A Poem for the Day: "Retty's Phases" by Thomas Hardy

The poem I want to share with you tonight is one that haunts me in many respects.  I come back to it, time, and time again.  It is a sad, poignant, and beautiful lament associated with young love.  This poem has the distinction of being thought to be the oldest surviving manuscript of any of Thomas Hardy's poetry, and was written in 1868.  The original manuscript of the poem is preserved in the Dorset Museum.

Retty's Phases

 I

 Retty used to shake her head,
Look with wicked eye;
Say, 'I'd tease you, simple Ned,
If I cared to try!'
Then she'd hot-up scarlet red,
Stilly step away,
Much afraid of what she'd said
Sounded bold to say.

II

Retty used to think she loved
(Just a little) me.
Not untruly, as it proved
Afterwards to be.
For, when weakness forced her rest
If we walked a mile,
She would whisper she was blest
By my clasp awhile.

III

Retty used at last to say
When she neared the Vale,
'Mind that you, Dear, on that day
Ring my wedding peal!'
And we all, with pulsing pride,
Vigorous sounding gave
Those six bells, the while outside
John filled in her grave.

IV

Retty used to draw me down
To the turfy heaps,
Where, with yeoman, squire, and clown
Noticeless she sleeps.
Now her silent slumber-place
Seldom do I know,
For when last I saw  her face
Was so long ago!

***

Thomas Hardy appended the following note to the manuscript--

"NOTE.--In many villages it was customary after the funeral of an unmarried woman to ring a peal as for her wedding while the grave was being filled in, as if Death were not to be allowed to balk her of bridal honours.  Young unmarried men were always her bearers."

Now, isn't that a tale?  Beautiful, lyrical, and oh so sad.  It never fails but to bring the tears to my eyes as I read it.  And it did again tonight...

I have mated this poem with a beautiful painting by the English painter, Edwin Harris (1855-1906).  The painting is entitled, "Apple Blossom at Newlyn," and it just seems to fit the image of young Retty that I carry in my head.  [Be sure to 'click' on the image for a larger view of the painting.]

A Poem for the Day: "The Revisitation" by Thomas Hardy

The poem I am featuring tonight is another by Thomas Hardy. It is entitled, "The Revisitation" and was published in 1904. What I love the most about much of Hardy's poetry is his ability to tell a story, and this is a whopper! Of the nearly 1,000 poems that Hardy wrote, many have this almost ballad or folktale quality about them.  From reading biographies of Hardy, it seems that he was an inveterate listener and note-taker.  Apparently, he crafted these poetic tales from the stories he heard and collected from his older relatives and people he spoke with across Dorset.  This particular poem seems to refer back to the days when England was at war with France (i.e., the Napoleonic wars).  It seems an unrequited love revisited, with essentially disastrous results. Methinks, knowing Hardy, this would have made an equally good short story. I look at it as essentially macabre and terribly poignant at the same time. Vintage Hardy, in my humble opinion, and a sad, sad poem.  Read it and tell me what you think. 

The photograph that I have attached (at right) is one that I took on a very blustery and cold late-afternoon in the spring on Tehachapi Pass in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains in southern California. Please feel free to 'click' on the image for a larger view.


The Revisitation

As I lay awake at night-time
In an ancient country barrack known to ancient cannoneers,
And recalled the hopes that heralded each seeming brave and bright time
Of my primal purple years,

Much it haunted me that, nigh there,
I had borne my bitterest loss--when One who went, came not again;
In a joyless hour of discord, in a joyless-hued July there -
A July just such as then.

And as thus I brooded longer,
With my faint eyes on the feeble square of wan-lit window frame,
A quick conviction sprung within me, grew, and grew yet stronger,
That the month-night was the same,

Too, as that which saw her leave me
On the rugged ridge of Waterstone, the peewits plaining round;
And a lapsing twenty years had ruled that--as it were to grieve me -
I should near the once-loved ground.

Though but now a war-worn stranger
Chance had quartered here, I rose up and descended to the yard.
All was soundless, save the troopers' horses tossing at the manger,
And the sentry keeping guard.

Through the gateway I betook me
Down the High Street and beyond the lamps, across the battered bridge,
Till the country darkness clasped me and the friendly shine forsook me,
And I bore towards the Ridge,

With a dim unowned emotion
Saying softly: "Small my reason, now at midnight, to be here . . .
Yet a sleepless swain of fifty with a brief romantic notion
May retrace a track so dear."

Thus I walked with thoughts half-uttered
Up the lane I knew so well, the grey, gaunt, lonely Lane of Slyre;
And at whiles behind me, far at sea, a sullen thunder muttered
As I mounted high and higher.

