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Far from the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
Madding Crowd is the story of one woman and three lovers. The story is simultaneously outdated and evergreen.
The woman: Bathseba Everdene is a complicate character. She's admirably feisty, determined, and independent (especially given the era). She saves the life of Gabriel Oak early on, and later decides to run her late uncle's farm herself. She's also fickle, insensitive, and vain. She heartlessly sends a meaningless valentine to a lonely middle-aged man because he failed to notice her. She recklessly falls in love with a terrible man who matches her fickle narcissism. In fact, this relationship is the hardest to understand. Hardy ascribes to Bathsheba an irrationality that he then explains with a hand wave and "women, amiright?" Bathsheba has the potential for depth, an orphan and former governness she is both emotionally needy and strikingly self-sufficient. None of that is mined for a stronger character and more explanation of her motives. In short, I wanted to understand Bathsheba much more than I did, and that frustration is, I think, due to Hardy not understanding women nearly as well as he could parrot the societal construction of womanhood.
The first (and last?) love interest: Gabriel Oak suffers mightily at the hands of fate. He first meets Bathsheba when he is on the rise as a sheep farmer. She saves his life and he proposes marriage. She denies him, but he holds out hope that his success could one day change her mind. Then all hope of success is wrung from his hands when a bad sheep dog and a steep cliff leave him destitute. Eventually, he makes his way to working for Bathsheba at her uncle's farm. Though he assumes the role of assistant manager, shadowing Bathsheba to ensure the farm excels in her novice hands, she will only hire him as a shepherd. They have a rocky relationship, but eventually settle into a steady, fraternal friendship. Oak sets aside the vicissitudes of passion and becomes the constant, everlasting source of love that Bathsheba comes to rely on (though she takes much of the book to realize that's happening). Oak's love is in some ways the most genuine: he only ever hopes the best for Bathsheba and, crticially, shows his love through actions. This is of course the fatal flaw, because Bathsheba is desperate for someone more effusive. While there are certainly women like that, the mark of the era is how little thought goes into why someone like Bathsheba might be so desperate for flowery, eloquent attention to her features (say, for example, that society consistently reinforces for women that their greatest, only, asset is in fact their beauty).
The second (and never?) love interest: Farmer Boldwood starts as a dignified farmer and ends as the creepy loner. He is the earliest known form of the infamous "nice guy". Though Bathsheba cruelly plays a prank on him with a false valentine, Boldwood becomes a man obsessed. Indeed, the final scenes with him are truly cringe worthy and uncomfortable, partly due to their familiarity. His emotional manipulation and verbal battering of Bathsheba is far worse than her original misstep. Indeed, his final moments in the book are prescient of the whole concept of a culture of rape (though there is no rape in the book). The impact of those actions on Bathsheba are particularly important.
The third (and first?) love interest: Sargeant Frank Troy is the original pick up artist, absolute scum. Where Boldwood's terribleness at least stems from a sympathetic place of loneliness and delusional affection, Troy is manipulative and a liar and he knows it. He is a manipulative flirt who becomes a neglectful and abusive husband. As Troy's full story comes out, he abandons Bathsheba, leaving her vulnerable to Boldwood. Indeed, the only person who comes out on top in the later third of the book is Gabriel Oak, that constant man who remains steadfast in love but puts genuine, wholehearted goodness in life above all else.
All of this takes place against the backdrop of the Weatherbury community. The farm hands are also rich, entertaining characters, though at times their scenes seem a bit too long. I alternated between enjoying clever descriptions of the country side and irritation at three more pages of night sky.
Overall, I thought this book a fascinating look into the crooked journeys people take to get to love and happiness. The characters are more complex than Hardy portrays them, though, and much of that is only apparent because of the time between now and when the book was written.
The woman: Bathseba Everdene is a complicate character. She's admirably feisty, determined, and independent (especially given the era). She saves the life of Gabriel Oak early on, and later decides to run her late uncle's farm herself. She's also fickle, insensitive, and vain. She heartlessly sends a meaningless valentine to a lonely middle-aged man because he failed to notice her. She recklessly falls in love with a terrible man who matches her fickle narcissism. In fact, this relationship is the hardest to understand. Hardy ascribes to Bathsheba an irrationality that he then explains with a hand wave and "women, amiright?" Bathsheba has the potential for depth, an orphan and former governness she is both emotionally needy and strikingly self-sufficient. None of that is mined for a stronger character and more explanation of her motives. In short, I wanted to understand Bathsheba much more than I did, and that frustration is, I think, due to Hardy not understanding women nearly as well as he could parrot the societal construction of womanhood.
The first (and last?) love interest: Gabriel Oak suffers mightily at the hands of fate. He first meets Bathsheba when he is on the rise as a sheep farmer. She saves his life and he proposes marriage. She denies him, but he holds out hope that his success could one day change her mind. Then all hope of success is wrung from his hands when a bad sheep dog and a steep cliff leave him destitute. Eventually, he makes his way to working for Bathsheba at her uncle's farm. Though he assumes the role of assistant manager, shadowing Bathsheba to ensure the farm excels in her novice hands, she will only hire him as a shepherd. They have a rocky relationship, but eventually settle into a steady, fraternal friendship. Oak sets aside the vicissitudes of passion and becomes the constant, everlasting source of love that Bathsheba comes to rely on (though she takes much of the book to realize that's happening). Oak's love is in some ways the most genuine: he only ever hopes the best for Bathsheba and, crticially, shows his love through actions. This is of course the fatal flaw, because Bathsheba is desperate for someone more effusive. While there are certainly women like that, the mark of the era is how little thought goes into why someone like Bathsheba might be so desperate for flowery, eloquent attention to her features (say, for example, that society consistently reinforces for women that their greatest, only, asset is in fact their beauty).
The second (and never?) love interest: Farmer Boldwood starts as a dignified farmer and ends as the creepy loner. He is the earliest known form of the infamous "nice guy". Though Bathsheba cruelly plays a prank on him with a false valentine, Boldwood becomes a man obsessed. Indeed, the final scenes with him are truly cringe worthy and uncomfortable, partly due to their familiarity. His emotional manipulation and verbal battering of Bathsheba is far worse than her original misstep. Indeed, his final moments in the book are prescient of the whole concept of a culture of rape (though there is no rape in the book). The impact of those actions on Bathsheba are particularly important.
The third (and first?) love interest: Sargeant Frank Troy is the original pick up artist, absolute scum. Where Boldwood's terribleness at least stems from a sympathetic place of loneliness and delusional affection, Troy is manipulative and a liar and he knows it. He is a manipulative flirt who becomes a neglectful and abusive husband. As Troy's full story comes out, he abandons Bathsheba, leaving her vulnerable to Boldwood. Indeed, the only person who comes out on top in the later third of the book is Gabriel Oak, that constant man who remains steadfast in love but puts genuine, wholehearted goodness in life above all else.
All of this takes place against the backdrop of the Weatherbury community. The farm hands are also rich, entertaining characters, though at times their scenes seem a bit too long. I alternated between enjoying clever descriptions of the country side and irritation at three more pages of night sky.
Overall, I thought this book a fascinating look into the crooked journeys people take to get to love and happiness. The characters are more complex than Hardy portrays them, though, and much of that is only apparent because of the time between now and when the book was written.