Far from the Madding Crowd

By Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy’s classic tale of a woman brave enough to defy convention: Now a major motion picture starring Carey Mulligan

Spirited, impulsive, and beautiful, Bathsheba Everdene arrives in Wessex to live with her aunt. She strikes up a friendship with a neighbor, Gabriel Oak, and even saves the young shepherd’s life. But when he responds by asking for her hand in marriage, she refuses. She cannot sacrifice her independence for a man she does not love.

Years later, misfortune has bankrupted Gabriel, while Bathsheba has inherited her uncle’s estate and is now a wealthy woman. She hires Gabriel as a shepherd but is interested in William Boldwood, a prosperous farmer whose reticence inspires her to playfully send him a valentine. William, like Gabriel before him, quickly falls in love with Bathsheba and proposes. But it is the dashing Sergeant Francis Troy who finally wins her heart. Despite the warnings of her first two suitors, Bathsheba accepts his proposal—a decision that brings long-buried secrets to the fore and leaves everything for which she has fought so hard hanging in the balance.

Published a century and a half ago, Far from the Madding Crowd was Thomas Hardy’s first major success and introduced the themes he would continue to explore for the rest of his life. A love story wrapped in the cloak of tragedy, it is widely considered to be one of the finest novels of the nineteenth century.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Release date: May 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480493599

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was an English poet and author who grew up in the British countryside, a setting that was prominent in much of his work as the fictional region named Wessex. Abandoning hopes of an academic future, he began to compose poetry as a young man. After failed attempts of publication, he successfully turned to prose. His major works include Far from the Madding Crowd(1874), Tess of the D’Urbervilles(1891) and Jude the Obscure( 1895), after which he returned to exclusively writing poetry.

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CHAPTER I

DESCRIPTION OF FARMER OAK—AN INCIDENT

WHEN FARMER OAK SMILED, the corners of his mouth spread till they were within an unimportant distance of his ears, his eyes were reduced to chinks, and diverging wrinkles appeared round them, extending upon his countenance like the rays in a rudimentary sketch of the rising sun.

His Christian name was Gabriel, and on working days he was a young man of sound judgment, easy motions, proper dress, and general good character. On Sundays he was a man of misty views, rather given to postponing, and hampered by his best clothes and umbrella: upon the whole, one who felt himself to occupy morally that vast middle space of Laodicean neutrality which lay between the Communion people of the parish and the drunken section—that is, he went to church, but yawned privately by the time the congregation reached the Nicene creed, and thought of what there would be for dinner when he meant to be listening to the sermon. Or, to state his character as it stood in the scale of public opinion, when his friends and critics were in tantrums, he was considered rather a bad man; when they were pleased, he was rather a good man; when they were neither, he was a man whose moral colour was a kind of pepper-and-salt mixture.

Since he lived six times as many working days as Sundays, Oak’s appearance in his old clothes was most peculiarly his own—the mental picture formed by his neighbours in imagining him being always dressed in that way. He wore a low-crowned felt hat, spread out at the base by tight jamming upon the head for security in high winds, and a coat like Dr. Johnson’s; his lower extremities being encased in ordinary leather leggings and boots emphatically large, affording to each foot a roomy apartment so constructed that any wearer might stand in a river all day long and know nothing of damp—their maker being a conscientious man who endeavoured to compensate for any weakness in his cut by unstinted dimension and solidity.

Mr. Oak carried about him, by way of watch, what may be called a small silver clock; in other words, it was a watch as to shape and intention, and a small clock as to size. This instrument being several years older than Oak’s grandfather, had the peculiarity of going either too fast or not at all. The smaller of its hands, too, occasionally slipped round on the pivot, and thus, though the minutes were told with precision, nobody could be quite certain of the hour they belonged to. The stopping peculiarity of his watch Oak remedied by thumps and shakes, and he escaped any evil consequences from the other two defects by constant comparisons with and observations of the sun and stars, and by pressing his face close to the glass of his neighbours’ windows, till he could discern the hour marked by the green-faced timekeepers within. It may be mentioned that Oak’s fob being difficult of access, by reason of its somewhat high situation in the waistband of his trousers (which also lay at a remote height under his waistcoat), the watch was as a necessity pulled out by throwing the body to one side, compressing the mouth and face to a mere mass of ruddy flesh on account of the exertion required, and drawing up the watch by its chain, like a bucket from a well.

But some thoughtful persons, who had seen him walking across one of his fields on a certain December morning—sunny and exceedingly mild—might have regarded Gabriel Oak in other aspects than these. In his face one might notice that many of the hues and curves of youth had tarried on to manhood: there even remained in his remoter crannies some relics of the boy. His height and breadth would have been sufficient to make his presence imposing, had they been exhibited with due consideration. But there is a way some men have, rural and urban alike, for which the mind is more responsible than flesh and sinew: it is a way of curtailing their dimensions by their manner of showing them. And from a quiet modesty that would have become a vestal, which seemed continually to impress upon him that he had no great claim on the world’s room, Oak walked unassumingly and with a faintly perceptible bend, yet distinct from a bowing of the shoulders. This may be said to be a defect in an individual if he depends for his valuation more upon his appearance than upon his capacity to wear well, which Oak did not.

He had just reached the time of life at which young is ceasing to be the prefix of man in speaking of one. He was at the brightest period of masculine growth, for his intellect and his emotions were clearly separated: he had passed the time during which the influence of youth indiscriminately mingles them in the character of impulse, and he had not yet arrived at the stage wherein they become united again, in the character of prejudice, by the influence of a wife and family. In short, he was twenty-eight, and a bachelor.

The field he was in this morning sloped to a ridge called Norcombe Hill. Through a spur of this hill ran the highway between Emminster and Chalk-Newton. Casually glancing over the hedge, Oak saw coming down the incline before him an ornamental spring waggon, painted yellow and gaily marked, drawn by two horses, a waggoner walking alongside bearing a whip perpendicularly. The waggon was laden with household goods and window plants, and on the apex of the whole sat a woman, young and attractive. Gabriel had not beheld the sight for more than half a minute, when the vehicle was brought to a standstill just beneath his eyes.

The tailboard of the waggon is gone, miss, said the waggoner.

Then I heard it fall, said the girl, in a soft, though not particularly low voice. I heard a noise I could not account for when we were coming up the hill.

I’ll run back.

Do, she answered.

The sensible horses stood—perfectly still, and the waggoner’s steps sank fainter and fainter in the distance.

The girl on the summit of the load sat motionless, surrounded by tables and chairs with their legs upwards, backed by an oak settle, and ornamented in front by pots of geraniums, myrtles, and cactuses, together with a caged canary—all probably from the windows of the house just vacated. There was also a cat in a willow basket, from the partly-opened lid of which she gazed with half-closed eyes, and affectionately surveyed the small birds around.

The handsome girl waited for some time idly in her place, and the only sound heard in the stillness was the hopping of the canary up and down the perches of its prison. Then she looked attentively downwards. It was not at the bird, nor at the cat; it was at an oblong package tied in paper, and lying between them. She turned her head to learn if the waggoner were coming. He was not yet in sight; and her eyes crept back to the package, her thoughts seeming to run upon what was inside it. At length she drew the article into her lap, and untied the paper covering; a small swing looking glass was disclosed, in which she proceeded to survey herself attentively. She parted her lips and smiled.

It was a fine morning, and the sun lighted up to a scarlet glow the crimson jacket she wore, and painted a soft lustre upon her bright face and dark hair. The myrtles, geraniums, and cactuses packed around her were fresh and green, and at such a leafless season they invested the whole concern of horses, waggon, furniture, and girl with a peculiar vernal charm. What possessed her to indulge in such a performance in the sight of the sparrows, blackbirds, and unperceived farmer who were alone its spectators—whether the smile began as a factitious one, to test her capacity in that art—nobody knows; it ended certainly in a real smile. She blushed at herself, and seeing her reflection blush, blushed the more.