Till, the upper roadway quitting,
I adventured on the open drouthy downland thinly grassed,
While the spry white scuts of conies flashed before me, earthward flitting,
And an arid wind went past.

Round about me bulged the barrows
As before, in antique silence--immemorial funeral piles -
Where the sleek herds trampled daily the remains of flint-tipt arrows
Mid the thyme and chamomiles;

And the Sarsen stone there, dateless,
On whose breast we had sat and told the zephyrs many a tender vow,
Held the heat of yester sun, as sank thereon one fated mateless
From those far fond hours till now.

Maybe flustered by my presence
Rose the peewits, just as all those years back, wailing soft and loud,
And revealing their pale pinions like a fitful phosphorescence
Up against the cope of cloud,

Where their dolesome exclamations
Seemed the voicings of the self-same throats I had heard when life was
green,
Though since that day uncounted frail forgotten generations
Of their kind had flecked the scene. -

And so, living long and longer
In a past that lived no more, my eyes discerned there, suddenly,
That a figure broke the skyline--first in vague contour, then stronger,
And was crossing near to me.

Some long-missed familiar gesture,
Something wonted, struck me in the figure's pause to list and heed,
Till I fancied from its handling of its loosely wrapping vesture
That it might be She indeed.

'Twas not reasonless: below there
In the vale, had been her home; the nook might hold her even yet,
And the downlands were her father's fief; she still might come and go there;-
So I rose, and said, "Agnette!"

With a little leap, half-frightened,
She withdrew some steps; then letting intuition smother fear
In a place so long-accustomed, and as one whom thought enlightened,
She replied: "What--that voice?--here!"

"Yes, Agnette!--And did the occasion
Of our marching hither make you think I might walk where we two--'
"O, I often come," she murmured with a moment's coy evasion,
"('Tis not far),--and--think of you."

Then I took her hand, and led her
To the ancient people's stone whereon I had sat. There now sat we;
And together talked, until the first reluctant shyness fled her,
And she spoke confidingly.

"It is just as ere we parted!"
Said she, brimming high with joy.--"And when, then, came you here, and why?"
"--Dear, I could not sleep for thinking of our trystings when twin-hearted."
She responded, "Nor could I.

"There are few things I would rather
Than be wandering at this spirit-hour--lone-lived, my kindred dead -
On this wold of well-known feature I inherit from my father:
Night or day, I have no dread . . .

"O I wonder, wonder whether
Any heartstring bore a signal-thrill between us twain or no? -
Some such influence can, at times, they say, draw severed souls together."
I said, "Dear, we'll dream it so."

Each one's hand the other's grasping,
And a mutual forgiveness won, we sank to silent thought,
A large content in us that seemed our rended lives reclasping,
And contracting years to nought.

Till I, maybe overweary
From the lateness, and a wayfaring so full of strain and stress
For one no longer buoyant, to a peak so steep and eery,
Sank to slow unconsciousness . . .

How long I slept I knew not,
But the brief warm summer night had slid when, to my swift surprise,
A red upedging sun, of glory chambered mortals view not,
Was blazing on my eyes,

From the Milton Woods to Dole-Hill
All the spacious landscape lighting, and around about my feet
Flinging tall thin tapering shadows from the meanest mound and mole-hill,
And on trails the ewes had beat.

She was sitting still beside me,
Dozing likewise; and I turned to her, to take her hanging hand;
When, the more regarding, that which like a spectre shook and tried me
In her image then I scanned;

That which Time's transforming chisel
Had been tooling night and day for twenty years, and tooled too well,
In its rendering of crease where curve was, where was raven, grizzle -
Pits, where peonies once did dwell.

She had wakened, and perceiving
(I surmise) my sigh and shock, my quite involuntary dismay,
Up she started, and--her wasted figure all throughout it heaving -
Said, "Ah, yes: I am thus by day!

"Can you really wince and wonder
That the sunlight should reveal you such a thing of skin and bone,
As if unaware a Death's-head must of need lie not far under
Flesh whose years out-count your own?

"Yes: that movement was a warning
Of the worth of man's devotion!--Yes, Sir, I am old," said she,
"And the thing which should increase love turns it quickly into scorning -
And your new-won heart from me!"

Then she went, ere I could call her,
With the too proud temper ruling that had parted us before,
And I saw her form descend the slopes, and smaller grow and smaller,
Till I caught its course no more . . .

True; I might have dogged her downward;
- But it may be (though I know not) that this trick on us of Time
Disconcerted and confused me.--Soon I bent my footsteps townward,
Like to one who had watched a crime.

Well I knew my native weakness,
Well I know it still. I cherished her reproach like physic-wine,
For I saw in that emaciate shape of bitterness and bleakness
A nobler soul than mine.

