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    Return of the Native
    Return of the Native
    Return of the Native
    Ebook605 pages16 hours

    Return of the Native

    By Thomas Hardy

    4/5

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    HarperCollins is proud to present its incredible range of best-loved, essential classics.

    Guy Fawkes night, Diggory Venn, a reddleman dyed red from his trade, transports a young woman, Thomasin Yeobright, to her aunt’s house on Egdon Heath. Despite Venn’s love for the sweet-natured Thomasin, he agrees to secure the man of her choice, the fickle innkeeper Damon Wildeve, who delayed his marriage to Thomasin earlier that day. Wildeve is still enchanted by the beautiful Eustacia Vye, who detests the heath upon which she lives with her grandfather and longs for a glamorous life abroad. When Thomasin’s cousin, Clym Yeobright, returns from his life as a diamond merchant in Paris, Eustacia sees her chance to escape. However, Wildeve cannot let her go.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateJan 3, 2013
    ISBN9780007502639
    Author

    Thomas Hardy

    Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in Dorchester, Dorset. He enrolled as a student in King’s College, London, but never felt at ease there, seeing himself as socially inferior. This preoccupation with society, particularly the declining rural society, featured heavily in Hardy’s novels, with many of his stories set in the fictional county of Wessex. Since his death in 1928, Hardy has been recognised as a significant poet, influencing The Movement poets in the 1950s and 1960s.

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    Reviews for Return of the Native