The change from the customary spot and necessary occasion of such an act—from the dressing hour in a bedroom to a time of travelling out of doors—lent to the idle deed a novelty it did not intrinsically possess. The picture was a delicate one. Woman’s prescriptive infirmity had stalked into the sunlight, which had clothed it in the freshness of an originality. A cynical inference was irresistible by Gabriel Oak as he regarded the scene, generous though he fain would have been. There was no necessity whatever for her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that any such intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She simply observed herself as a fair product of nature in the feminine kind, her thoughts seeming to glide into far-off though likely dramas in which men would play a part—vistas of probable triumphs—the smiles being of a phase suggesting that hearts were imagined as lost and won. Still, this was but conjecture, and the whole series of actions was so idly put forth as to make it rash to assert that intention had any part in them at all.

The waggoner’s steps were heard returning. She put the glass in the paper, and the whole again into its place.

When the waggon had passed on, Gabriel withdrew from his point of espial, and descending into the road, followed the vehicle to the turnpike gate some way beyond the bottom of the hill, where the object of his contemplation now halted for the payment of toll. About twenty steps still remained between him and the gate, when he heard a dispute. It was a difference concerning twopence between the persons with the waggon and the man at the toll bar.

Mis’ess’s niece is upon the top of the things, and she says that’s enough that I’ve offered ye, you great miser, and she won’t pay any more. These were the waggoner’s words.

Very well; then mis’ess’s niece can’t pass, said the turnpike keeper, closing the gate.

Oak looked from one to the other of the disputants, and fell into a reverie. There was something in the tone of twopence remarkably insignificant. Threepence had a definite value as money—it was an appreciable infringement on a day’s wages, and, as such, a higgling matter; but twopence—Here, he said, stepping forward and handing twopence to the gatekeeper; let the young woman pass. He looked up at her then; she heard his words, and looked down.

Gabriel’s features adhered throughout their form so exactly to the middle line between the beauty of St. John and the ugliness of Judas Iscariot, as represented in a window of the church he attended, that not a single lineament could be selected and called worthy either of distinction or notoriety. The red-jacketed and dark-haired maiden seemed to think so too, for she carelessly glanced over him, and told her man to drive on. She might have looked her thanks to Gabriel on a minute scale, but she did not speak them; more probably she felt none, for in gaining her a passage he had lost her her point, and we know how women take a favour of that kind.

The gatekeeper surveyed the retreating vehicle. That’s a handsome maid, he said to Oak.

But she has her faults, said Gabriel.

True, farmer.

And the greatest of them is—well, what it is always.

Beating people down? Ay, ’tis so.

O no.

What, then?

Gabriel, perhaps a little piqued by the comely traveller’s indifference, glanced back to where he had witnessed her performance over the hedge, and said, Vanity.

CHAPTER II

NIGHT—THE FLOCK—AN INTERIOR—ANOTHER INTERIOR

IT WAS NEARLY MIDNIGHT on the eve of St. Thomas’s, the shortest day in the year. A desolating wind wandered from the north over the hill whereon Oak had watched the yellow waggon and its occupant in the sunshine of a few days earlier.

Norcombe Hill—not far from lonely Toller-Down—was one of the spots which suggest to a passer by that he is in the presence of a shape approaching the indestructible as nearly as any to be found on earth. It was a featureless convexity of chalk and soil—an ordinary specimen of those smoothly-outlined protuberances of the globe which may remain undisturbed on some great day of confusion, when far grander heights and dizzy granite precipices topple down.

The hill was covered on its northern side by an ancient and decaying plantation of beeches, whose upper verge formed a line over the crest, fringing its arched curve against the sky, like a mane. Tonight these trees sheltered the southern slope from the keenest blasts, which smote the wood and floundered through it with a sound as of grumbling, or gushed over its crowning boughs in a weakened moan. The dry leaves in the ditch simmered and boiled in the same breezes, a tongue of air occasionally ferreting out a few, and sending them spinning across the grass. A group or two of the latest in date amongst the dead multitude had remained till this very mid-winter time on the twigs which bore them and in falling rattled against the trunks with smart taps.

Between this half-wooded half-naked hill, and the vague still horizon that its summit indistinctly commanded, was a mysterious sheet of fathomless shade—the sounds from which suggested that what it concealed bore some reduced resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more or less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes of differing powers, and almost of differing natures—one rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly, another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive act of humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then caught the note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the hurrying gust then plunged into the south, to be heard no more.

The sky was clear—remarkably clear—and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse. The North Star was directly in the wind’s eye, and since evening the Bear had swung round it outwardly to the east, till he was now at a right angle with the meridian. A difference of colour in the stars—oftener read of than seen in England—was really perceptible here. The sovereign brilliancy of Sirius pierced the eye with a steely glitter, the star called Capella was yellow, Aldebaran and Betelgueux shone with a fiery red.

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world eastward is almost a palpable movement. The sensation may be caused by the panoramic glide of the stars past earthly objects, which is perceptible in a few minutes of stillness, or by the better outlook upon space that a hill affords, or by the wind, or by the solitude; but whatever be its origin, the impression of riding along is vivid and abiding. The poetry of motion is a phrase much in use, and to enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilised mankind, who are dreamwrapt and disregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars. After such a nocturnal reconnoitre it is hard to get back to earth, and to believe that the consciousness of such majestic speeding is derived from a tiny human frame.

Suddenly an unexpected series of sounds began to be heard in this place up against the sky. They had a clearness which was to be found nowhere in the wind, and a sequence which was to be found nowhere in nature. They were the notes of Farmer Oak’s flute.

The tune was not floating unhindered into the open air: it seemed muffled in some way, and was altogether too curtailed in power to spread high or wide. It came from the direction of a small dark object under the plantation hedge—a shepherd’s hut—now presenting an outline to which an uninitiated person might have been puzzled to attach either meaning or use.

The image as a whole was that of a small Noah’s Ark on a small Ararat, allowing the traditionary outlines and general form of the Ark which are followed by toymakers—and by these means are established in men’s imaginations among their firmest, because earliest impressions—to pass as an approximate pattern. The hut stood on little wheels, which raised its floor about a foot from the ground. Such shepherds’ huts are dragged into the fields when the lambing season comes on, to shelter the shepherd in his enforced nightly attendance.

It was only latterly that people had begun to call Gabriel Farmer Oak. During the twelvemonth preceding this time he had been enabled by sustained efforts of industry and chronic good spirits to lease the small sheep farm of which Norcombe Hill was a portion, and stock it with two hundred sheep. Previously he had been a bailiff for a short time, and earlier still a shepherd only, having from his childhood assisted his father in tending the flocks of large proprietors, till old Gabriel sank to rest.

This venture, unaided and alone, into the paths of farming as master and not as man, with an advance of sheep not yet paid for, was a critical juncture with Gabriel Oak, and he recognised his position clearly. The first movement in his new progress was the lambing of his ewes, and sheep having been his speciality from his youth, he wisely refrained from deputing the task of tending them at this season to a hireling or a novice.

The wind continued to beat about the corners of the hut, but the flute playing ceased. A rectangular space of light appeared in the side of the hut, and in the opening the outline of Farmer Oak’s figure. He carried a lantern in his hand, and closing the door behind him, came forward and busied himself about this nook of the field for nearly twenty minutes, the lantern light appearing and disappearing here and there, and brightening him or darkening him as he stood before or behind it.

Oak’s motions, though they had a quiet energy, were slow, and their deliberateness accorded well with his occupation. Fitness being the basis of beauty, nobody could have denied that his steady swings and turns in and about the flock had elements of grace. Yet, although if occasion demanded he could do or think a thing with as mercurial a dash as can the men of towns who are more to the manner born, his special power, morally, physically, and mentally, was static, owing little or nothing to momentum as a rule.

