Far From the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy

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"Thomas Hardy"

I have to admit, this is my second attempt at this book. The extensive vocabulary from a by-gone time and culture and Thomas Hardy's intense grammatical structure made this a challenge for bed-time reading. However, I did appreciate this well-written and witty classic. Though unfamiliar with the society of British rural, agricultural life, I resonate with the author's effort, as expressed in his original Preface, to preserve a portrait of the disappearing close-knit, rural community.

Hardy's observation and communication of thought processes and behaviour that are strictly male and female are insightful and charming. The book closes with a beautiful picture of what a love within a marriage is capable of yet so seldom achieved.

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"He accompanied her up the hill...They spoke very little of their mutual feelings; pretty phrases and warm expressions being probably unnecessary between such tried friends. Theirs was that substantial affection which arises (if any arises at all) when the two who are thrown together begin first by knowing the rougher sides of each other's character, and not the best till further on, the romance growing up in the interstices of a mass of hard prosaic reality. This good-fellowship -- camaraderie -- usually occurring through similarity of pursuits, is unfortunately seldom super-added to love between the sexes, because men and women associate, not in their labours, but in their pleasures merely. Where, however, happy circumstance permits its development, the compounded feeling proves itself to be the only love which is strong as death--that love which many waters cannot quench, nor the floods drown, beside which the passion usually called by the name is evanescent as steam."

A classic tale of love lost and gained and a convicting message of remaining steady and true as an Oak.
 

See also Wikipedia: Far from the Madding Crowd

Far from the Madding Crowd, Amazon

Far from the Madding Crowd, Kindle Edition, 2008