    4/5

    1,135 ratings46 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A sad but interesting story. The story includes several tragic characters of which several die. Thomas Hardy twines an interesting set of relationships and personalities in the story. He is an excellent author and I highly recommend his writings.
    • 5/5
      Jan 16, 1965: As Winston Churchill lies dying, I have finsihed re-reading Hardy's Return of the Native. I last finished reading it Nov 24, 1946, and my sole comment in my diary re the book at that time: "I didn't like it." This is the most astonishing thing, since this time I was tremendously impressed. That I could pass off so negatively such an impassioned impressivel-constructed novel is quite a revelation. I liked Eustacia Vye (Iam always amused by Hardy's women's names: Bathsheba, Lucretia. Eustacia, Thomasin) and regretted her death, altho of course Damon Wildeve was a most non-sympathy-arousing figure, and his death bothered me not at all. And I did like Diggory Venn and was happy to see him marry Thomasin, rather than Clym Yeobright doing so, toward whom i felt nothing, It seemed to me he was wrong to pay so little attention to Eustacia's wishes--he was pig-headed. I reconize the description of Egdon Heath as masterpiecey, altho I was not so impressed as some. How I would like to go to Wessex and especially Egdon Heath, to retrace all these things. But then, I suppose, when and if I get there, I'll have forgotten all of the stories and the scenes and sites will mean much less. However one would think enterprising Wessex-ers would have prepared a guidebook which would contain appropriate selections from Hardy.
    • 2/5
      The eloquence and grandeur of Hardy's writing cannot disguise the soap-opera nature of his story. Melodrama and coincidence figure largely, removing the interest from the actions of its intriguing characters.
    • 4/5
      What　I cannot agree with this novel is most of the important actions in this novel are detemined by the unconfirmed presumptions (by Eustacia, Clym and Mrs Yeobright). No characters in the book or the unconfirmed presumptions (by Eustacia, Clym and Mrs Yeobright). No characters in the book or thE narrator try to rectify this error. This is unacceptable and deprives the basic sympathy narrator try to rectify this error. This is unacceptable and deprives the basic sympathy toward this book from me. On the other hand, I am charmed by the good prose and the right words. In this head, HardThemots just.y is much better than Austin or Forster. I should like to admit that I am rather sympathetic with Wildeve. Although he was not loyal to Eustacia through and through, his indecision was understandable and eventually, he proved to be faithful at heart to Eustacia. That is a comparative feat, and as much as possible for an average man.
    • 4/5
      I read this first in the early 1970s as a set book at school. We had a little joke, inspired by the then UK Prime Minister Edward Heath; we expressed the view, privately amongst ourselves, that 'Egdon Heath' was a character, perhapos the key character in the novel. But we never dared breathe a word of this to our teacher, becausae we were sure we were just being daft.imagine my surprise, years later, in finding that many critics agree with us! Egdon Heath, the setting of this novel, is considered to be a major character, with a brooding poresence throuighout the novel and affecting the actions andf disposition of the muchmore minor, merely human characters.
    • 4/5
      The Return of the Native is one of those books you're forced to read in high school. And as such, you're prone to hate it, because high school English teachers make you dissect the creature of literature before you actually get a chance to observe it in action, and you are forced to make observations on the structure of the cold, dead literature, instead of actually observing the living literature in its natural environment.If this is you, please give it a second chance.The story itself is all in the title: someone comes (back) to town. This town, Egdon Heath (one of the few towns in non-genre literature to be widely considered a character in its own right), and its inhabitants receive Clement "Clym" Yeobright back from Paris.It was Thomas Wolfe to whom we attribute the quote "You can never go home again." This is not to mean "We'll lock up behind you, and post sentries," but rather, as time flows, nothing is truly immutable. When you do come back home, it won't be the same. Some furniture will be moved, everybody will be older, and things will be different.But things that are different aren't always bad. You could meet that nice raven-haired lady everyone thinks is a witch, and end up marrying her. You, thinking about settling down, her, thinking about escaping the malevolent town in which she lives.Such is life, especially life in Edgon Heath.This book is recommended for those who have read and enjoyed other works by Hardy, or who enjoy other literary achievements of the time. Also recommended for rereading anybody who was forced to read it in high school.
    • 5/5
      Egdon Heath is a sparsely settled wilderness in the southwest of England. It’s dominated by the wind, the sky and the feral vegetation of fern and furze. It is, as the author introduces it in the first chapter, “a face on which time has made but little impression.” To its native inhabitants it’s a quiet county refuge from the bustle and commotion of the mid-nineteenth century, but to young Eustacia Vye it’s a wilderness of exile from civilized life from which she has little hope of escape. Damon Wildeve, her former boyfriend and owner of the local inn is about to marry Tamsin Yeobright, a pleasing and innocent girl from a good family, and Eustacia is suffering bitter pangs of envy and jealousy. Damon wasn’t all that much of a catch, but emotional entanglement with him was her only source of relief from the tedium of county life. And then she hears that Tamsin’s cousin is coming for a visit. He’s a clever and promising young man, a diamond trader who lives in Paris – Paris the heart of civilization, culture and beauty. But how will she manage a visit to the home of her rival? Eustacia begins to scheme. The characters carry their passions, pride and false assumptions about the motives of their fellows with them as they criss-cross the heath, but ultimately human plans are overwhelmed by the geographies of heath, history, and social convention. But in this reading is of the final, 1912, edition of the novel, only one is able to fulfill his desire. Architect turned novelist Hardy constructs from a realistic masterpiece of beautiful and brooding tragedy. And for the listener, the combination of Hardy’s prose and Rickman’s voice is a rich and sensual delight.
    • 5/5
      I think this is the best of Hardy's novels. Dark, complicated, with characters who make difficult and not often happy decisions. Eustacia Vye is especially well drawn. Worth reading more than once.
    • 5/5
      “Hurt so good
      Come on baby, make it hurt so good”
      - John Mellencamp

      WUT? Well, reading Thomas Hardy novels always poses this kind of challenge. They hurt, and yet I keep coming back to him because they are indeed good and this kind of hurt is like a good exercise for your EQ. In term of language, I don’t think Hardy’s writing is particularly difficult to access. The more challenging aspects of his books are the initial meticulous scene setting and characters introduction chapters and, of course, the miserable situations that his characters get into.

      “Tragedy
      When the feeling's gone and you can't go on It's tragedy”

      Sorry, I just had a sudden attack of Beegeesitis. Anyway, I am always glad(ish) to be back in Hardyverse, better known as Wessex, a fictional region somewhere in the south of England. A lot of pastoral mayhem seems to take place here so it is probably not an ideal vacation destination (non-existence notwithstanding). In The Return of the Native Hardy again depicts what bad marriages can do. Clym Yeobright, the returning native of the novel’s title, marries the almost preternaturally beautiful Eustacia Vye who is very discontent with her rural surroundings. She yearns for the bright lights, big cities, iStores etc., preferably in Paris. However, she is not a femme fatale, she does her best to be a good, loving wife. Unfortunately her best is of a disastrously low standard and tragedy ensues.