A close examination of the ground hereabout, even by the wan starlight only, revealed how a portion of what would have been casually called a wild slope had been appropriated by Farmer Oak for his great purpose this winter. Detached hurdles thatched with straw were stuck into the ground at various scattered points, amid and under which the whitish forms of his meek ewes moved and rustled. The ring of the sheep bell, which had been silent during his absence, recommenced, in tones that had more mellowness than clearness, owing to an increasing growth of surrounding wool. This continued till Oak withdrew again from the flock. He returned to the hut, bringing in his arms a newborn lamb, consisting of four legs large enough for a full-grown sheep, united by a seemingly inconsiderable membrane about half the substance of the legs collectively, which constituted the animal’s entire body just at present.

The little speck of life he placed on a wisp of hay before the small stove, where a can of milk was simmering. Oak extinguished the lantern by blowing into it and then pinching the snuff, the cot being lighted by a candle suspended by a twisted wire. A rather hard couch, formed of a few corn sacks thrown carelessly down, covered half the floor of this little habitation, and here the young man stretched himself along, loosened his woollen cravat, and closed his eyes. In about the time a person unaccustomed to bodily labour would have decided upon which side to lie, Farmer Oak was asleep.

The inside of the hut, as it now presented itself, was cosy and alluring, and the scarlet handful of fire in addition to the candle, reflecting its own genial colour upon whatever it could reach, flung associations of enjoyment even over utensils and tools. In the corner stood the sheep crook, and along a shelf at one side were ranged bottles and canisters of the simple preparations pertaining to ovine surgery and physic; spirits of wine, turpentine, tar, magnesia, ginger, and castor oil being the chief. On a triangular shelf across the corner stood bread, bacon, cheese, and a cup for ale or cider, which was supplied from a flagon beneath. Beside the provisions lay the flute, whose notes had lately been called forth by the lonely watcher to beguile a tedious hour. The house was ventilated by two round holes, like the lights of a ship’s cabin, with wood slides.

The lamb, revived by the warmth began to bleat, and the sound entered Gabriel’s ears and brain with an instant meaning, as expected sounds will. Passing from the profoundest sleep to the most alert wakefulness with the same ease that had accompanied the reverse operation, he looked at his watch, found that the hour hand had shifted again, put on his hat, took the lamb in his arms, and carried it into the darkness. After placing the little creature with its mother, he stood and carefully examined the sky, to ascertain the time of night from the altitudes of the stars.

The Dog Star and Aldebaran, pointing to the restless Pleiades, were halfway up the Southern sky, and between them hung Orion, which gorgeous constellation never burnt more vividly than now, as it soared forth above the rim of the landscape. Castor and Pollux with their quiet shine were almost on the meridian: the barren and gloomy Square of Pegasus was creeping round to the northwest; far away through the plantation Vega sparkled like a lamp suspended amid the leafless trees, and Cassiopeia’s chair stood daintily poised on the uppermost boughs.

One o’clock, said Gabriel.

Being a man not without a frequent consciousness that there was some charm in this life he led, he stood still after looking at the sky as a useful instrument, and regarded it in an appreciative spirit, as a work of art superlatively beautiful. For a moment he seemed impressed with the speaking loneliness of the scene, or rather with the complete abstraction from all its compass of the sights and sounds of man. Human shapes, interferences, troubles, and joys were all as if they were not, and there seemed to be on the shaded hemisphere of the globe no sentient being save himself; he could fancy them all gone round to the sunny side.

Occupied thus, with eyes stretched afar, Oak gradually perceived that what he had previously taken to be a star low down behind the outskirts of the plantation was in reality no such thing. It was an artificial light, almost close at hand.

To find themselves utterly alone at night where company is desirable and expected makes some people fearful; but a case more trying by far to the nerves is to discover some mysterious companionship when intuition, sensation, memory, analogy, testimony, probability, induction—every kind of evidence in the logician’s list—have united to persuade consciousness that it is quite in isolation.

Farmer Oak went towards the plantation and pushed through its lower boughs to the windy side. A dim mass under the slope reminded him that a shed occupied a place here, the site being a cutting into the slope of the hill, so that at its back part the roof was almost level with the ground. In front it was formed of board nailed to posts and covered with tar as a preservative. Through crevices in the roof and side spread streaks and dots of light, a combination of which made the radiance that had attracted him. Oak stepped up behind, where, leaning down upon the roof and putting his eye close to a hole, he could see into the interior clearly.

The place contained two women and two cows. By the side of the latter a steaming bran mash stood in a bucket. One of the women was past middle age. Her companion was apparently young and graceful; he could form no decided opinion upon her looks, her position being almost beneath his eye, so that he saw her in a bird’s-eye view, as Milton’s Satan first saw Paradise. She wore no bonnet or hat, but had enveloped herself in a large cloak, which was carelessly flung over her head as a covering.

There, now we’ll go home, said the elder of the two, resting her knuckles upon her hips, and looking at their goings-on as a whole. I do hope Daisy will fetch round again now. I have never been more frightened in my life, but I don’t mind breaking my rest if she recovers.

The young woman, whose eyelids were apparently inclined to fall together on the smallest provocation of silence, yawned without parting her lips to any inconvenient extent, whereupon Gabriel caught the infection and slightly yawned in sympathy.

I wish we were rich enough to pay a man to do these things, she said.

As we are not, we must do them ourselves, said the other; for you must help me if you stay.

Well, my hat is gone, however, continued the younger. It went over the hedge, I think. The idea of such a slight wind catching it.

The cow standing erect was of the Devon breed, and was encased in a tight warm hide of rich Indian red, as absolutely uniform from eyes to tail as if the animal had been dipped in a dye of that colour, her long back being mathematically level. The other was spotted, grey and white. Beside her Oak now noticed a little calf about a day old, looking idiotically at the two women, which showed that it had not long been accustomed to the phenomenon of eyesight, and often turning to the lantern, which it apparently mistook for the moon, inherited instinct having as yet had little time for correction by experience. Between the sheep and the cows Lucina had been busy on Norcombe Hill lately.

I think we had better send for some oatmeal, said the elder woman. There’s no more bran.

Yes, aunt; and I’ll ride over for it as soon as it is light.

But there’s no side saddle.

I can ride on the other: trust me.

Oak, upon hearing these remarks, became more curious to observe her features, but this prospect being denied him by the hooding effect of the cloak, and by his aerial position, he felt himself drawing upon his fancy for their details. In making even horizontal and clear inspections we colour and mould according to the wants within us whatever our eyes bring in. Had Gabriel been able from the first to get a distinct view of her countenance, his estimate of it as very handsome or slightly so would have been as his soul required a divinity at the moment or was ready supplied with one. Having for some time known the want of a satisfactory form to fill an increasing void within him, his position moreover affording the widest scope for his fancy, he painted her a beauty.

By one of those whimsical coincidences in which nature, like a busy mother, seems to spare a moment from her unremitting labours to turn and make her children smile, the girl now dropped the cloak, and forth tumbled ropes of black hair over a red jacket. Oak knew her instantly as the heroine of the yellow waggon, myrtles, and looking glass: prosily, as the woman who owed him twopence.

They placed the calf beside its mother again, took up the lantern, and went out, the light sinking down the hill till it was no more than a nebula. Gabriel Oak returned to his flock.

CHAPTER III

A GIRL ON HORSEBACK—CONVERSATION

THE SLUGGISH DAY BEGAN to break. Even its position terrestrially is one of the elements of a new interest, and for no particular reason save that the incident of the night had occurred there, Oak went again into the plantation. Lingering and musing here, he heard the steps of a horse at the foot of the hill, and soon there appeared in view an auburn pony with a girl on its back, ascending by the path leading past the cattle shed. She was the young woman of the night before. Gabriel instantly thought of the hat she had mentioned as having lost in the wind; possibly she had come to look for it. He hastily scanned the ditch and after walking about ten yards along it found the hat among the leaves. Gabriel took it in his hand and returned to his hut. Here he ensconced himself, and peeped through the loophole in the direction of the rider’s approach.