Did I not return, then, ever? -
Did we meet again?--mend all?--Alas, what greyhead perseveres! -
Soon I got the Route elsewhither.--Since that hour I have seen her never:
Love is lame at fifty years.

***

["The Revisitation", No. 152 in the variorum edition of Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems, edited by James Gibson, Palgrave, 2001]

Review: "Two on a Tower" By Thomas Hardy

Well, I am sad to say, but I am slowly winding up my summer of reading the literary works of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy.  I recently finished Thomas Hardy's Two on a Tower, one of his more obscure novels. Two on a Tower was first serialized in the Atlantic Monthly and then published in book-form in 1882, and was categorized by Hardy as a novel of "Romance and Fantasies."   I had the devil of a time finding a copy of this novel, and short of ordering a brand-new copy from an on-line source, I continued to diligently search the shelves of every used bookstore I encountered.  On a recent business trip to Arizona, I finally found a nearly new copy for six dollars!

In my opinion, Hardy has crafted an incredibly fascinating plot for the novel, and at times it reminded me of the plotting of Wilkie Collins.  Also, the novel pivots almost entirely around just two characters, versus the more normal Hardyan plot with a larger number of country rustics intermingled with the protagonists.  In Two on a Tower, much of the plot is solely focused on young Swithin St. Cleeve and the older Lady Constantine.  St. Cleeve is a twenty-year old consumed with becoming a famous professional astronomer, who has been surreptitiously using an old tower on a hill in an isolated portion of Lady Constantine's absent husband's estate.  Lady Viviette Constantine is a beautiful dark-haired woman, nearly ten years older than Swithin, who has been left alone for several years by her husband who is off adventuring on safari in Africa.

Over time the two meet and young St. Cleeve introduces Lady Constantine to the majesty and awe of the night sky above the rural Wessex countryside.  Hardy's portrayal of the stars and planets, through Swithin's descriptions and patient tutelage of Lady Constantine as they huddle on top of the tower with his telescope, is one of the truly unique and particularly beautiful elements of this novel.  It really illustrates Hardy's fascination and reverence for the natural world around him.  Hardy obviously spent a lot of time researching the astronomical portions of his plot, as these sections are extremely well written and factually correct; both the descriptions of the night sky, and techniques that they use to view it, as well as the equipment Swithin constructs in the tower observatory.  Fundamentally then, it seems to me, the novel is a story of the relationship of the human species with the universe in which we reside, and a relationship at its most elemental level--the Love between two humans.

Ah, but it is a plot written by Hardy; therefore this growing love between Swithin and Lady Constantine must of necessity become complicated, doesn't it?  Well, yes it does, and here's where the similarities to Collins crop up.  There are mysterious reports concerning Lady Constantine's missing husband; Lady Constantine's scheming older brother, Louis, shows up; and the pompous Bishop of Melchester, Lord Helmsdale, begins meddling in everyone's affairs.  Oh, it gets good now, real good!  I couldn't put it down at all from about the novel's mid-point on.  I also found myself becoming quite attached to the characters, what few there are; and because there aren't that many, Hardy does a superb job of fleshing them out and bringing them to life on the page.

I want to share just a bit of Hardy's beautiful prose from the novel with you.  This is from a scene, late at night at the height of a violent windstorm that catches Lady Constantine and Swithin atop the old tower attempting to perform some astronomical observations

"Under any other circumstances Lady Constantine might have felt a nameless fear in thus sitting aloft on a lonely column, with a forest groaning under her feet, and paleolithic dead men feeding its roots; but the passionate decision stirred her pulses to an intensity beside which the ordinary tremors of feminine existence asserted themselves in vain.  The apocalyptic effect of the scene surrounding her was, indeed, not inharmonious, and afforded an appropriate background to her intentions.

After what seemed to her an interminable space of time, quick steps in the staircase became audible above the roar of the firs, and in a few instants St. Cleeve again stood by her."

Wow!  Was that not just awesome?  In just a few sentences, Hardy has managed to establish a connection between the raw power of Nature, the hundreds of generations of humans that have occupied this ancient landscape, and the genuine and palpable love that these two beings on the tower share for one another.  Great stuff, and vintage Thomas Hardy!  Find yourself a copy of this wonderful novel, and put it on your shelf and wait for a rainy day with no interruptions.  You'll soon find yourself completely swept away and engrossed in the lives of Swithin St. Cleeve and his love, the beautiful Lady Constantine.  This was a terrific novel, and I would give it 4.5 stars out of 5 stars.

Post Script--I actually found two copies of the novel, and presented one to my elderly father.  He has been a quite serious amateur astronomer most of his life.  He began reading it the day I gave it to him.  I can't wait to hear his reaction when he's finished.