      Much of the tragedy stems from people being unable to speak their minds, to be honest, sincere and – most of all – forgiving. Where this novel really resonates with me is the relationship between Clym and his mother. They have a very close, loving relationship until Eustacia (inadvertently) comes between them. The mother, Mrs. Yeobright, has some very strong prejudices about people of ill repute and is very quick to pass judgment on them, her unyielding mentality eventually leads to her downfall. Eustacia’s inability to settle down, to compromise with her circumstances also leads to a lot of grief and much gnashing of teeth.

      As usual Hardy’s characters are very believable and vivid, and it is interesting that there is no actual villain in this book. Some characters become antagonists of sort merely through very unwise decision making and impropriety. The hero of the book is also not Clym the protagonist, but a sincere, helpful and humble man called Diggory Venn who is a “reddleman” by profession. Basically, he goes around marking flocks of sheep with a red colour (a mineral called "reddle"). Not much call for such services these days I imagine, but it makes him a fair amount of money and also causes his entire body to be red coloured. It plays hell with his attempts at courting a certain young lady, but he eventually finds a way. According to Wikipedia Hardy had a tack on a happy ending for commercial purposes so not all the characters are down in the dumps by the end of the book. Left to his own devices he would rather depress the hell out of his readers.

      Over all this is a typically depressing book by Thomas Hardy. Yet I really like it and recommend it for people who are not overly sensitive or those who are too insensitive and need to emote a little.

      “Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it
      Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true
      You'll see its all a show, keep 'em laughin as you go
      Just remember that the last laugh is on you”
      - Monty Python