She came up and looked around—then on the other side of the hedge. Gabriel was about to advance and restore the missing article when an unexpected performance induced him to suspend the action for the present. The path, after passing the cowshed, bisected the plantation. It was not a bridle path—merely a pedestrian’s track, and the boughs spread horizontally at a height not greater than seven feet above the ground, which made it impossible to ride erect beneath them. The girl, who wore no riding habit, looked around for a moment, as if to assure herself that all humanity was out of view, then dexterously dropped backwards flat upon the pony’s back, her head over its tail, her feet against its shoulders, and her eyes to the sky. The rapidity of her glide into this position was that of a kingfisher—its noiselessness that of a hawk. Gabriel’s eyes had scarcely been able to follow her. The tall lank pony seemed used to such doings, and ambled along unconcerned. Thus she passed under the level boughs.

The performer seemed quite at home anywhere between a horse’s head and its tail, and the necessity for this abnormal attitude having ceased with the passage of the plantation, she began to adopt another, even more obviously convenient than the first. She had no side saddle, and it was very apparent that a firm seat upon the smooth leather beneath her was unattainable sideways. Springing to her accustomed perpendicular like a bowed sapling, and satisfying herself that nobody was in sight, she seated herself in the manner demanded by the saddle, though hardly expected of the woman, and trotted off in the direction of Tewnell Mill.

Oak was amused, perhaps a little astonished, and hanging up the hat in his hut, went again among his ewes. An hour passed, the girl returned, properly seated now, with a bag of bran in front of her. On nearing the cattle shed she was met by a boy bringing a milking pail, who held the reins of the pony whilst she slid off. The boy led away the horse, leaving the pail with the young woman.

Soon soft spirts alternating with loud spirts came in regular succession from within the shed, the obvious sounds of a person milking a cow. Gabriel took the lost hat in his hand, and waited beside the path she would follow in leaving the hill.

She came, the pail in one hand, hanging against her knee. The left arm was extended as a balance, enough of it being shown bare to make Oak wish that the event had happened in the summer, when the whole would have been revealed. There was a bright air and manner about her now, by which she seemed to imply that the desirability of her existence could not be questioned; and this rather saucy assumption failed in being offensive because a beholder felt it to be, upon the whole, true. Like exceptional emphasis in the tone of a genius, that which would have made mediocrity ridiculous was an addition to recognised power. It was with some surprise that she saw Gabriel’s face rising like the moon behind the hedge.

The adjustment of the farmer’s hazy conceptions of her charms to the portrait of herself she now presented him with was less a diminution than a difference. The starting point selected by the judgment was her height. She seemed tall, but the pail was a small one, and the hedge diminutive; hence, making allowance for error by comparison with these, she could have been not above the height to be chosen by women as best. All features of consequence were severe and regular. It may have been observed by persons who go about the shires with eyes for beauty, that in Englishwoman a classically-formed face is seldom found to be united with a figure of the same pattern, the highly-finished features being generally too large for the remainder of the frame; that a graceful and proportionate figure of eight heads usually goes off into random facial curves. Without throwing a Nymphean tissue over a milkmaid, let it be said that here criticism checked itself as out of place, and looked at her proportions with a long consciousness of pleasure. From the contours of her figure in its upper part, she must have had a beautiful neck and shoulders; but since her infancy nobody had ever seen them. Had she been put into a low dress she would have run and thrust her head into a bush. Yet she was not a shy girl by any means; it was merely her instinct to draw the line dividing the seen from the unseen higher than they do it in towns.

That the girl’s thoughts hovered about her face and form as soon as she caught Oak’s eyes conning the same page was natural, and almost certain. The self-consciousness shown would have been vanity if a little more pronounced, dignity if a little less. Rays of male vision seem to have a tickling effect upon virgin faces in rural districts; she brushed hers with her hand, as if Gabriel had been irritating its pink surface by actual touch, and the free air of her previous movements was reduced at the same time to a chastened phase of itself. Yet it was the man who blushed, the maid not at all.

I found a hat, said Oak.

It is mine, said she, and, from a sense of proportion, kept down to a small smile an inclination to laugh distinctly. It flew away last night.

One o’clock this morning?

Well—it was. She was surprised. How did you know? she said.

I was here.

You are Farmer Oak, are you not?

That or thereabouts. I’m lately come to this place.

A large farm? she inquired, casting her eyes round, and swinging back her hair, which was black in the shaded hollows of its mass; but it being now an hour past sunrise the rays touched its prominent curves with a colour of their own.

No; not large. About a hundred. (In speaking of farms the word acres is omitted by the natives, by analogy to such old expressions as a stag of ten.)

I wanted my hat this morning, she went on. I had to ride to Tewnell Mill.

Yes you had.

How do you know?

I saw you.

Where? she inquired, a misgiving bringing every muscle of her lineaments and frame to a standstill.

Here—going through the plantation, and all down the hill, said Farmer Oak, with an aspect excessively knowing with regard to some matter in his mind, as he gazed at a remote point in the direction named, and then turned back to meet his colloquist’s eyes.

A perception caused him to withdraw his own eyes from hers as suddenly as if he had been caught in a theft. Recollection of the strange antics she had indulged in when passing through the trees was succeeded in the girl by a nettled palpitation, and that by a hot face. It was a time to see a woman redden who was not given to reddening as a rule; not a point in the milkmaid but was of the deepest rose colour. From the Maiden’s Blush, through all varieties of the Provence down to the Crimson Tuscany, the countenance of Oak’s acquaintance quickly graduated; whereupon he, in considerateness, turned away his head.

The sympathetic man still looked the other way, and wondered when she would recover coolness sufficient to justify him in facing her again. He heard what seemed to be the flitting of a dead leaf upon the breeze, and looked. She had gone away.

With an air between that of tragedy and comedy Gabriel returned to his work.

Five mornings and evenings passed. The young woman came regularly to milk the healthy cow or to attend to the sick one, but never allowed her vision to stray in the direction of Oak’s person. His want of tact had deeply offended her—not by seeing what he could not help, but by letting her know that he had seen it. For, as without law there is no sin, without eyes there is no indecorum; and she appeared to feel that Gabriel’s espial had made her an indecorous woman without her own connivance. It was food for great regret with him; it was also a contretemps which touched into life a latent heat he had experienced in that direction.

The acquaintanceship might, however, have ended in a slow forgetting, but for an incident which occurred at the end of the same week. One afternoon it began to freeze, and the frost increased with evening, which drew on like a stealthy tightening of bonds. It was a time when in cottages the breath of the sleepers freezes to the sheets; when round the drawing room fire of a thick-walled mansion the sitters’ backs are cold, even whilst their faces are all aglow. Many a small bird went to bed supperless that night among the bare boughs.

As the milking hour drew near, Oak kept his usual watch upon the cowshed. At last he felt cold, and shaking an extra quantity of bedding round the yearling ewes he entered the hut and heaped more fuel upon the stove. The wind came in at the bottom of the door, and to prevent it Oak laid a sack there and wheeled the cot round a little more to the south. Then the wind spouted in at a ventilating hole—of which there was one on each side of the hut.

Gabriel had always known that when the fire was lighted and the door closed one of these must be kept open—that chosen being always on the side away from the wind. Closing the slide to windward, he turned to open the other; on second thoughts the farmer considered that he would first sit down leaving both closed for a minute or two, till the temperature of the hut was a little raised. He sat down.

His head began to ache in an unwonted manner, and, fancying himself weary by reason of the broken rests of the preceding nights, Oak decided to get up, open the slide, and then allow himself to fall asleep. He fell asleep, however, without having performed the necessary preliminary.

How long he remained unconscious Gabriel never knew. During the first stages of his return to perception peculiar deeds seemed to be in course of enactment. His dog was howling, his head was aching fearfully—somebody was pulling him about, hands were loosening his neckerchief.