Thursday with the Poetry of Thomas Hardy

As many of you are aware, I am a serious student of poetry.  I have always loved reading poetry, even reading it out loud to myself.  I love hearing and feeling the meter and rhyming.  While I think it is clever, and I'm sure quite meaningful, I am just not much of a fan of modern poetry (i.e., the non-rhyming free verse style).  For me it just generally lacks that emotional feeling that I look for in what I consider to be well-written poetry.  Personally, I am most comfortable with poetry that spans the period from John Milton through T.S. Eliot (i.e., approximately 1650-1925).  Probably my most favorite period is the poetry of 19th century which includes many of the Romantic and most of the Victorian poets.  You can find poems and discussions of poetry from this period scattered about in around 25% of my postings on this blog.

For the next few weeks, I plan to start a quasi-regular weekly posting featuring a selected poem by Thomas Hardy.  You need to know that Hardy is quite the unique Victorian.  Not only was he an accomplished author of a goodly number of truly amazing novels, but he was also an incredibly accomplished poet (he wrote over 900 poems!).  In fact, some will say he was an even better poet than prose writer (this was Hardy's opinion, as well).  In my view, it is a toss up; I think he's damn good at both!

For my first Hardy selection, I have chosen a poem entitled Tess's Lament.  Obviously, this poem speaks directly to his novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles which I recently reviewed here.  In fact, you might like to print a copy of the poem and tuck it inside your copy of the novel.  I also encourage you to read the poem aloud and feel the meter and hear the rhyming; it truly becomes a lamentation.

Tess's Lament

I

I would that folk forgot me quite,
Forgot me quite!
I would that I could shrink from sight,
And no more see the sun.
Would it were time to say farewell,
To claim my nook, to need my knell,
Time for them all to to stand and tell
Of my day's work as done.

II

Ah! dairy where I lived so long,
I lived so long;
Where I would rise up staunch and strong,
And lie down hopefully.
'Twas there within the chimney-seat
He watched me to the clock's slow beat--
Loved, and learnt to call me Sweet,
And whispered words to me.

III

And now he's gone; and now he's gone;...
And now he's gone!
The flowers we potted perhaps are thrown
To rot upon the farm.
And where we had our supper-fire
May now grow nettle, dock, and briar,
And all the place be mould and mire
So cozy once and warm.

IV

And it was I who did it all,
Who did it all;
'Twas I who made the blow to fall
On him who thought no guile.
Well, it is finished--past, and he
Has left me to my misery,
And I must take my Cross on me
For wronging him awhile.

V

How gay we looked that day we wed,
That day we wed!
'May joy be with ye!' they all said
A-standing by the durn.
I wonder what they say o'us now,
And if they know my lot; and how
She feels who milks my favourite cow,
And takes my place at churn!

VI

It wears me out to think of it,
To think of it;
I cannot bear my fate as writ,
I'd have my life unbe;
Would turn my memory to a blot,
Make every relic of me rot,
My doings be as they were not,
And gone all trace of me!

***

This poem was first published in 1901, in a volume of Hardy's poetry entitled, Poems of the Past and the Present.  It is No. 141 in The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, edited by James Gibson, and published by Palgrave in 2001.  This comprehensive collection of Hardy's poetry is a must-have for any serious student of the fiction and/or poetry of Thomas Hardy.

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is:

"The mixed, singular, luminous gloom in which they walked along together to the spot where the cows lay, often made him think of the Resurrection hour.  He little thought that the Magdalen might be at his side."

My teaser was taken from page 154 of my current read-- Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, Everyman's Library hardcover edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 1991, pp. 464.

I haven't read this book in years, and I am truly enjoying my re-read of this amazing novel!  Reading "Tess" is kind of like standing on a hill and watching two trains speeding toward one another at breakneck speed on the same track; you just know that something very bad is going to happen!  One of Hardy's best!

[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]

Review: "The Woodlanders" By Thomas Hardy

I am continuing on with my summer of reading the written works of George Eliot and Thomas Hardy.  I just finished reading Thomas Hardy's beautiful novel The Woodlanders last night.  I have been reading Hardy's novels in the order in which he wrote them, and The Woodlanders, first published in 1887, follows closely on the heels of The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886).  In all honesty, I very much enjoyed this novel much, much more than the relentlessly tragic tale told in The Mayor of Casterbridge (see review below, dated July 13th).

Hardy has an amazing knack for thoroughly placing his reader into the environment of his novel.  Interesting to me too, is that each of Hardy's novels tends to focus on a different environment and ecology found within the fictional Wessex region of southwestern England.  For example, in A Pair of Blue Eyes, the reader becomes fully immersed in the beauty of the vales, forests, and sea-cliffs along the Cornwall coastline; in The Return of the Native Hardy brings vividly to life the peoples and environment of the Egdon Heath; and in Far From the Madding Crowd we are treated to the rolling hills and pastoral landscape of small rural English farms and pastures used by the sheep herders and their flocks; and, finally, The Mayor of Casterbridge largely takes place in the urban environment of his fictional town, Casterbridge.

