Far From the Madding Crowd
by Thomas Hardy
Buy on AmazonIndependent and spirited Bathsheba Everdene has come to Weatherbury to take up her position as a farmer on the largest estate in the area. Her bold presence draws three very different suitors: the gentleman-farmer Boldwood, soldier-seducer Sergeant Troy and the devoted shepherd Gabriel Oak. Each, in contrasting ways, unsettles her decisions and complicates her life, and tragedy ensues, threatening the stability of the whole community. The first of his works set in the fictional county of Wessex, Hardy's novel of swift passion and slow courtship is imbued with his evocative descriptions of rural life and landscapes, and with unflinching honesty about sexual relationships.
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"That’s right, yes. Far From the Madding Crowd has all the key ingredients of a Hardy novel. We have Bathsheba Everdene, this strong-willed woman at the heart. She’s almost feminist in many respects. She says: “I hate to be thought of as men’s property,” which I think is very daring for the time. There is a paradox in Hardy. People always say to me: with Bathsheba Everdene, he created such a strong-willed woman, so why was he so awful to his wives? He had two wives, Emma Lavinia Gifford and Florence Dugdale. It could be suggested that Hardy behaved with misogynistic tendencies towards Emma. Writers’ private lives can be very different to their fiction, you know. I think it’s a dangerous game to read life in terms of the writing and vice versa. Sometimes you can extrapolate some interesting nuances, but it can be reductive. Yes, the book is very cinematic, isn’t it? It’s lent itself beautifully to different versions. There’s the 1960s version with Julie Christie and Terence Stamp, which is a great one. And then we have the 2015 Carey Mulligan version. They are two very different films. Far from the Madding Crowd shows us all the different forms of love. With Gabriel Oak, we have that sense of solidity, of constant love. Then we have Boldwood, who has an obsessive love for Bathsheba. Then, of course, we have the dashing Sergeant Troy, a military man who wants Bathsheba for her money, but who is redeemed through his love for Fanny Robin. So there’s a whole love triangle going on, isn’t there? And through all these different men, Hardy is showing us the challenges and caveats of relationships—how people can be drawn into relationships without knowing what the other person is like behind closed doors. I think you’re right. They are thinking: What do I get out of these relationships? Sadly, for some of the characters, it’s very little. But I suppose, from any relationship, you learn something, don’t you? Even if it is only how not to love, or how not to form a relationship. And in Far from the Madding Crowd , the characters navigate the different forms of love."
The Best Thomas Hardy Books · fivebooks.com
"which was the first Hardy novel I read"
By the Book: Abdulrazak Gurnah Theft · nytimes.com
"I also read Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd." What a guy, that Gabriel Oak. Not only was he good-hearted and wise, he was also a man who could get things done."
By the Book: Jill Mccorkle · nytimes.com
"Hardy is a very cinematic writer and there's nothing the filmmakers did that he didn't think of first."
By the Book: Lorrie Moore · nytimes.com