      Well, after all that I don’t have any room left to quote an eloquent passage from this book. There are always plenty of those in a Hardy novel (so that’s hardly novel!).
    • 5/5
      An amazing work of art, this would be great to do as a tutored read I think (or follow along with a tutored read at any rate). I'll need to re-read it as there's so much I've missed. The sort of book that reminds me how little depth there is to many of the books I read. Audiobook read by Alan Rickman was initially distracting, because Alan Rickman was reading a book to me, but then I was so drawn into the tale (relationship drama! wedding mishaps! old loves! passionate new love! bonfires! the heath! death! love triangle?) that I stopped noticing him. A couple of chapters from the end when people started hurling themselves into the water, I started giggling with the thought that maybe all of the main characters were going to hurl themselves in and drown, and the rest of the novel would just be pleasant descriptions of the heath.
    • 4/5
      "Oh, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me!",, 29 November 2015This review is from: Thomas Hardy: The Return of the Native (Paperback)Set on the great, bleak expanse of Egdon Heath, this is a gothic tale of love, despair and misunderstandings.Centred on the imperious Eustacia Vye, resentful at having to live in this god-forsaken place, we see her at first carrying on a clandestine romance with the affianced Damon Wildeve. And then into the picture comes the returned native, Clym Yeobright, cousin of Damon's fiancee. He has been carving out a successful career in Paris, and would seem an ideal match for the beautiful Eustacia who yearns to travel...Forming something of a 'Greek chorus' are the local people, with their amusing conversations, folk customs and superstitions. And the omnipresent 'reddleman', Diggory Venn; a seller of sheep dye, and former (unsuccessful) suitor to Thomasin Yeobright, he seems to be always prowling about the heath looking out for his loved one.At times a little over the top in emotion, this comes to an extremely good and touching ending.
    • 5/5
      This novel haunts me with its characters and settings. Excellent in every way.
    • 4/5
      For Christmas, I ordered an mp3 player (Library of Classics) that was pre-loaded with 100 works of classic literature in an audio format. Each work is in the public domain and is read by amateurs, so the quality of the presentation is hit or miss. The Return of the Native is a novel written by Thomas Hardy that has as its locale 19th century rural England. The story line of the novel revolves around the romantic attachments of several inhabitants of Egdon Heath, essentially a love pentagon (as opposed to the classic love triangle). There is Diggory Venn, the reddelman, who loves Thomasin. Wildeve, who marries Thomasin, but loves Eustacia, who marries Clym Yeobright, Thomasin’s cousin. You get the picture.The story is a little slow to get started, as Hardy never uses a dozen words when a hundred can be strung together. His prose is overly descriptive and verbose. Finally, we are introduced to all of the major characters and a period of enjoyment commences as the makings of a fine tale emerge. Alas, the story grinds to a halt as long periods of inaction and repetitious behavior develop. I’m sure the style is not unusual for the period, though I’ve read a lot of Dickens and found his writing to be far livelier.In listening to the audiobook, I would have sworn that the book had to contain 800 pages, but the Amazon profile reports only half that. Perhaps it only seemed like 800 pages, given the long periods of sleep inducing inaction and florid prose. In any event, it was not terrible, just not exactly to my liking.
    • 3/5
      Good, but not amazing. I almost couldn't believe the number of misunderstandings and accidents in this novel, to the point that I found it nearly implausible. From the problems with a marriage license at the beginning to Clym losing eyesight due to reading too much by candlelight (I'd be blind by now if this was even remotely possible) to the whole sequence of unanswered knocks on doors and letters not received. I guess I'm just not a Thomas Hardy fan.
    • 4/5
      Eustacia is so deeply flawed and believable a character. Self-interested and self-aware found her a delightful character. All ends in tragedy (I wasn't a fan of the alternate ending).
    • 2/5
      “A blaze of love and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same which should last long years.”The novel opens with a reddleman (a seller of red dye used by sheep farmers) riding across Egdon Heath with Thomasin Yeobright in the back of his wagon. Thomasin's marriage to Damon Wildeve was delayed due to an error in the marriage certificate. Wildeve has arranged the error himself because he is infatuated with Eustacia Vye, a beautiful but independently minded young woman, and is uncertain which woman he should marry. Wildeve has fallen down the social scale and sees stability with Thomasin but passion with Eustacia.When Clym Yeobright, Thomasin's cousin and the son of her guardian, returns home from living in Paris he is thrown into this tangled web. Eustacia hates living on Egdon Heath and sees in Clym a means of an escape. Eustacia convinces herself to fall in love Clym even before meeting, breaking off her romance with Wildeve. He in return marries Thomasin. Despite strong objections of his mother Clym marries Eustacia however, this only acts to rekindle Wildeve's desire, despite his marriage.On a stormy rain-swept night, the action comes to a fatal climax.The 'Native' of the title is obviously Clym and no doubt Hardy intended him to be the central character of this novel but in actuality