In The Woodlanders the reader is introduced to the shaded and leafy world of the forest of Blackmoor Vale and the hamlet of Little Hintock.  The novel's characters live in the midst of this forested world and make a living with and among the trees.  They are involved in lumbering, forestry, and management of  orchards.  It is a beautiful environment, and lovingly described and re-described by Hardy as the course of the novel moves through the seasons of the year.

I love how Hardy integrates the 'mood' of his environment into the plot of the novel.  The sounds, sights, and smells of the forest and bridle paths are as much a part of The Woodlanders as are the dialog, thoughts and actions of the characters themselves.  In fact, I have come to realize that Hardy intentionally develops the environment in each of his novels to become a fully empowered character in the same sense as his human players.  Also, this novel seems to have been one of Hardy's favorites as it was based upon the area where his mother had grown up, a location that he was apparently quite fond of.

The novel revolves around Grace Melbury, a young woman who returns to her father's and stepmother's home in Little Hintock, after some years away becoming educated and more socially refined.  Unlike Clym Yeobright, in The Return of the Native, Grace is not quite sure that she really wants to remain in the forest of Little Hintock surrounded by the peasant class of her childhood.  Her father sent her off to school and has always encouraged her to aspire to a 'grander' lifestyle.  She returns to find the young man that still loves her, Giles Winterborne, is still there, and working for her father's timber business, and operating a traveling apple cider press during the harvest season.  At first blush it would seem that all looks well for the future of Grace and Giles.

As is typical in a Hardy novel, Fate and Irony have a curious way of inserting themselves, generally quite tragically, into the lives of the plot's characters.  Quickly the reader is also introduced to the novel's other players:  the steadfast and loyal young peasant woman, Marty South; the newly arrived gentlemanly young doctor, Edred Fitzpiers; and the local landowner, the widowed Mrs. Felice Charmond.  While Giles and Marty are relatively contented and happy folk of the forest, Dr. Fitzpiers and Mrs. Charmond are clearly out of their element in the Blackmoor Vale, and Grace Melbury is betwixt and between as she endeavors to determine the course of her future.

I really do not want to give anything of the plot away at all, but suffice it to say that the novel is quite seductive in that while the reader becomes completely enthralled with the pastoral scenes and life in the forest around Little Hintock, there is at the same time an incredibly epic and pathos-driven tragic drama that is unfolding and spiraling out of control that is of almost Shakespearean proportions.  It really is vintage Hardy!  I honestly couldn't put the book down for several days.

I loved the characters of Giles Winterborne and Marty South.  These are two people who are completely in touch with the natural world around them in Blackmoor Vale.  Hardy describes a scene deep in the forest with Marty helping Giles plant new seedling trees to replace those harvested by the foresters,

"Winterborne's fingers were endowed with a gentle conjurer's touch in spreading the roots of each little tree, resulting in a sort of caress under which the delicate fibres all laid themselves out in in their proper directions for growth.  He put most of these roots towards the south-west; for, he said, in forty years' time, when some great gale is blowing from that quarter, the trees will require the strongest holdfast on that side to stand against it and not fall.

'How they sigh directly when we put 'em upright, though while they are lying down they don't sigh at all,' said Marty.

'Do they?' said Giles.  'I've never noticed it.'

She erected one of the young pines into its hole, and held up her finger; the soft musical breathing instantly set in which was not to cease night or day till the grown tree should be felled--probably long after the two planters had been felled themselves.

Now that's just some great prose!  I found myself, time and again, reading a section like this, and then re-reading it and just reveling in the lilting lyricism of Hardy's sentences and paragraphs.

A couple of final thoughts--

As you read the novel, periodically refer to the single stanza of poetry, written by Hardy, that serves as the novel's epigraph, and give it some thought,

"Not boskiest bow'r,
When hearts are ill affin'd,
Hath tree of pow'r
To shelter from the wind!"

Secondly, the reader will encounter the term "man-trap" periodically.  These were large, metal traps that game-keepers and land-managers used to try and prevent poaching and other illegal activities on the gentry's lands and estates.  Hardy's use of allusion and metaphor is wonderful.

This was a beautiful novel to read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!  I highly recommend The Woodlanders.  It is Thomas Hardy at his best.  Five out of Five Stars, and a Personal Favorite for me!

