Far from the Madding Crowd

"So good. "

"Bathsheba, we need to talk. So you’ve inherited your uncle’s farm, meaning you have to prove yourself to a village full of patriarchal twerps who can’t believe a woman can successfully run a business. I get that you need to blow off some steam occasionally . But girl, can we admit you’ve made some seriously bad decisions? Sending an anonymous Valentine to stick-up-his-butt Mr Boltwood, driving him to a mad obsession with you? Getting entangled (literally at one point) with flashy sword twirler Sergeant Troy, who has “Bad News” written on him with a giant highlighter? All while taking for granted strong, silent, and utterly bodacious Gabriel Oak, the long suffering sheep whisperer who adores you from afar? What the hell were you thinking?! Do you realize you’re likely to be novelized as a cautionary tale for uppity women by a 19th century male romantic/realist author who seems to feel you need to be taken down a peg?"

"This book was quite the doozy! It's been awhile since I've read 19th century literature and I had forgotten how patiently the authors set up the setting and introduce all of the characters. The first 51% of the book was boring, with an abundance of long flowery scenes of pastoral bliss. Around the half-way point, the book really took off plot-wise and was gripping to the very end. Hardy's characters are shockingly well-developed and interesting. <br/><br/>From today's perspective and cultural lens, there are some moments that are ridiculously misogynistic and the narrator, who I assume to be Hardy, keeps throwing out these sexist generalities about "women" that are pretty eye-rolling. (At one point our heroine proclaims that is is better for a wife to be a victim of domestic violence - insulted, beaten, starved - rather than face the shame of running away! "There is one position worse than that of being found dead in your husband's house from his ill usage, and this is, to be found alive through having gone away to the house of somebody else"). Truth of the matter is, though, Bathsheba lives in a paternalistic sexist society and does the best she can to survive and thrive in it. Hardy also shows how damaging that worldview is to both the female and male characters. Bathsheba has to constantly live in a place where men take one look at her, declare themselves to be madly in love, claim her for marriage, and then berate her when she says she needs time to think! Two of her three suitors both view her as primarily an object that they want to win, albeit in different ways (one through money and the other through charm). She is also coerced into acquiescing by the two potential rival suitors, also in different ways. One basically terrorizes her with a sword (in one of the more disturbing scenes of sex and violence I have read in awhile) and the other makes her think he will go insane if she refuses him. Romantic, huh?<br/><br/>Overall, I think I can mark myself a Hardy fan. I read [b:Tess of the d'Urbervilles|32261|Tess of the d'Urbervilles|Thomas Hardy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1358921541s/32261.jpg|3331021] in high school and still vividly remember some of the scenes. This book similarly looks at gender and class politics with well-developed characters and settings that stick out in your mind. This book took on a pretty morbid Gothic twist reminiscent to me of [b:Wuthering Heights|6185|Wuthering Heights|Emily Brontë|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388212715s/6185.jpg|1565818] and I ended up talking about this book with my mother while reading it, sending her updates. Also the parallels with the Biblical heroine of Bathsheba are obvious and striking and interesting to discuss."

"He's named perfectly, too: Gabriel Oak. He is solid, reliable, sheltering."

"Many talk about Mr. Darcy but give me the heart and steadfastness of Mr. any day. His love is true and unbending. He accepts Bathsheba as she is and who she becomes. He calls her out when she makes mistakes but is there when she needs him. "

"The only emotions that this book evoked for me were boredom and annoyance. The boredom stemmed largely from its predictable plotline and its verbose narrative style (and its utter failure to engage me intellectually, which may have made this verbosity pardonable). The annoyance stemmed from Hardy's method of creating the protagonist, Bathsheba. He repeatedly describes Bathsheba as being self-willed, confident, independent, and poised; but he only tells us this about her, while her actions demonstrate a considerable lack of these characteristics. He has a habit of writing in sweeping generalizations about the nature of "women," often describing such nature in its supposed relation to Bathsheba. Each time he tells us of her supposed independence, he does so with the implicit, and often explicit, assumption that what he is saying about her sets her apart from that which defines women in general, yet his negative stereotypes about women later manifest themselves in the actions which he gives to Bathsheba."