On opening his eyes he found that evening had sunk to dusk in a strange manner of unexpectedness. The young girl with the remarkably pleasant lips and white teeth was beside him. More than this—astonishingly more—his head was upon her lap, his face and neck were disagreeably wet, and her fingers were unbuttoning his collar.

Whatever is the matter? said Oak, vacantly.

She seemed to experience mirth, but of too insignificant a kind to start enjoyment.

Nothing now, she answered, since you are not dead. It is a wonder you were not suffocated in this hut of yours.

Ah, the hut! murmured Gabriel. "I gave ten pounds for that hut. But I’ll sell it,

Reviews for Far from the Madding Crowd

[raschneid_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Okay, so I didn't actually finish this novel, beyond skipping ahead to read the second to last chapter. Actually, I don't think I actually finished Tess of the D'Urbervilles either. I guess not finishing Thomas Hardy novels is becoming a habit.

Honestly, there was a lot to like about this novel. I liked Gabriel Oak. I love Hardy's use of crazy, creepy, mythic symbolism. I even liked the descriptions and the Shakespearian peasant characters. But halfway through it mostly just began to confuse and bore me, because the rest of Hardy's characters just confounded me.

The funny thing is that my feelings about the book were summed up in a Henry James quote on the back of the book, saying that the only believable element were the sheep. (Henry James's pastime seemed to be saying offensive things about English novelists. He also made derogatory comments about Dickens.) The person writing the copy on the back of the book quoted him in order to say that he was wrong, but nearing the end I started to agree with him. Almost all of the conversations involving Bathsheba just sounded so strange and artificial, and all of her motivations were elliptical and contradictory. I just didn't know what to do with her after a while. If I'd had more time, I would have happily finished it properly, but I don't feel like I missed very much.

[pilgrimjess · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I imagine that I am somewhat fortunate that I did not have to read this book while at school because I cannot imagine it having too much appeal to spotty teenagers. I had hoped that my much more mature self would have enjoyed it more but alas no.Don't get me wrong the prose is beautifully written but the plot was plodding rather than racy and while I appreciate that the book was written before the age of TV and widespread travel, so it was incumbant on the author to describe the surroundings where the setting for the story but Hardy spends far too much time doing so for my taste. Every time that he described rural life around Weatherbury he placed a massive roadblock in the flow of the tale and I felt like shouting "will you shut up and just tell the tale".What about the characters? The three male suitors are all beautifuuly rounded, Gabriel (the farmer fallen on hardtimes) is selfless in his pursuit both in word and deed, Boldwood (the repressed farmer) is selfish and smothering believing that it is right to marry Bathsheba, Troy (the philanderer) is more interested in the sport of the chase rather than the actual capture. Personally I cannot see how Bathsheba can be viewed as an early feminist, for me she is far too vain, self-absorbed and quite frankly little more than 'a silly little girl' who knows nothing of love and I found that I had little regard for her at all . The minor characters were amusing but for me there was much more comic rustic dialogue than was really neccessary.The ending was predictable but whether or not it is a happy one is debatable. Gabriel obviously still loves Bathsheba but does she merely come to depend on rather than actually love him. When the staff are congratulating them on their marriage the phrase "Bathsheba smiled, for she never laughed readily now" made it seem little more than the business arrangement that Boldwood had suggested rather than anything else. But then maybe I'm just an gnarled old cynic.

[nabilah_50 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This novel shows beauty in imperfection and mistakes like no other. Being independent means having the right to choose, and mistakes naturally will come with that right. The most important thing in life is learning how to deal with that errors. That is why i adore very much Thomas Hardy's Bathsheba and this story. The other characters are also uniquely humans. In the provincial setting that can bore certain people, i saw a great love that Thomas Hardy have inserted which is; the love of common life . That is my humble interpretation.

[fanip_12 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

When my husband show me with the dictionary in one hand and the book in the other, asked me why I was bothering myself with that book, if it was so difficult to read. "Because, it's so good, it's worth it!" was my answer.I read it decades ago and I admit I didn't like it; I found it gloomy and depressing. But this time, I thoroughly enjoyed it: I loved Hardy's subtle humor and oh, so accute observations on human nature, the landscape descriptions, the twists of the tale and of course Gabriel Oak.The scene where Oak asks for employment from the woman that he had asked to marry not a few weeks ago, when they were equals, was heartbreaking. So few words, no more than 4 or five lines stripped of sentimental frillies, but you can feel Oak's feelings, loss of pride and despair as if you were him.But there were so many great scenes: Troy planting flowers in Fanny's grave at night, Boldwood's proof of obsession with Bathsheba coming to light, Gabriel and Bathsheba working together in the granary to save the corn from the rain while angry flashes rake the sky and many more. Through detailed descriptions of rural life in England during the late 1800s, the plot never loses its pace and there are enough twists and turns to keep the reader engrossed. The piquant remarks on human nature from Hardy, spice up the story and offer a touch of humor that saves it from being downright gloomy. Even when the greatest catastrophe occurs, Hardy's commendation on it, will usually have you ending the chapter with a slight smile on your face. I'm glad I gave this book another chance. Thanks BJ Rose for reminding me of it:)

[mermind · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I have long admired Hardy's poems. So much that as a teenager I even committed one to memory. This year I began to read Hardy's novels for the first time. The 1968 film version of "Far from the Madding Crowd" made it quickly to my top ten favorite movies of all time after I saw it on DVD. I was excited to relive the story of Bathsheba Everdene and her suitors by reading the novel. Well, there are often good reasons books are considered classics. Psychological types easily recognized today perform in a vivid setting saturated with nostalgia for a pre-industrial pastoral world. The strings of a florid Victorian pianoforte style are plucked from inside the instrument with an originality, congruency and wit that delighted me when I read his poetry. I've read that Thomas Hardy is considered somber, but his karmic sense of justice corresponds to my own. He admires and rewards mature virtues, persistence, patience self-control, practicality, modesty and, oh yeah, mature love and he does that in a way that makes virtue romantic. The sensual earthy texture of the movie is true to the novel.

[aethercowboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thomas Hardy makes his characters work for their rewards, as is apparent from my reading of his books. Far from the Madding Crowd is no exception.In Far from the Madding Crowd, we meet Gabriel Oak, a successful farmer, a knowledgeable shepherd, and an unrequited lover of his next door neighbor. Tragedy strikes his herd, and he finds himself destitute, until he gains employment under the owner of some large farm with sheep. This owner, turns out, is the woman he once loved.In this state, he watches the farmer next door and a handsome soldier vie for her attention, and nothing really goes well for anybody. Typical Hardy. In the end, some people get what they wanted, but perhaps not what they still want.While Hardy’s writing can, at times, be dismally depressing, his characters seem real, and there’s plenty of humor in the stories to give them an overall bittersweet flavor to a discerning reader. For that reason, as well as for the fact that his writing can stand the test of time, and be completely readable nowadays as it probably was when it was originally written, I recommend this to readers of classic literature, as well as fine literature.While it has no sparkly vampires, no wizarding teens, and no extraterrestrial visitors, it has real, honest people, and that gets the job done.