[The black and white photograph that I have included within this review was one that I took in June 2008 deep in the forest at the "Bartholomew's Cobble Preserve" along the banks of the Housatonic River in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts.  Somehow, this photograph evokes, for me, the image of the forest of Blackmoor Vale described by Hardy in The Woodlanders.  For a larger view of the photograph, 'click' on the image.]

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is:

"The rush of sap in the veins of the trees could almost be heard.  The flowers of late April took up a position unseen, and looked as if they had been blooming a long while, though there had been no trace of them the day before yesterday; birds began not to mind getting wet."

My teaser was taken from page 150 of my current read-- The Woodlanders, by Thomas Hardy, Everyman's Library hardcover edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 1997, pp. 411.

So far, this is a beautifully written novel of a small group of characters living their lives deep in Hardy's fictional Wessex woods of southwestern England. Gorgeous imagery throughout!

[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]

Review: "A Pair of Blue Eyes" By Thomas Hardy

This was a fast read, and I very much enjoyed it!  If you are already a Hardy fan, I heartily recommend reading A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873); if you aren't, this just might make you one.  A Pair of Blues Eyes was the third novel published by Hardy, and the first published under his own name.  In his later years, Hardy created three categories in which he placed all of his fiction.  The largest category, "Novels of Character and Environment," includes the well known core of his oeuvre also known as the Wessex Novels; this novel falls in Hardy's second category, the novels of "Romance and Fantasies; with the third category, "Novels of Ingenuity," containing just three relatively minor works.

A Pair of Blue Eyes is set in Hardy's fictional 'Wessex' of southwestern England; and, in fact, this novel is largely played out in 'Lower' and 'Off Wessex,' in reality that part of England referred to as Cornwall with its rural countryside and majestic sea-cliffs.  As is typical of Hardy's prose, the novel does a wonderful job of connecting the reader with the characters and the character's place in the natural environment.  Every time I read a Hardy novel, or short story, I have this over-whelming feel that I am experiencing the sights, sounds, smells and emotions of the characters that he is writing about.  The reader can't help but fall in love with his pastoral scenes; feeling the breezes at it ruffles the leaves on the trees, and watching the hay-grasses waving back and forth in the fields and meadows.  Hardy involves his reader, time and again, in the simple things like watching the sun set in all of its orange, red, and purple glory, or the glimmer of the stars and planets as they brighten in the darkening night sky.  I think it is this deep connection with environment and the passage of time that seems to make the human elements and aspects of Hardy's stories resonate even more strongly with me.

Through Hardy's fiction, I find another example of my own understanding that the individual human experience and existence is nothing more than a infinitesimally tiny blip when compared to the history and time-line of the Cosmos; but that it also makes my understanding of those brief experiences we have with one another, and the emotions that we feel, so much more important and interesting.

In A Pair of Blue Eyes, Hardy addresses the well-trod literary ground associated with class-consciousness and its effects on courtship and Love.  The novel's primary protagonist, Elfride Swancourt, the beautiful daughter of the local parson, struggles with becoming a woman and experiencing romantic feelings for the first time when she meets the young architect, Stephen Smith, upon his visit to 'Endelstowe' to begin restoring the old parish church.  It is generally considered that much of the courtship between Stephen Smith and Elfride Swancourt is based upon Hardy's own courtship of Miss Emma Gifford, whom he later married in 1874.  Like his character, Stephen Smith, Hardy was also trained as an architect, and undertook a trip to Cornwall to help restore the parish church of St. Juliot in Cornwall (see photograph, at left).

[In the spirit of full-disclosure, I am inserting a Mild Spoiler Alert here.  If you are one who wants no hint of plot direction or details, I suggest that you scroll past the next paragraph and two block-quote sections]

Suffice it to say that the novel is not just a simple little tale of young blossoming love set in the quiet bucolic countryside.  There is plenty of drama, passion, and intrigue involving various characters of all class levels of English life in the mid-Victorian period in Hardy's telling of Elfride's tale.  During the initial serialization of the novel, the term "cliff-hanger" was coined, referring to one of the more exciting events that occurs on the precipice of the 'Cliff without a Name.'  One of the characters is literally hanging by his fingertips on the edge of the cliff, with the rocks and thundering sea one-hundred feet below him.  While the personal terror described by Hardy is palpable, as a geologist myself I just had to marvel as I read the following--

"By one of those familiar conjunctions of things wherewith the inanimate world baits the mind of man when he pauses in moments of suspense, opposite Knight's eyes was an imbedded fossil, standing forth in low relief from the rock.  It was a creature with eyes.  The eyes, dead and turned to stone, were even now regarding him.  It was one of the early crustaceans called Trilobites.  Separated by millions of years in their lives, Knight and this underling seemed to have met in their death.  It was the single instance within reach of his vision of anything that had ever been alive and had had a body to save, as he himself had now."

and

"Knight was a geologist; and such is the supremacy of habit over occasion, as a pioneer of the thoughts of men, that at this dreadful juncture his mind found time to take in, by a momentary sweep, the varied scenes that had had their day between the creature's epoch and his own.  There is no place like a cleft landscape for bringing home such imaginings as these."

