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A review by monazaneefer
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
4.0
I can't decide whether this ought to be 4 stars or 5. It does fall short on what a 5-star book usually is for me but it's also so wholesome at the same time.
For me, I loved the characters without needing to root for most of them. For eg: I liked Boldwood and felt sorry for him but his speeches were quite melodramatic so that was a hindrance. And I didn't like when Hardy, in the first half, would explain the psyche of each character without us seeing it for ourselves. 'Show, don't tell' would've been the way to go. It felt like watching the characters from a window without being intimately close to them. That did eventually go away though. Once Hardy established that with nearly every character, the characters spoke for themselves which automatically shook those cons away. Nevertheless, by then I couldn't spark a deep connection with the characters, despite loving them.
As for the far-overwhelming positives, one of them is Hardy's descriptions; it's like honey to the eyes. To read his work is to read the descriptions as much as one would for the story. The two are so interwoven. The story in of itself was beautifully constructed with the plot well-rounded and refined. The characters were terrifically multi-dimensional.
I'm glad to say that I have finally discovered Thomas Hardy :") I want to devour all his work, although I'm a bit daunted by those novels that have a strong rural dialect within their characters' speech (so I've heard of Under the Greenwood Tree). If anybody has a recommendation on which I should read next, let me know.
For me, I loved the characters without needing to root for most of them. For eg: I liked Boldwood and felt sorry for him
Spoiler
(especially in the end)As for the far-overwhelming positives, one of them is Hardy's descriptions; it's like honey to the eyes. To read his work is to read the descriptions as much as one would for the story. The two are so interwoven. The story in of itself was beautifully constructed with the plot well-rounded and refined. The characters were terrifically multi-dimensional.
I'm glad to say that I have finally discovered Thomas Hardy :") I want to devour all his work, although I'm a bit daunted by those novels that have a strong rural dialect within their characters' speech (so I've heard of Under the Greenwood Tree). If anybody has a recommendation on which I should read next, let me know.