cuvinte drăgăstoase, de fapt încetează să o trateze cu iubirea ce spunea că o posedă și fuge cu prima ocazie de frica propriilor angajamente,ajungând să regrete amarnic decizia.
Probabil judec cartea și dintr-o perspectivă modernă, nu neg, dar sunt de părere, cu toate că stilul de povestire a lui Thomas Hardy îmi este drag, că povestea de dragoste înfiripată în a doua parte a cărții nu este întru totul plauzibilă.
Suntem, cel puțin sper, cu toții conștienți că iubirea, pe cât înseamnă momente tandre și ridicare sufletească, înseamnă și compromisuri! De ce dacă Knight o iubește atât cât pretinde, nu poate trece peste istoricul ei? Din nou, nu am fost impresionată de primele 350-400 de pagini, dar ultimele m-au lăsat cu niște întrebări, pe care din păcate nu pot să le adresez autorului așa că probabil le voi avea de acum încolo.
Am încercat, pe cât posibil să caut răspunsul unora recitind anumite pasaje, revizitând anumite scene ale cărții și pot să spun, cu regret, că nu am găsit decât unul :comunicare. Dacă este ceva ce cartea asta lasă în mintea cititorului sunt următoarele :
-Trăiți o singura dată!
-Pentru a face șederea pe acest pământ mai plăcute :comunicați! Spuneți de ce aveți nevoie și ascultați de ce au alții nevoie! (Dacă Elfride i-ar fi explicat lui Stephen de ce fuge, poate calea lor ar fi fost diferită, dacă mai târziu, Knight i-ar fi mărturisit tot ei motivul plecării, din nou, finalul ar fi trebuit sa fie cu totul altul!)
O recomand celor care au credința că sunt romantici incurabili. Dar un mic sfat :nu o gândiți prin prisma voastră de acum, ci a personajelor care trăiau în acea vreme.
My high school English teacher, from AP English, gave me this book for my graduation. She said that it was her favorite novel, and that I should read it because it was an altogether different Hardy. I didn't get around to reading it in college, but it followed me to Bloomington when I went to pursue my PhD in English literature.
I quit the PhD program after finishing my Master's, but I did finally manage to read this my first semester of grad school. It is poignant and sweet and beautiful and possibly one of the most romantic books I have ever read.
I am glad I didn't read it at 18- it was much more brilliant at 22 with at least a bit of experience behind me. I think it is accessible to anyone with an open mind and open heart, but this is indeed a totally different Hardy.
I quit the PhD program after finishing my Master's, but I did finally manage to read this my first semester of grad school. It is poignant and sweet and beautiful and possibly one of the most romantic books I have ever read.
I am glad I didn't read it at 18- it was much more brilliant at 22 with at least a bit of experience behind me. I think it is accessible to anyone with an open mind and open heart, but this is indeed a totally different Hardy.
This book should be more famous than it is! Loved the ending and the cheesy romantic metaphors :)
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I read a third of it and had to stop. Not one of Hardy's better novels. While the writing itself is gorgeous, the trite love triangle was too irritating to continue on with. I have a hard time understanding the extreme class consciousness of that era. It strikes me as petty and pointless and not worthy of the fuss. Life is too short to spend reading a book that isn't a good fit.
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Been a while since I read a new Thomas Hardy novel, mostly because I try to pick them up in gently used editions from my local used bookstore! I think I have read all of his most well-known novels now and have just a few less celebrated ones, along with collections of short stories, left. A Pair of Blue Eyes is not Hardy’s first novel, but it is an early one and the first to be published under his name originally. According to the very brief introduction (I commend the Wordsworth Classics editors for not indulging in a 30-page academic treatise like some publishers do), this novel contains a scene that scandalized contemporary readers at the time! I was excited for that.
Elfride Swancourt is a vicar’s daughter in a rural part of the country. She meets Stephen Smith when he comes to make drawings and measurements for his architect mentor to redo the church in a gothic style. Elfride and Stephen fall in love—young, puppy love if you will—but in a cruel twist of fate, it turns out Stephen is actually from the area! His father is a mere mason, and this combined with Stephen’s own architectural aspirations make him an unsuitable suitor in the eyes of Mr. Swancourt. After nearly marrying in secret, Stephen and Elfride part but swear to remain faithful. Stephen travels to India for a multi-year project where he hope he can make a name for himself and prove himself worthy of Elfride. What he doesn’t know is that a friend of his, Henry Knight, gets introduced to Elfride by way of another connection. Knight, unaware that Elfride is the one who got away for Stephen, soon falls for Elfride! So we have a love triangle amidst a series of unlikely coincidences.
This book is a hot mess in the best possible way.
The first third of the book, when Stephen and Elfride meet and fall for each other, is adorable. I love the hesitation, the way that Stephen is so reluctant to return because he knows he is falling for her and he also knows he isn’t “good enough” for her. I can overlook the constant interjection of coincidence into the plot because it’s just so much fun!
But what I think really elevates A Pair of Blue Eyes beyond its fun romance is Hardy’s trademark commentary on a revolutionary shift in English life and culture. This is commentary he later refined into a much sharper delivery in his more famous works like Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. So for those of us who love luxuriating in Hardy’s novels, getting to see his first attempts at this commentary is a delight.
Basically, this book is in part about urbanization and the resulting shift in cultural capital from landed gentry to a new upper–middle class of working people. In Mr. Swancourt we see a man very much concerned with heredity. When he first learns Stephen’s last name, he is convinced Stephen is related to a very prestigious family—of course we later that’s not true, and when Mr. Swancourt finds out, he looks down on Stephen. Despite he and Elfride living in a rural village, as a vicar he is an educated man and therefore sees himself as above the villagers like Stephen’s (presumably illiterate) mason father. Stephen has gone to London to study architecture to better himself—designing buildings surely is more prestigious than labouring over the actual building of them—but this is an upward mobility that Swancourt doesn’t recognize. In a contrasting irony, Swancourt himself attempts upward mobility through a channel he does see as valid: marrying up, by marrying a rich widow. He hopes to harness the same avenue for Elfride.
So when Henry Knight, promising barrister, shows up, we see the effect this has on Swancourt. Henry comes from a “good family” and lawyers are not seen as tradespeople like architects. So he’s a far more attractive suitor. His attitude towards Elfride is also far more traditional than Stephen’s. Whereas Stephen was bewitched, perhaps even besotted, with Elfride, Henry is more enamoured of her. The distinction here, to be clear, is that Henry sees Elfride as a woman to love for being a woman. Her most attractive qualities are her feminine ones. He doesn’t greatly admire her writing—though he does, at one point, admit she has some talent. He rather expects her to conform, to marry (hopefully him) and be a good little wife. As Elfride falls for Henry, the narrator explains how she bites her tongue and develops the habit of not challenging him or his views.
The result, then, is a novel about upward mobility, about gender roles, about propriety and who “deserves” to marry a vicar’s daughter. As many have noted, there are plenty of autobiographical features to this text (notably Hardy being an architect by trade). I’m actually really glad I read this novel now, after having read so many of Hardy’s later works. This way I get to see the seeds of those later works in A Pair of Blue Eyes, and I think that enhances the book overall. If I had read this as one of my first Hardy novels, I understandably wouldn’t have been as impressed.
So that’s my recommendation: don’t, if you have the opportunity, make this your first Hardy novel. He has so many others that are unquestionably superior in both plot and theme. But if you have read one or two of those, and like me you recognize the skill that Hardy brings to discussing his changing country at the end of the nineteenth century, then read this book too.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.
Originally posted at Kara.Reviews.