The Beauty of Knowing (9): Thomas Hardy’s Bathsheba Everdene and a Timeless Classic
Ever got sick of all the buzz that is going on around you? People wearing a grimace all the time, vehicles wizzing to and fro, buildings growing all the time, factories inccessantly crying out, yet people always getting attracted to a loci: all these point to our so-called priced cosmopolitans and metroplitans and if anyone wants to get ‘FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD’, all you have to do is pick a Thomas Hardy.
Well, Thomas Hardy, in a nut shell, is a painter with a pen in hand. A few years ago when I started reading novels I read his ‘Under The Greenwood Tree’. It was a typical love story with a light tranquil theme and it was easy to follow as it was written during his formative years as a writer. But even then it was like reading poetry, only, all lines were in prose format and plain English. From then I have read three more of his works at various times: ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’, ‘Return of The Native’ and ‘Tess D’urbervilles’ It also is wonderful that almost overlaping with this I have read four of Charles Dickens’. Thing is, they beautifully complement each other. If the former concentrates on characterization, female centric themes, rural life, deeper psychic and so on, the latter excels in story telling, male centric themes, city life, social interactions and so on.
But this book, ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’, is what, in my opinion, tipps the scale in favour of Thomas Hardy. What a novel! In fact, of all the novels that I have read, the only other novels that I feel are as enjoyable as this one are Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, J.K. Rowling’s ‘Harry Potter’ and Jane Austin’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’. I think this is what makes the novel an ultimate classic, for, like Michelangelo, a sculptor trancending himself painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, even so has Thomas Hardy, a character painter, also done some serious story telling that might even rival the mighty story teller Charles Dickens himself.
Coming to his forte, this story has four awesome characters that are so widely apart from each other in the behaviour spectrum, and yet who seem to be more than one dimensional in all aspects. I have come across some female characters that stand out: Maggie Tulliver (The Mill On The Floss), Tess (Tess D’urbervilles), Milady (The Three Musketers), Emma (Emma), Elizebeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice), Natasha (War and Peace), Eustacia Vye (Return of The Native), Bella Swan (Twilight), Dounia (Crime and Punishment), Ellen Olenska (The Age of Innocence), Jane Eyre (Jane Eyre), Hermione Granger (Harry Potter), Isabel Archer and Madam Merle (The Potrait of a Lady), Hester Prynne (The Scarlet Letter) and Pegotty (David Copperfield); yet, Bathsheba Everdene from this novel seems to be the most elegently sketched. But Hardy does not stop at that. There are only two other guys, Aragon (Lord of the Rings) and Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mocking Bird) seem to be as sensible as a guy in this novel.
About the story, it goes everywhere. There are a lot of light moments and dark moments. But on the whole it is a romantic story, more or less not meandering too sharply. Hardy has gone one step beyond triangular love story, making this something like a quadrangular, so to say. At moments Passion overwhelms reason and then the vice versa happens. One moment a character talks sensibly and in the other he does something that contradicts himself. But, whether you see all this or not, if you want to get far from the madding crowd around you, this is the book! Definitely you will see how beautiful a shepherd’s rural life is!
Hope you people get to know this beautiful work and enjoy it as much as I.