[lit_chick_2 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

2008, Tantor Audiobooks, Read by John LeeYoung and beautiful Bathsheba Everdene comes into fortune by way of her uncle and moves to Weatherbury where she takes over the management of his large and profitable sheep farm. She draws the attention of three men, all of whom would have her hand in marriage. But Bathsheba is as naïve, rash, and impulsive as she is beautiful. She ignores Gabriel Oaks, an honest, humble, and loyal farmer and bailiff. She teases William Boldwood, her reserved and steady gentleman-neighbour, with an ill-begotten Valentine’s card bearing the message, “Marry me.” To her third lover, Francis Troy, handsome, vain, and irresponsible, Bathsheba falls prey. Her impetuousness will have disastrous personal consequences for her as well as the men who love her. But she will eventually mature into a comfortable life with one of her suitors.Far From the Madding Crowd, like Hardy’s other Wessex novels, celebrates the simple agrarian life of farm labourers, a manner of living not yet encroached upon by industrialization. Scenes of sheep-shearing and sheep-washing create vivid images of workers engaged in the seasonal rituals of farm life. The novel is full of rich description and breathtaking prose which reveal Hardy’s closeness to nature. One such beautiful passage:“It was the first day of June, and the sheep-shearing season culminated, the landscape, even to the leanest pasture, being all heath and colour. Every green was young, every pore was open, and every stalk was swollen with racing currents of juice. God was palpably present in the country, and the devil had gone with the world to town. Flossy catkins of the later kinds, fern-sprouts like bishops’ croziers, and square-headed moschatel, the odd cuckoo-pint – like an apoplectic saint in a niche of malachite, – snow-white ladies’-smocks, the toothwort, approximating to human flesh, the enchanter’s night shade, and the black-petaled doleful-bells, were among the quainter objects of the vegetable world in and about Weatherbury at this teeming time …” (Ch 22)A fabulous read, beautifully narrated by John Lee. Highly recommended!

[nordie_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Reading as part of The Hardy reading group. It is about Bathesheba and the 3 men who love her - Gabriel Oak, Mr Boldwood and Sergeant Troy. each have their own qualities but it is Gabriel who loves her first and always. She rejects his initial marriage proposal because she does not love him. She comes to the attention of Boldwood, who has the farm next to her, after she sends him a Valentine's card partly in jest. Boldwood has difficulty accepting that she does not love him either, but gives her up when she becomes fascinated by Sergeant Troy, the educated soldier - fey in attachment, apart from drink, gambling and women as a whole - who is more in love with another woman but marries Bathsheba more for her money than anything. She soon learns her mistake and learns to hate him, especially when he keeps asking for money to go gambling. His possible death by drowning opens her up to be courted by Boldwood again, who continues to pressure her into committing to marry him, even when he knows she doesn't love him. A party at Christmas has a detrimental effect on all concerned. Finally, Gabriel, her one true love, gets his girl.This is the fourth of his books and the one I've enjoyed the most so far. It has a more consistent narrative, with fewer breaks, even though I believe this was also released in serial form.The descriptions of nature get better with this book. I believe the description of salvaging the crops during the storm is considered to be a classic scene of the genre. Boldwood is a disconcerting and not very nice character, poor of social graces, who falls in love with a woman he's never talked to and virtually bullies her into committing to an engagement that she doesnt want. (Everyone agrees in the end that he's more than a little mad).Troy is a glittering distraction, who can also manipulate women (but in a different way), playing on Bathesheba's insecurities in order to make her marry him immediately (she goes to Bath to talk to him and he "suggests" that he'll have to give in to chasing after some other pretty girl if she doesnt marry him immediately, so she does). Gabriel is solid and steady, watching her make mistakes but never letting her down, even though he still loves her. As for Bathesheba? I dont know about her. I think she grows up during this book, finally marrying the man we all know she should have in the first place. She manages to take care of her uncle's farm, even though some people think she wont and does realise her mistake in marrying Troy, especially the way she did it.

[lyzzybee · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Bought 1980s, read for the Hardy Reading ProjectA truly amazing book: rich, beautiful writing and a page turner. A big step forward in his writing, I felt. Proud Bathsheba thinks she can outwit love but is floored bu it; her suitors have very different fates from one another and the landscape, the stars and the animals provide a wonderful backdrop. The local farmhands are done with a lighter touch; still comical but not so laboured, somehow, and there are some beautiful scenes, for example Gabriel's observation of the movement of the stars. My favourite quotation was another bird-related one: "No Christmas robin detained by a window-pane ever pulsed as did Bathsheba now" (p. 247).I studied this for O level but had forgotten the story, although certain rather random scenes and descriptions, such as Gabriel's face and the round hill he stands upon, were very familiar. Truly a privilege and a joy to re-read this book.

[donnab317 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Lovely, simply lovely. I was enchanted by all the characters, and just amazed that this was one story where I really could not see the plot coming down the street waving flags and yelling "Here I come!" like most stories these days. The story floored me and kept me glued till the end. I loved it!

[yizhou_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book is talk about a beautiful girl who loved by three young men, and this beautiful girl Bathsheba married with Troy who was the worst guy of the three young men. Because the Troy was romantic guy and he known the stuff that women always like. But this happiness did not last for long time. Bathsheba found that Troy also dating with another girl Fanny. When Fanny was died, somebody said that Troy was frightened and run away. The other said Troy was fallen down into the sea. Boldwood told Bathsheba to marry with him, but Bathsheba said she will not get marry in next six years. Then Boldwood prepared a party to celebrated the Charismas Eve, but Troy was came back, because he spend all the money, then he was really died because Boldwood shoot him, so Boldwood was sent to the prison. At the same time, Gabriel told Bathsheba he wanted to some other place, now Bathsheba realized that Gabriel always helped her, and she loved this man deeply in the heart. It was happy ending; the storyline of this book is really interesting. My friend recommend it to me, now I strongly recommend it to other readers.

[gypsysmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I talked my work book club into reading this for our May read. I already know one member doesn't care for it but I'm interested in seeing how the rest feel. I personally loved it and I thought it had a more hopeful ending than some of the other Hardy that I have read. When I finished reading the book I sighed, mostly a happy sigh for the ending but a little bit sad because now the book is over. My husband, who read a lot of Hardy when he was young, said he couldn't remember anything about the book now but it probably was rather dark like all his books. I told him that in this one Hardy seemed to have overcome his usual pessimism.Gabriel Oak is a young farmer when he first sees Bathsheba Everdene. She is coming to stay with her aunt who is a neighbour of Gabriel's. Gabriel is quite taken by Bathsheba and he asks her to marry him. She declines saying that she has nothing and he is on his way up in the world and should have a wife who would help him achieve his goals. Soon after the tables turn. Gabriel loses everything he has and Bathsheba inherits her uncle's farm near Weatherbury. Fortune brings them together again with Gabriel working for Bathsheba. However, since Gabriel now has no prospects he cannot hope to marry her but he does everything he can to make sure her farm prospers. A neighbouring farmer, Mr. Boldwood, takes notice of Bathsheba and also proposes to her. She doesn't turn him down outright and indicates she might accept his offer in the future. Then along comes Sargeant Troy who grew up in Weatherbury. He is a dashing, good looking soldier and Bathsheba is swept off her feet. She marries Troy but soon regrets her decision. She also regrets how she treated Mr. Boldwood. Troy disappears in circumstances that make it appear he has died. Boldwood again asks Bathsheba to marry him when she is legally able and this time Bathsheba agrees even though she is honest with him that she does not love him. Then Troy reappears while Boldwood is throwing a Christmas party. Boldwoood shoots Troy and kills him. He is sentenced to be hung but after his neighbours petition for clemency his death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. Oak is finally rewarded for his patient love and support of Bathsheba and they marry.Hardy's descriptions of the countryside and the farming operations are so vivid that I could picture them exactly. Some of the scenes that really stood out for me were the storm on the night of the harvest celebration and the sheep-shearing scene. Perhaps having grown up on a farm that, although more modern still carried out those essential tasks, made it easier for me. It will be interesting to see if the other members of my book club who, for the most part, are urban raised felt the same way.

[jpporter · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Move over, Dickens. Thomas Hardy has replaced Charles Dickens as my favorite Classical English author. The tone of "Far From the Madding Crowd" is pleasant, moving from descriptive narrative to humor to tragedy seamlessly. Unlike Hardy's later writing (such as "The Mayor of Casterbridge" and "Jude the Obscure"), FFTMC is light, entertaining, and structured with a pleasant ending. The later works mentioned are substantially darker, more pessimistic in nature; FFTMC is Hardy the optimist. As a general summary, the book follows the lives of Gabriel Oak (ostensibly the main character), Bathsheba Everdene, a young woman of stolid character coming of age; Mr. Blackwood, a farmer who becomes insanely in love with Bathsheba; and Sergeant Troy, a young soldier who woos, and wins, Bathsheba's hand in marriage. That is where the action kicks in. What impresses me most is Hardy's ability to instill dry wit into his description of an event, construct characters who come across as real, and create for us a world one can believe in. Clearly written, coherently structured, well paced, we can clearly see in Hardy the transition from "old, classical, English literature" to a more modern English classic. At 400+ pages, and a formal command of English (with surprising hints of modernity), this is a book that takes almost no effort to read - Hardy grabs the reader in the first chapter, and doesn't let go until the end.Well worth the reading - one would be the better for having read it.

