The Mayor of Casterbridge

I don't know why it has taken me so long to decide to read this book, it is very easy to read and a very good story. I saw the TV mini-series years ago with Alan Bates in the leading role and all the way through the book I imagined Alan Bates as Michael Henchard. It was Alan Bates speaking Michael's lines. That did not put me off in the least since I was always a fan of Alan Bates and he was very well cast in the part. The story, as most people probably know, starts off about a drunkard who sells his wife and daughter at a country fair to a sailor for five guineas. He then, when sobered up, becomes full of remorse and vows in the nearest church never to touch a drop of alcohol for as long as he has been alive, (21yrs). He keeps his promise, works hard and makes good in the town of Casterbridge, becoming a very rich merchant, land owner and mayor. Of course as time goes by his past catches up with him and a large part of the story is about his subsequent downfall. We see this so often in politics today, how many mayors do we know or have heard of, who have ended up in jail? The difference, refreshingly, is that Michael Henchard in that day and age is truly wretched for his misdeeds, and one can't help but feel sympathy for him in the end. His last will and testimony says everything:- Michael Henchard's Will. That Elizabeth Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me. & that I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. & that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. & that nobody is wished to see my dead body. & that no murners walk behind me at my funeral. & that no flours be planted on my grave. & that no man remember me. To this I put my name Michael Henchard. This is a good book to take on vacation with you. It is not depressing, (although his Will sounds depressing). Michael Henchard is a spirited unusual character that Thomas Hardy develops to the full. Even though he has done bad things one cheers him on at times and feels that he more than pays his dues for his transgressions. A very good story.

Having just finished reading Thomas Hardy's Tess of the de'Ubervilles I just had to read another of his books. I found this one and enjoyed it just as much if not more so. I'm sort of on a run of reading classic books. Once you get used to the period of time and the style of writing ~ in old english, of sorts ~ one needs to continue this type. You get so much more out of a book that way. While this book may have been written in the 1800's I must say that the events taking place, the people and their responses doesn't seem to have changed one iota to the way society behaves today. This is a charming story of rags to riches to rags again. A story of humility, starting over, of pride, of desolation and back to humility again. It does have a bit of subtle romance, which keeps the story flowing. Both of the Thomas Hardy's books (Tess of the de'Ubervilles) and this one are wonderful stories and well worth reading. Interestingly it wasn't after I finished reading them that I discovered that these books were considered Young Adult reading. I guess someone rated it this way because it's a pure, non-smuttly book so ubiquitious of today's media. I don't care about the rating I just appreciated Thomas Hardy's contribution of literature.

I am reviewing the Trillium Classics version on Kindle. The Trillium Classics people succeeded perfectly at formatting this classic novel for Kindle, so 5 stars for that. Now my review of the novel itself - We expect good novels to begin - within the first few hundred words or so - with an indication that the author (a) understands people, or (b) understands interesting things about how the world works, or (c) is supremely talented with describing a world she does not understand which is full of people whom she does not understand, but nevertheless = she remembers, if only barely, that she is being paid to describe a world that supplies our poor author with sufficient material to fuel the weird sad talent God gave her. Hardy is a good poet, but does he understand people? This novel does a good job, in the background, explaining abnormal people with little love in their hearts. to whom Hardy constantly condescends in his descriptions - you would have to go to some of Shakespeare's creepiest contemporaries to find a story with more nastiness in it - and in the foreground, most of the main characters are the usual mix of selfishness and lust and greed that Hardy apparently rejoiced in describing, with two or three characters being described by him as being, sometimes or most of the time, above all that. People go on and on about how good Shakespeare was but the poor man spent much of his professional life describing, with a lack of philosophical vigor, the villainous instincts of losers, which is a shame, can you imagine how much better Shakespeare would have been if he were less like Hardy? Well this novel is a classic novel, full of wonderfully apt descriptions of things we know (psychological attributes of our fellow humans, with, to a certain degree, accurate and interesting descriptions of trees and fields and rivers - but just to a certain degree, although Hardy was a poet, he was not really someone who loved Creation, and it shows....), and not badly put together with respect to plot and with respect to Hardy's general ideas of how to characterize people. So five stars for that.

This book was very enjoyable. It is written in old English and found at first very difficult to read, but found it so interesting. I learnt about the book from Jeopardy. The question about a man who auctioned off his wife. And of course the answer was The Mayor Of Casterbridge. I went searching for the book and found it so interesting to the point where I didn't want to put it down.

I read this book in high school and 50 years later read it again. To my surprise I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Hardy trained as an architect and he can't have any character in the story get near a building without going into all the architectural details. Likewise, he has a 19th century infatuation with the details of how machinery works. Neither of these kinds of descriptions moved the story along nor offered much necessary detail about Casterbridge. But 19th century readers of the story, because it was published in a magazine, might have loved all that detail. But it struck me as padding and there was too much melodrama and waaaaay too many coincidences in the plot. Dickens has 19th century melodrama and coincidences but not so many and Dickens does it better. Finally, I was left wondering why schools assign stories like this to kids who are nowhere near old enough to appreciate them.

Thomas Hardy is a gloomy writer, he likes to end his books by killing off the main characters. In this story he follows the life of a man who good and bad choices in life. You frist meet him as a young married man with a drinking problem. This results in him losing his wife and set him on a path of soberity. Do it yourself AA. When then rejoin his life 20 some years later and watch him self destruct and his wife and daughter reenter his life and he doesn't know how to react. He resumes drinking, Loses his lover, get into a love hate relationship with his presumed daughter. and finally dies of a broken heart as he realizes everything he's lost because of his impulsive behavior. Interesting read.

Almost all of chapter 20 or 21 I can't remember for sure which one, is missing from the Kindel edition. I don't know how to report this. I downloaded another copy from my "free books" app to pick up what was missing. The story grabs you from the beginning as a poor farmer, traveling on a country road with his wife and baby girl, stops at a fair and drinks himself into a drunken fit of insanity and sells his wife and child to a sailor for $5. The multi-layered consequences of this action create a very intriguing story. This man Henchard may be the most narcissistic, jealous character in all literature. His desire to control the people in his life caused immense needless suffering, but much of it was to himself. The desire to control was the first great sin of Satan in the pre-existence, and I am not sure it is not the worst one of our mortal sojourn. Henchard was sympathetic at times, because he saw what he was doing and sometimes tried to repent but didn't ever really learn from the chaos he perpetually created. He wanted to be forgiven and loved again after his change of heart and frankly, I thought he was given another chance too many times. He seemed to make the same mistakes over and over. Because I grew up with an alcoholic father I understood this trait in someone with a drinking problem. I wondered if Hardy understood it also. Henchard frightened me and so does Hardy's writing. I like happyish endings and I feared the worst in some of Henchfords actions. The story has many interesting turns that kept me constantly captivated and I felt at peace with the ending.

Agricultural life in Old England beautifully described with the very stubborn and sadly decisive, usually with the mistaken selfishness of his nature , Mayor of Casterbridge as the ‘hero’ of the story.