The Mayor of Casterbridge - any Hardy fans out there?

[ipanemagirl]

What can I say? Am adoring this book so much. I haven't read it for years and had forgotten how beautifully Hardy writes, am i a swoon with it and don't want to do anything but read it til the probably tragic end.
Can't even remember the end! No spoilers though please!

Oooh Return. Bloody great too

IF, I think you mean the Return of the Native, don't you? Maybe not.. long time since i read it.

Return of the Native! That's it isn't it? The one which starts with the woman on the moor?

DG, snap!

eustacia was a great character.

I think so.

Return of the Native is one of my favourite books! I also like Tess, and Madding Crowd but not the others.

Moondog - I also made that mistake re Rimbaud/Rambo many years ago!

lol Mercy

IF, "dun because we are too menny", wasn't it?

The pathos of the misspelling is almost going too far, but not quite

Has anyone read Hardy's short stories? I am sure he wrote a cracking ghost story, I forget the details of it though.

and some very middling poetry

Franny, I remember it was written in a 'childish' hand but didn't want to risk trying to transcribe it here where I've already been 'told off'

my mother (hardy maniac - has been to all the locations of the books that are known of etc) has always said "his descriptions of nature are extraordinary etc etc" I used to think "yeah yeah yeah yawn" when she said that but NOW - I must be getting old, because his descriptions of the landscape etc are a total pleasure!
I did 'Under The Greenwood Tree' for O level Eng lit and can only remember lots of dialect and a couple playing with each other's fingers under water in an erotic moment.

i love Hardy - my all time favourite

Jude and under the greenwood tree - fabuous

me too

I seem to recall doing The Trumpet Major for O Level and not liking it much...but the Mayor of Casterbridge, inspirationally taught at A Level, did it for me - that and the wonderful film of Far From the Madding Crowd with Julie Christie as Bathsheba Everdene...wonderful adaptation and acting.
I had really scuzzy cheap Macmillan paperbacks of loads of Hardy novels in my late teens and they have crumbled away I really should get some newer editions and rediscover Hardy. I haven't read any in years.

My favourite quote:

"Somebody might have come along that way who would have asked him his trouble, and might have cheered him by saying that his notions were further advanced than those of his grammarian. But nobody did come, because nobody does; and under the crushing recognition of his gigantic error Jude continued to wish himself out of the world."

OH THE MISERY

Return of the Native - that is a wonderful novel

Beety have you got that Saydisc recording of I think the Mellstock Band doing songs and dances from Hardy's novels - it really is wonderful.

'the scene of a day dream is sufficient for a pilgramge at 19'

marina no - I would like that

Steven Fry reckons hei poetry is wonerful

Well there certainly is a lot of it.
Didn't he write
"Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me"?
I will find the proper details of the CD and post them. It's pretty batty, like a lot of Saydisc stuff, but really cheering too

Marina yes that one is marvellous

a lot of it pretty so so IMO though

I think I was hugely surprised by it Franny - atypical and all that. I think I also remember my English teacher spitting tacks and saying that the problem with Hardy was that his success encouraged the Georgians and gave English poetry the dead hands of Masefield, Drinkwater etc