[missboyer3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Far From the Madding Crowd tells the story of beautiful Bathsheba Everdene, a fiercely independent woman who inherits a farm and decides to run it herself. She rejects a marriage proposal from Gabriel Oak, a loyal man who takes a job on her farm after losing his own in an unfortunate accident. He is forced to watch as Bathsheba mischievously flirts with her neighbor, Mr. Boldwood, unleashing a passionate obsession deep within the reserved man. But both suitors are soon eclipsed by the arrival of the dashing soldier, Frank Troy, who falls in love with Bathsheba even though he’s still smitten with another woman. His reckless presence at the farm drives Boldwood mad with jealousy, and sets off a dramatic chain of events that leads to both murder and marriage.

[schmerguls · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Dec 20, 1964: It is early Sunday morning. I haave been up since 4 A.M. and have finished this book. It was first published in 1874--90 years ago. SPOILERS Contrary to Tess and Jude the Obscure (which I have read this month) this has a happy ending, though even so there are undertones of tragedy--it is not the usual completely happy ending the hackneyed old-time novel presents. Gabriel Oak marries Bathsheba after Bathsheba's other men are removed by suitor Farmer Boldwood shooting Sgt. Troy, her husband, dead on Christmas Eve. Melodrama--Fanny Robin dragging herself to the workhouse. Bathsheba opening Fanny's coffin at midnight, the confrontation between the returned Troy and Bathsheba--it is here aplenty. The Hardy twist that got him into trouble with the conventionalist in his last two novels are mere undertones here. i have enjoyed the book greatly

[uhhlanna · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic read! A really challenging and rewarding book--a perfect example of advanced, proficient use of archaic language. Hardy's mastery of the English vocabulary is inspiring, but it took a lot of concentration to read.

[audacity88_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Brilliant prose, pointed insights. Turgid and overlong narrative.

[soniaandree_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The love story of Bathsheba and Gabriel Oak the shepherd takes a long time to come to a happy conclusion. There are class prejudices and pride in the way of their happiness and Bathsheba will learn to overcome her moral issues through a series of unhappy events.The chapters are divided in twelve (as the original publication was published in twelve, monthly, episodes), following the course of a year and following seasonal changes too. This lends a more realist touch to a tale that could just be very fictional (Wessex county is imaginary).In any case, the language is simple, easy to understand and the chapters are rather short. I just wish the OUP editors would include the original Allingham pictures with the text, as they lend a more dramatic illustration to key events.

[renz0808 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy centers on young Bathsheba Everdene, a strong fiery independent woman who has come into the good fortune of inheriting a farm in Hardy’s Wessex. She will not allow herself to become dependent on a man and resolves to take care of her own farm and business. Bathsheba is also (of course) extremely beautiful and she knows this but is also very inexperienced in the ways of love and for the most part men. She is courted by three very different men, the first being Gabriel Oaks, who has the misfortune of losing his own farm in an accident, he contents himself by becoming the main shepherd on Bathsheba’s farm and helping her in any way that he can even though she has declared to him that she does not love him or can never marry him because of the position he is in. The second man is Mr. Boldwood an older man, who owns the farm next to Bathsheba, he allows himself to become completely enamored with her and she becomes his only reason for living. The last man is a Sergeant Troy, who is young and very like Bathsheba in temperament and personality. These three men set the pace for the rest of the novel that takes readers on an emotional roller-coaster of plot twists and sub plots. This is the first Thomas Hardy novel that I have read and I was not sure what to expect. I have read very mixed reviews of his work and I was not sure how I was going to like this book. I have to admit that I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. I think the strongest aspect of this book is the fact that all of the main characters have faults that readers can identify with even to this day. Bathsheba is really a woman before her time, she just wants to make a mark on the world and she is very ambitious and her main fault is her vanity. She is really like almost every woman I know, she just wants to be told that she is beautiful but at the same time she wants to be independent. It is easy to imagine her and identify with her; she really is one of the most honest characters I have read in a long time. Similarly, the three main men who compete for Bathsheba’s attentions all have their faults. Gabriel Oaks is probably the most honest, hardworking, steadfast man in the novel but at the same time he is also a little boring and not super cultured. Mr. Boldwood takes his passion for Bathsheba to desperate levels, and is subject to dark and changing moods. As for Sergeant Troy, he is a rake, scoundrel and at times a cad. Overall, at times the story could move slowly but I thought that for the most part it flowed well and kept my attention. I will be looking forward to reading later novels by Thomas Hardy to compare with this one.

[jq09cn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

All the story describe a shepherd. Gabriel Oak,whose love for Bathsheba is quiet and steady .He still loves Bathsheba from begin to the end .Before they didi not get together ,but at the end they get married .So what event makes them get married at last is the most important event .Oka loves Bathsheba ,but she did not love him before ,and she gets married with a handsome young soldier Troy.Before Troy met Bathsheba,he had a fiancee,who is Troy’s most love person .But when they have a wedding , the bride was late ,so Troy canceled their wedding After Troy and Bath sheba get married .Troy see that girl again ,but that girl died at the second day ,so Troy very sad ,and fall into river .Every body think he is died .So Bathsheba get married with a middle-aged man Boldwood ,who has never been in love before . .On their wedding ,Troy appears.So Bathsheba does not want get married with Boldwood .It makes Boldwood very angry , and he kills Troy. The result is Troy died and Blodwood go to prison. At the end,Bathsheba’s love is Dak , only he accompany with she .So they get married

[luli81_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Another great discovery ! I loved this classic, it's different from what I read before. A good portrait of the English Society, its stiff and untolerant rules against a patient soul but with a will unvincible. One of the best of the year!

[dcmurrayb_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Mr Taylor's AP English class, 1981. Suburban northern Virginia. Alan Bates, Julie Christie in the movie. Sigh.

[jayne_charles_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I was made to read this in English Literature at school when I was 14. Absolutely hated it, so full of flowery language that I skipped whole sections and completely missed the story. I came back to it when attempting to read through the BBC Big Read top 200 at the age of 34. I really wasn't looking forward to it, but of course this time round I loved it. Yes, Hardy is quite verbose, but this is basically a very good story, with characters you can warm to. At the age of 14 I was made to write an essay on whether or not Gabriel Oak is a too-good-to-be-true caricature. Asked that question now, I would say yes of course he is... and I don't care a bit.

[hitomik_8 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a love story, and there are five people who fall in love with someone. However, there were only two people who at last became happy, and others couldn’t be happy at all. I felt sorry for them, but anyway, it was good that Gabriel, a quite earnest became happy.

[mrbandings · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Although written in 1874 this is a very modern novel as a strong women runs a farm and her life surrounded by suitors.

