Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

 

Title:  Far From the Madding Crowd

Author:  Thomas Hardy

Narrated by:  Jamie Parker

Publisher: Naxos AudioBooks

Length: Approximately 17 hours and 28 minutes

Source: Checked out with Hoopla through the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you.

If you could live in any book world, which would it be?

Gabriel Oak is a successful tenant farmer that raises sheep.  He falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Bathsheba Everdeen, that has come to the area to visit.  He has proposed, but she refused him and left that area.  After a devastating accident, Gabriel loses his sheep and tenant farm.  He travels looking for work as a shepherd and gets a job at a farm in a different county.  He soon learns that the farm is owned by none other than Bathsheba Everdeen.  Bathsheba has inherited the farm and is learning how to run everything herself.  She also finds time for romance with two other men with faithful Gabriel looking on.  Will Bathsheba find her soulmate?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       Far From the Madding Crowd was the June read for the Back to the Classics Book Club.  We had a good discussion and enjoyed the story . . . even if Hardy tended to get long winded in his descriptions.

·       Gabriel Oak had a tragedy early on with his 200 ewes when his young dog drove them over a cliff killing them all.  This caught my mind and my imagination.  There was insurance at the time for this type of catastrophe, but Gabriel had not purchased it.  This caused his to lose everything.

·       I liked how Hardy chose the names of his characters.  Gabriel Oak is a good man with a strong character.  Bathsheba Everdeen is fickle with her feelings and dealings with men.  She is young and doesn’t understand the consequences of how she treats others.  She grows up a lot in the novel.

·       I liked that Bathsheba was a woman with her own mind.  She was trying to run her farm herself and to learn how to do it on her own.  She was impetuous though and headstrong which caused her to make poor decisions at times.  She was a complicated character.

·       I liked the parallel story of a young servant girl who runs away with her suitor, but through an honest mistake, becomes a single pregnant woman.  Life was cruel to unwed mothers with no means to make a living.  She had to pay for her mistake.

·       The novel was beautifully written, and I enjoyed the descriptions and storyline.

·       Jamie Parker was a great audiobook narrator.  He had a lot of different voices for different characters and acted out the parts.

Overall, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy was a beautifully written novel with great characters and an intriguing storyline.  It’s a good book to discuss as a book club selection.  It really made me want to visit Wessex!