I love the way Thomas Hardy writes, so lush and evocative. This book is about a young woman with a very great sense of herself and loses it in a fit of emotion, and the man who loves her steadfastly and honestly with no strings attached. Wonderful book. I could read Hardy all day long. ( )

In "Far from the Madding Crowd" we have Thomas Hardy's 1874 breakthrough publication. This was my introduction to Hardy, and I expected certain aspects of his work, and didn't expect others. For one, I didn't expect the humor that I encountered in early character descriptions, but I was not surprised by the power and depth of the story. Hardy's reputation had preceded him to that extent.

"Far from the Madding Crowd" recounts the tribulations of the young and beautiful - and tragically vain - Bathsheba Everdene, and the three men who love her. Or the two men who loved her, and the rake who married her, or perhaps most accurately, the rake who married her, the inexperienced man who loved her to distraction, and the one faithful stalwart who stood by her through all. For Bathsheba is the most beautiful of women, and men become entranced with her and offer marriage pretty regularly here. The force of the story flows from Bathsheba's initial vanity, her tragic and ill-advised coquetry and first marriage, and how her self-absorption leads to mental breakdown and manslaughter. Hardy presents the plot in a straightforward way, and handles Bathsheba's evolution very skilfully and realistically. The chief characters are fully-realized, memorable creatures. Oak, her constant and ultimate protector, middle-aged Boldwood, driven to distraction by latecoming first love, and the reprobate Sergeant Troy, the tragic first husband, all ring truly; we believe them and understand their motivations. I found the rabble of farm workers to bear no such distinction.

I'm going to reserve judgment on whether this is where to start with Hardy. Plot-wise and resolution-wise, I was gratified by how this book ends. There is a tragic force in this narrative, and I understand it's something Hardy produced regularly. This book ends on a hopeful, life-affirming note, which by reputation, Hardy does not always employ. I'm glad I completed the exercise, but a little sorry that's what it felt like. ( )

The tragic tale of Bathsheba Everdeen and her three suitors. An interesting plot and characters. Great to listen to as an audio book. ( )

This book really didn’t do much for me. I adored the lovely, flowing style of writing Hardy had, the writing it self was almost poetic as the told his story, but the story it self just fell short for me. I didn’t care much for any of the characters, they bored me and I wasn’t ever interested in them at all. Most didn’t have anything catching or striking about them, just a group of people, going on with there day to day lives. The story is about the men who fall in love with a farmer woman, but even the love story it self wasn’t as I thought; it almost lacked emotion and feelings you’d expect. I also found a lot of the story to be predictable and redundant. There are only so many times you can see the same guy beg for a woman’s love and for her to turn him down. It gets boring very quickly, and you want the story to move on and progress faster than it did. Although I guess the slowness of the story can reflect the slowness of the time period, life on the farm and the close-nit community people of the time lived in. And Hardy does an excellent job at that, he is able to portray that, it just had a week cast of characters, that didn’t do much for the story, and in fact probably hindered it.

There isn’t much else I can say, I’m not turned of Hardy yet, I’m going to try and read some of his other work, because his writing style is just beautiful, but this story just wasn’t me. ( )

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I wasn't hugely grabbed by Tess of the d'Urbervilles, but I quite liked this, Hardy's first Wessex novel: a decent enough romantic plot, with some very good descriptive passages relating to the countryside. It seemed a much quicker and more enjoyable read than Tess, possibly because Hardy is not trying to be too Deep and Meaningful. ( )