[wisewoman_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Thomas Hardy is one of those authors whose works I do enjoy — but grudgingly. His strong descriptive powers, well-written characters, and interesting plots are all points in his favor. But there is something dark running in the vein below, a grimness that I find disturbing. As the back of this audiobook copy of Far From The Madding Crowd would have it, Hardy's sense of inevitable human tragedy was already manifesting itself in this tale. Far From The Madding Crowd tells the story of Bathsheba Everdene, a beautiful and independent young woman who is sought by three very different suitors. Gabriel Oak is the first man to fall in love with her, and after her rejection he falls upon hard times and is forced to seek work as a shepherd. Of course it is Bathsheba who eventually hires him. Her second suitor is one Farmer Boldwood, a moody and passionate man who is awakened to Bathsheba's charms by a foolish Valentine's Day card she sends him, quite in jest. And the third is a dashing officer, Sergeant Francis Troy, who is as captivating and handsome as he is selfish.Hardy really takes the time to set up his characters, and they are all very well written. Bathsheba in particular is a fascinating creation. In some ways she is quite a little feminist, having no inducement to the marriage state in the abstract that would tempt her to seize the chance when it is offered her. And after she catches her bailiff stealing, Bathsheba is determined to run her inherited farm herself — an unprecedented act for a woman in that time. But Hardy was something of a misogynist, and often peppers his narrative with derogatory comments about the female sex. One such example is this:"'It was not exactly the fault of the hut,' she observed in a tone which showed her to be that novelty among women — one who finished a thought before beginning the sentence which was to convey it."Or this:"When women are in a freakish mood, their usual intuition, either from carelessness or inherent defect, seemingly fails to teach them this, and hence it was that Bathsheba was fated to be astonished today."Everything sensible and strong and intelligent about Bathsheba — and she is all of these things, despite her many faults — is presented as an aberration in her sex. I don't like to judge works by the standards of a different time, but I certainly was occasionally annoyed with this misogyny. Other times, once I understood Hardy was like that, it amused more than offended me. Hardy's deep cynicism is not just directed toward women. God comes in for a fair share of the blame; Boldwood's disastrous encounters with Troy are called "Heaven's persistent irony" toward him. It is the gargoyles on the church, monstrosities sanctioned by religion, that are responsible for the horrific accident that disfigures Fanny's grave. Because of this mutilation, Troy's half-formed good resolutions produced by Fanny's death are instantly dashed, and the fault laid at Heaven's door:"To turn about would have been hard enough under the greatest providential encouragement; but to find that Providence, far from helping him into a new course, or showing any wish that he might adopt one, actually jeered his first trembling and critical attempt in that kind, was more than nature could bear."Apparently it is God's fault for not preventing this accident from occurring, for not helping this near-penitent on his new road. Indeed, it is almost as if God wants Troy to be damned and takes active steps to ensure that it is so. This is classic Hardy. And yet religion is not portrayed in a uniformly bad light; Gabriel is observed by Bathsheba in the very act of kneeling in prayer, in direct contrast to her agitated and rebellious frame of mind. The reader is left with the idea that this bedtime prayer is a ritual of Gabriel's, and that it has a not inconsiderable share in helping him face his troubles calmly and with dignity. The focus here is on the man, however, and not the God to whom he is praying.From the first Hardy sets up his characters on a large stage, not so much in their provincial surroundings but by the literary references he uses to describe them. When Gabriel Oak first sees Bathsheba from a distance, he is pictured as "Milton's Satan" watching Eve from a bird's-eye view. When Bathsheba arouses Boldwood's interest, he is compared to Adam awakening from his sleep to behold Eve. Frank Troy is called a "juggler of Satan" by Boldwood, who is then described as "an unhappy Shade in the Mournful Fields by Acheron." Other literary references abound, especially when Hardy describes Gabriel's slow intellectual development and the titles he studies (among them Paradise Lost, Pilgrim's Progress, and Robinson Crusoe). The reader is given to understand that these few titles have a profound effect on Oak and change him from the morally pliable man of the opening chapters to something of a solid rock, dependable and upright in all he does.Despite the darker themes, Hardy is not all doom and gloom. His sense of humor is most often displayed in the rustic country folk of Wessex, whose mannerisms and foibles are treated with fond indulgence. One character, Joseph Poorgrass, suffers from what he calls "the multiplying eye" — a condition that only assails him in taverns when he's had a bit too much to drink. The relationships among these country folk are also portrayed in a comical light; one instance is the way the worthies of the village try to calm the affronted maltster by agreeing he is the oldest man they know. Young Cainy Ball's breathless recital of what he had seen in Bath is a small masterpiece of comedy, as he chokes and sprays his listeners with crumbs, and is remonstrated for his careless breathing and eating habits. Hilarious!"'Now, Cainy!' said Gabriel, sternly. 'How many more times must I tell you to keep from running so fast when you be eating? You'll choke yourself some day, that's what you'll do, Cain Ball.''Hok-hok-hok!' replied Cain. 'A crumb of my victuals went the wrong way — hok-hok!, That's what 'tis, Mister Oak! And I've been visiting to Bath because I had a felon on my thumb; yes, and I've seen — ahok-hok!'"In addition to the funny parts, there are some insightful and deftly written passages, like these:"The suddenness was probably more apparent than real. A coral reef which just comes short of the ocean surface is no more to the horizon than if it had never been begun, and the mere finishing stroke is what often appears to create an event which has long been potentially an accomplished thing.""A man's body is as the shell; or the tablet, of his soul, as he is reserved or ingenuous, overflowing or self-contained. There was a change in Boldwood's exterior from its former impassibleness; and his faceshowed that he was now living outside his defences for the first time, and with a fearful sense of exposure. It is the usual experience of strong natures when they love."I listened to this on audiobook published by Tantor Media and read by John Lee. I very much enjoyed his narration, though I did find the lengthy descriptions of nature to drag a bit. Lee's character voices are excellent, with the exception of the female characters; a deep-voiced man just can't create a believably feminine voice.I don't think I will ever enthusiastically recommend Hardy; he isn't an author whose works can really be loved, at least not by me. But they do have a quality about them that invites contemplation, mainly of the flaws of humankind and the apparently indifferent God reigning over the chaos we make of our lives. It's a different perspective for me, and one that I find deeply unattractive — and yet fascinating, in a grim sort of way. Hardy will never be a comfort read for me, but he does provoke thought, if not exactly admiration.

[scriberpunk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the story of a shepherd who gets turned down by the love of his life, loses his livelihood in a tragic accident, becomes virtually destitute, finds himself working for the aforesaid love of his live where he watches in almost mute desperation as she first becomes entangled with the local top man before falling for and marrying a cad and bounder who deserts her (when one day the cad and bounder’s own true love reappears pregnant with his child only to die the same night) by faking his own death and leaving the shepherd’s true love once again entangled with the local top man, but then the cad and bounder reappears at an inappropriate moment and gets shot by the local top man who is then condemned to death but has the sentence transmuted to life imprisonment on account of insanity, and so the shepherd gets to marry the love of his life.The thing is the honest, hard working shepherd; the flighty, beautiful woman; the cad and the bounder; the mentalist top man – they are all sympathetically written and likeable. The supporting cast all have lives of their own and behave normally and both have, and behave in, character. And they have fun. Quite often. Their lives happen whilst the plot unfolds. Not because of the plot, or to make the plot move on. I like these people. And the place. Not that I’d want to live there: Too much cider.The three tragic episodes – the death of the girl, the accident that puts an end to the shepherds start in life and the murder of the cad and bounder - are all told in such a way as to make you feel the tragedy emotionally, to care, to connect. It is a nicely told tale.And it has a happy ending. The newly married couple send ‘a bit of something’ down to the pub so the locals can have a piss up. What more could you ask from life?

[lorraineh_18 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

WellIts a fable in my opinion that says the 'steady reliable' man will win a fair maidens hand in the long run.It reads and feels like a penguin classic novel. I can imagine all the 15 yrs old pawing over the language and clever pieces of prose.Me - well I thought it was ok but I must say that the latter third of the book I even enjoyed. Its perfect for those of you who like a clever use of language and lots of smart descriptions. If you like me who are so keen on such things then it can be hard work at times

[nigeyb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's a classic innit? It really is though. I'd forgotten just how good this is. The best thing is the way it evokes rural life in the West Country in the late 18th century. Marvellous and, unusually for Hardy, with a feel good ending.

[theboylatham_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

6/10.

The mainspring of the book centres around Bathsheba Everdene and her three suitors. And, in portraying her caprice and wilfulness gradually crushed by bitter self-knowledge and rejection.