that distinction must fall to Eustacia. Eustacia is not a native of Egdon Heath, she is a native of the fashionable seaside resort of Budmouth who moves into her grandfather's house after the death of her father. She keeps herself apart from the other heath dwellers and is contemptuous for them. They, in turn, look upon her with suspicion. She takes perverse pleasure in being unconventional and is obviously not an easy person to be around. Fate and Destiny are major themes in this novel and Eustacia is central to both. She is an active demonstration of Destiny believing that she can escape Egdon by her will alone. Yet, she displays a readiness to shift the blame for everything that happens to her onto Fate. Eustacia is seen as intense and passionate whereas Wildeve, despite being quick to have his passions aroused is much more shallow. Bonfires are an important feature. Eustacia to the modern reader will seem sexually oppressed yet it is also obvious that a relationship with the slow and steady Clym will never satisfy her yet in contrast a relationship with Wildeve would initially burn fiercely but soon burn itself out.Overall I found this a bit of a slow burner which took a while to really grab me hence the lowish score.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this classic novel of star-crossed lovers. I felt it was very typical of Hardy's writing, comparing to what I've of his other books, and I liked that. I used to think I was not a big Hardy fan, but the more I read of his works, the more I like him. I will read more :)
    • 5/5
      Damn this man can write tragedy! In this novel Hardy createsa love triangle (quadrangle?) that is both beautiful and disastrous. Using his incrediblegift for lyrical prose he takes us into the wild land of Egdon Health.Diggory Venn, a local reddleman, is in love with ThomasinYeobright. She in turn is in love with Wildeve, a restless self-centered man.He is torn between his feelings for her and his love for Eustacia Vye. Add Thomasin’scousin Clym Yeobright, the man who catches Eustacia’s eye, to the mix and you’vegot quite the quandary. Each of the characters is wonderfully developed. We feelEustacia’s restlessness and Thomasin’s earnest devotion. We long for Venn tofind love and Clym to find happiness. We watch their lives unfold with a mix ofapprehension and excitement, wondering all the while if the characters arefalling in love purely for the escape they offer each other or if theirfeelings are true. Do they want something because someone else wants it orbecause it’s truly their heart’s desire?“The sentiment which lurks more or less in all animatenature – that of not desiring the undesired of other – was lively as a passionin the supsersublte epicurean heart of Eustacia.”I loved how the health is one of the main characters in thebook and all of the characters are shaped by their reaction to it. Eustaciadesperately wants to leave it and will do anything to get away. Clym returnsfrom Parisaching for the wild health he loved so much in his childhood. Thomasin feelsthat she is a country girl and is comfortable living in the health. Only Hardycould make the background setting of a drama such a definitive character in theaction. He even describes the effect the health has on the women who live there…“An environment which would have made a contented woman apoet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy womanthoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.”SPOILERS All of the characters desperately want what they can’t have.Another person, money, success, peace, travel, etc. Even Clym’s mother Mrs.Yeobright longs for different partners for her son and niece. She wants theirhappiness, but when they’ve chosen their lot in life she has such a hard timeaccepting it that she perpetuates unhappiness in their lives. Each character isdestroyed by their own longing except for Venn. Early in the book he comes toterms with the fact that he’ll never have the woman he truly wants. He acceptsthat and decides that he’ll do everything he can to make her happy from adistance. Then, in the end he’s the only one who ends up getting what he wanted.It’s a beautiful picture of selfless love. SPOILERS OVERBOTTOM LINE: This book is so beautiful and poignant I justcan’t get over it. It’s definitely a new favorite of mine. I’d recommend it ifyou enjoy Victorian literature, tragic love stories or just gorgeous prose. “Love was to her theone cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.” “Humanity appears upon the scene, hand-in-hand withtrouble.” “What a strange sort of love to be entirely free from thatquality of selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passionand sometimes its only one.”  
    • 4/5
      Beautifully descriptive. A book to just curl up an lose yourself in.
    • 4/5
      Although this book is set in rural England in the 1800s, the story covers a universal theme of star crossed lovers who lives are doomed due to a few pivotal decisions. The heroine (or villain, depending on your outlook) of the story is Eustacia Vye, a dark haired beauty who longs to escape the rural life on the heath for adventure and culture in Paris or other large city. She is romantically involved with Damon Wildeve, the local inn keeper, but chooses to marry Clym Yeobright, a successful businessman in Paris who has returned to the heath to visit his mother. Although, their marriage starts off strong, Clym wants to leave the big city and settle down in rural Egdon Heath and Eustacia still longs for more excitement. To add to this love triangle, after being rejected by Eustacia, Damon marries Clym's cousin Thomasin, although he still loves and longs for Eustacia. And to add even more to the mix, Diggory Venn has declared his love for Thomasin.