Now that I have your attention, I urge you to read the novel!  You'll enjoy it!  I think that this is an important novel, and is one of his works that Hardy was known to be personally quite fond of.  Typical of Hardy's fiction, Fate and Chance play a prominent role in this novel too.  Also, the character of Elfride Swancourt, as a heroine, is interesting to consider in the evolutionary continuum from 'Fancy Day' (Under the Greenwood Tree), 'Bathsheba Everdene' (Far From the Madding Crowd), 'Eustacia Vye' (The Return of the Native), 'Tess Durbeyfield' (Tess of the d'Urbervilles), and that culminates with 'Sue Bridehead' (Jude the Obscure).

I hope you enjoy A Pair of Blue Eyes as much as I did.  As for me; well, I am taking Far From the Madding Crowd off of the shelf now for a re-read over the next few days.  It is time to spend some more time with 'Gabriel Oak' and 'Bathsheba Everdene.'

Enjoy your July 4th holiday weekend too!

[My review is based upon the Wordsworth Classics softcover edition of A Pair of Blue Eyes, published in 1995, 305 pp.; the photograph of St. Juliot Church is included courtesy of Mr. Steve Wheeler, 2003, and was posted on Wikipedia]

Review: "The Return of the Native" By Thomas Hardy

Every once in a great while you read a novel that just knocks you back onto your keister.  Well, for me, this was just one of those novels.  I finished reading Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native several days ago, and it made such an impression upon me that I turned to page one, and began it all over again!  The first impression?  Wow!  Upon finishing it for the second time?  I concur with the first impression.

This is the fourth in Hardy's series of eight 'Wessex' novels, all being set in his native countryside of southwestern England.  Originally, The Return of the Native was serialized in twelve monthly installments in Belgravia magazine in 1878.  Interestingly, Belgravia magazine was edited by Mary Elizabeth Braddon (of Lady Audley's Secret fame) and her husband, John Maxwell.

The Return of the Native takes place over the course of a year and one-day, and the setting of the novel is entirely on the fictional Egdon Heath of Hardy's Wessex.  In fact, Egdon Heath with its rolling hills and dense warrens of scrubby, spiny, and brown furze should absolutely be considered one of the main characters listed in the novel's Dramatis Personae.

The novel, as Hardy originally intended and envisioned, is a tragedy in five parts; however, he was persuaded by the editors, for serialization purposes, to add a final sixth book (Aftercourses).  Hardy even includes a disclaimer at the start of this sixth book suggesting that the reader choose the ending for the novel that he or she deems appropriate.  Hardy was not a fan of adding the sixth book to the novel.

The first fifty pages, or so, of the novel feels like something out of the Britain of the Druids.  Hardy's description of the Egdon Heath, the late fall weather, and the magical, almost pagan, customs of the people surrounding their bonfires next to the ancient Celtic barrows on the night of November Fifth was simply spell-binding.  And it just gets better! 

Early on we are introduced to the novel's primary protagonists.  There's the seemingly-Mephistophelean Diggory Venn, the Reddleman, covered in red, from head-to-toe in the ochre he uses to mark the flocks of sheep; the beautiful and good-hearted Thomasin Yeobright; the handsome 'failed' engineer, now inn-owner, Damon Wildeve; the solid and steady matron of the heath, Mrs. Yeobright; the 'Queen of Night,' the darkly beautiful 'wayward and erring heroine,' Eustacia Vye ("to be loved to madness, was her great desire"); and, finally, the 'Native,' who has returned to the heath, the only child of Mrs. Yeobright, Clym Yeobright.  The novel travels through the four seasons of the year with these six characters locked together in a tale of passion, drama, pathos, and tragedy where, in typical Hardyian fashion, only Fate, Chance, and Irony exert any control whatsoever.  Like a moth is drawn to a flame, the reader is inexorably drawn into the tale, and recognizes with a growing horror that a full release can only be attained through reaching and experiencing the novel's shocking climax.

The novel contains more than a superficial nod to the great choric scenes of the Greek Tragedies, and includes the gatherings of commoners like many of Shakespeare's dramas.  Hardy's characters' dialog is spare and clipped, but each word is chosen carefully and packs an emotional wallop.  The descriptions of the environment, the role of the humans in it, and the interactions between the characters reminds me of the great modern American novelist, Cormac McCarthy.  The Return of the Native is Hardy's Naturalism at its finest; and becomes an almost poetic homage to the interaction of the human species with one another as well as with the Earth Mother herself.