      But Return of the Native is not a convoluted soap opera love story. At several key moments in this book, the characters come to a decision point - sometimes as simple as whether or not to open a door - and the choice they make sets the story - and the tragedy - on its way. Added to this is the beautiful description of Egdon Heath and the lives of the people who work the land. These characters not only add a touch of humor to a pretty bleak story, but also provide wisdom and an interesting perspective on life.

      Beautiful, soothing narration by my favorite - Simon Vance.
    • 4/5
      Is Hardy for marriage or against marriage? Having read a few of his works, I think that perhaps he ultimately comes down on the side that marriage is a bad idea. This one, however, leaves you thinking that perhaps under the right conditions, if both parties come to the marriage from a place of grief and don't expect too much then maybe it can work. A young man returns to his village when his cousin's marriage is temporarily disrupted but all sorts of mayhem ensues. It is difficult to give any details of the plot without giving the whole thing away as not many events happen in the book, but it is full of character (both human and of nature) and mood. I really enjoyed it. Definately depressing - but not nearly as much so as Jude, which made me depressed for days.
    • 3/5
      This was my second book by Hardy. Like the first one I read, this is a book about moral dilemmas & the power of misperceptions. Eustacia & Thomasin are tragic heroines who suffer the consequences of rumor & reputation is small town 1800's England. Clym, the one is is the returning native of the title, is a man who fortune treated well in the beginning, but struck down at the end. Wildeve is the romantic hero who is the cause of much of the 2 ladies' problems....It's sad most of the way, with a few clever places throughout, like Eustacia's attempt at disguising herself as a man in the mummer's play so that she could meet Clym to begin with. That evening's work she didn't quite think all the way through, & finds herself in a rather touchy situation :)All in all, I was ok with how the book ended, although the afterword gives us an idea of how the original ending went vice the one that the book gives....
    • 3/5
      It took 25 plus years, but after being totally put of Hardy at school, I finally tried again. And it was nothing like as bad as I thought it was going to be. This is the story of two couples who have married and both, for various reasons, are unsuited. The characters are supported by a mass of well drawn characters, pone of which is the landscape itself. The whole of the first chapter is devoted to describing Egdon Heath and it takes on a presence that is more than mere backdrop. There are contrasting opinions on it as well, with Eustacia wanting to get away and Clem feeling he has returned home. It certainly isn't a feel good book, it has an air of melancholy about it, there's a lot of repenting at leisure and the whole tone is nostalgic for a time and tradition that probably never existed. Even the ending seems not to focus on the hope of a marriage (this one seems much more sound) but on the disappointment and lack of emotion of Clem. It was certainly a lot better than my last experience with him, but he's not exactly a cheery bunny. His landscape is excellent, I'm just not sure I bought into his characters entirely, the marriages struck me as a little too far fetched. It may well be less than 25 years before I pick up another.
    • 4/5
      This novel has all the hallmarks of a classic Hardy novel: doomed love affairs, characters who make poor choices, a portentous environment. Added together, though, it falls a bit short of Hardy's best novels. I think the main problem is that all the characters are either uninteresting or ambiguous at best. Eustacia is probably the most interesting character as the love interest to the "Native" of the title, but she is still one-sided; all she wants is to get out of the heath and live a glamorous life in Paris. Of course, such aspirations are doomed from the outset in Hardy, and her dashed dream is the cornerstone that brings down all the others. Despite its weaknesses, its typical Hardian (Hardy-esque?) strengths make it a worthwhile read.
    • 5/5
      This is my favorite Hardy novel and I love all of Hardy's novels passionately. He's one of my favorite writers, forever. This man understood and dared to write about the lives of women in a time when women didn't count--and he did so without sentimentalizing them. I adore Eustacia, and if she had but lived a hundred years later, all her problems would not be problems.
    • 4/5
      Hardy weaves a tale of passion and tragedy on Egdon Heath in his fictional Wessex. Eustacia Vye's desire to lead a life elsewhere is dashed when she marries Clym Yeobright (the Native) upon his return from Paris. The lives of this couple and their friends and families are depicted in detail in Hardy's penetrating portrayal of the community on the heath. The final section provides some hope for the future, tempering the otherwise bleak landscape of the novel.
    • 4/5
      There's nothing like a heavy dose of dark Hardy to wring a deep sigh from the cheeriest breast.
    • 1/5
      Oh how I hate this book. I had to study it for English A-level and reading it was torturous. It took me so long, as I kept falling asleep I was so bored.Chapter 1 describes a moor. Chapter 2 describes a man walking across the moor. Chapter 3 describes the man meeting someone on the moor... and so on.The moor is the main character in the book (we concluded at A-level), and while I can spend hours watching the changes on the moors opposite my house I don't really want to spend hours reading about one. I really like Hardy's other novels but I'll only be reading this again if I'm suffering from a prolonged bout of insomnia.
    • 3/5
      In this overdrawn and repetitive novel, Hardy offers up deceitful, tiresome Eustacia Vye in a comedy of errors fraughtwith Thomasin generally being a drag. Reading about artificially tensed gambling is always trying.Mrs. Yeobright, mother of dawdling Clym and aunt to Thomasin, is the bright light, once a reader tires of the inexplicabledevotion of riddleman Venn to Thomasin.As always, Thomas Hardy's nature descriptions soar.
    • 3/5
      [Return of the Native] by Thomas Hardy was the story of Clym, a native to the heath of Edgeron who became educated in Paris but has returned to the heath, for reasons we never do find out. This is my 4th Hardy read and imho is not nearly as well written or as interesting as the others (i.e. [Far from the Madding Crowd], [Tess of D'Urbervilles], [The Mayor of Castorbridge]). Much time is spent on the description of nature and the seasons on the Heath---almost puts me in mind of Dickens and to sleep! The plot reads like a soap opera or a play from Shakespeare: love lost by folly. I vaguely see some of the themes that Hardy is attempting to portray: family, tradition/custom, pride, and fate vs. free will. I just don't feel it's done as well as in the aforementioned novels. If you haven't read Hardy, and I suggest you do, don't start with this one!

    Book preview

    Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy

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