Hardy chose an ode from Keats's epic Endymion as an epigraph to lead off the novel.  Nothing could describe this novel better--

"To sorrow
I bade good morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind.
I would deceive her,
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind."

(Endymion, Book IV, 1817)

***

Finally, I want share one of Thomas Hardy's poems that directly speaks to his beautiful novel, The Return of the Native.  This poem is entitled, The Moth Signal--

The Moth-Signal
(On Egdon Heath)

'What are you still, still thinking,
  He asked in vague surmise,
'That you stare at the wick unblinking
  With those great lost luminous eyes?'

'O, I see a poor moth burning
  In the candle-flame,' said she,
'Its wings and legs are turning
  To a cinder rapidly.'

'Moths fly in from the heather,'
  He said, 'now the days decline.'
'I know,' said she.  'The weather,
  I hope, will at last be fine.

'I think,' she added lightly,
  'I'll look out at the door.
The ring the moon wears nightly,
  May be visible now no more.

She rose, and, little heeding,
  Her husband then went on
With his attentive reading
  In the annals of ages gone.

Outside the house a figure
  Came from the tumulus near,
And speedily waxed bigger,
  And clasped and called her Dear.

'I saw the pale-winged token
  You sent through the crack,' sighed she.
'That moth is burnt and broken
  With which you lured out me.

'And were I as the moth is
  It might be better far
For one whose marriage troth is
  Shattered as potsherds are!'

Then grinned the Ancient Briton
  From the tumulus treed with pine:
'So, hearts are thwartly smitten
  In these days as in mine!'

[Published in Satires of Circumstance, 1914]

Meme: Teaser Tuesdays

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
- Grab your current read
- Open to a random page
- Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
- BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
- Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser is:

"Stepping forward in this direction yet a little further, he could see the tower of West Endelstow Church, beneath which he was to meet his Elfride that night.  And at the same time he noticed, coming over the hill from the cliffs, a white speck in motion."

This was taken from page 180 of my current read, A Pair of Blue Eyes, by Thomas Hardy (Wordsworth Classics edition).  This is considered to be the second in his series of 'Wessex' novels, and was the first published under his own name in 1873.  It is also considered quasi-autobiographical, reflecting some of the experiences associated with the courtship of his future wife, Emma Gifford.  It was from this novel that the literary term "cliff hanger" was presumed to have originated.


[The rules for Teaser Tuesdays comes from MizB at Should Be Reading]

Review: "Under the Greenwood Tree" By Thomas Hardy

If you're looking for an enjoyable and relatively quick summer read, I highly recommend Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School.  This delightful little novel is one of the more bucolic and pastoral novels I've read in some time, and depicts the disappearing rural life of Hardy's southwestern England.  This novel was first published in 1872, and was the last of his work published anonymously.  This novel is considered the first of Hardy's great 'Wessex' novels, and was followed by: Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and the monumental Jude the Obscure (1895), that ended up being Hardy's last work of fiction (he devoted himself to his poetry from this point until his death in 1928).

Without giving anything away, let me say that the plot of Under the Greenwood Tree revolves around two stories.  The first is the lovely story of the small group of men who comprise the Mellstock Quire (choir) and the music that they provide to the small parish church and for dances, weddings, and other community gatherings and celebrations during the course of the year.  The novel is arranged in five parts, and the first four represent the seasons of Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn, and Hardy describes the role of music in each.  I especially loved the first part--Winter--with the quire walking through the forests and fields on a snowy Christmas Eve, and stopping to carol at each house in the county.  Of course, time marches on, and changes are suggested, and these changes will affect the men of the quire and their relationship with the community.

The second plot that proceeds breezily through the novel is the romantic entanglements that arise with the arrival of the new school-mistress, the young Miss Fancy Day.  Almost immediately there are three eligible suitors vying for her hand in marriage, and Hardy does a delightful job of leading the reader through the seasons of the year as we follow the progress of the lovers that finally culminates with a wedding "where music, dancing, and the singing of songs went forward with great spirit throughout the evening."

I loved Hardy's use of the local Dorsetshire dialect in his characters' dialog, and mixed with his almost poetic descriptions of the rural environment and the seasons, the novel imparts the comfortable nostalgia of a daydream on a warm summer afternoon whilst reclining against the bole of an old oak tree on the side of hill.  If you love Thomas Hardy, or just want a simple and effective plot, with some very good writing; this gentle and idyllic short novel is tailor-made for you.  When you are done, pass it on to a friend, they'll appreciate it and you.  I loved this novel, and will certainly read it again; and maybe read the first section aloud at a Christmas gathering some time.

My review was based upon the Wordsworth Classics soft-cover edition, published in 1994, 146 pages.