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    Far From the Madding Crowd
    Far From the Madding Crowd
    Far From the Madding Crowd
    Ebook519 pages8 hours

    Far From the Madding Crowd

    By Thomas Hardy

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    Far from the Madding Crowd is perhaps the most pastoral of Hardy's Wessex novels. It tells the story of the young farmer Gabriel Oak and his love for and pursuit of the elusive Bathsheba Everdene, whose wayward nature leads her to both tragedy and true love. It tells of the dashing Sergeant Troy whose rakish philosophy of life was '...the past was yesterday; never, the day after'. And lastly, of the introverted and reclusive gentleman farmer, Mr Boldwood, whose love fills him with '...a fearful sense of exposure', when he first sets eyes on Bathsheba. The background of this tale is the Wessex countryside in all its moods.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAUK Classics
    Release dateFeb 17, 2012
    ISBN9781849891653
    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 Far From the Madding Crowd

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    • 4/5
      My second visit to beautiful Dorset over this glorious Easter holiday has been accompanied by reading my second Thomas Hardy novel. I didn't enjoy this quite as much as The Mayor of Casterbridge, but Far from the Madding Crowd is still a solid and enjoyable novel rooted in the rhythms and ways of life of 19th century Dorset, being the first of Hardy's Wessex novels. Bathsheba Everdene is an independent-minded young woman making her way in the male-dominated rural life of the time, after inheriting her uncle's farm on his death. Yet, as the object of three very different men's differing forms of love, she still shows a headstrong and even reckless side, for example when she sends a joke Valentine's card to middle-aged and confirmed bachelor farmer Boldwood, which ignites an obsession with him as he refuses to accept its light hearted motivation. She marries soldier Frank Troy, but their marriage is not a success and he disappears. It is shepherd Gabriel Oak whose loyal and steadfast devotion to her as his employer wins her love in the end, after a final explosive confrontation between Boldwood and a returned Troy. Other memorable characters include Fanny Robin, Troy's former sweetheart, who dies in the workhouse pregnant with his child. A very good read, though lacking the plot-driven narrative of Mayor of Casterbridge.
    • 5/5
      Only my second Hardy, but I think it’s safe to say I’m a fan.I loved everything about this book: the twisty story of friendship, love, and figuring life out, the character development, and especially the completely unorthodox female character that is Bathsheba Everdene. She goes from poor to rich, and from independent and brazen to lovesick and sad and then back again. So very good!
    • 2/5
      Nothing special.
    • 3/5
      A good, well written book, as to be expected from a literary figure, but it's not something I would read again for entertainment. It's sometimes hard to review a book read for school purposes, as there was no reason of my own to draw me to it, and therefore no expectations. I have heard though, that this is Hardy's most "positive" work, which makes me leery of the rest of his stuff.The strong point in this book would have to be the characters. Things happen day to day, as the characters go about their lives. Sometimes there is an event of some significance, and there are definitely moments that steer the course of the story and the character's lives, but everything does to a point. We see what these character's personalities and actions get them into, and what comes of it. It's a book to read when you want to read about people rather than plot.
    • 4/5
      Sometime last year I saw the 2015 film adaptation of Far From the Madding Crowd. It’s very picturesqueness and told an interesting story - a young single woman managing her own property - but it felt rushed, like it was too abridged. Reading the book made sense of my reactions to the film. The film is framed as Bathsheba’s story, opening with a voiceover from her. However, the book is only sometimes from Bathsheba’s point of view. Certain things occur off-screen - and the reader is left, along with other main characters, to fill in the gaps ourselves as to exactly what happened. I found this approach made Bathsheba’s choices seem much more convincing.The book is also very clear about the passage of time. That helps to provide needed context - and I was interested by the colourful portrayal of life for this farming community.I particularly enjoyed Hardy’s descriptions and the amusing way with words some of his characters have. Even though I knew where the story was heading, the way the story was told kept me interested. I didn’t always enjoy the story of Bathsheba’s multiple suitors, but I appreciated that they’re not thrown in to create artificial tension. Far From the Madding Crowd offers thoughtful, and at times surprising, commentary on courtship, male expectations of women, healthy relationship dynamics, and the consequences of mistakes.And I found a certain romance even more shippable than I did in the film.Another one of the best books I’ve read this year. The audiobook, read by Nicholas Guy Smith, is excellent.[...] said Oak; and turning upon Poorgrass, “as for you, Joseph, who do your wicked deeds in such confoundedly holy ways, you are as drunk as you can stand.”“No, Shepherd Oak, no! Listen to reason, shepherd. All that's the matter with me is the affliction called a multiplying eye, and that's how it is I look double to you—I mean, you look double to me.”“A multiplying eye is a very bad thing,” said Mark Clark.“It always comes on when I have been in a public-house a little time,” said Joseph Poorgrass, meekly. “Yes; I see two of every sort, as if I were some holy man living in the times of King Noah and entering into the ark [...]”
    • 3/5
      Verhaallijn nog redelijk volgbaar, maar soms eigenaardige wendingen (cfr plots bewuste schijnvertoning van Gabriel). Essentie: jonge, arrogante, rusteloze vrouw kiest tot drie keer toe voor verkeerde man; de “juiste” wacht deemoedig af.Visie: iedereen ondergaat zijn lot en reageert op de gebeurtenissen die hem overkomen; je eigen lot in handen nemen loopt faliekant af.Sterk beschrijvend, vooral natuuromgeving, bepaalt mee de stemming. Gabriel Oak is zoals Levin in Anna Karenina, en Valvert in Les MiserablesTroy is niet absoluut slecht, cfr berouw na dood Fanny.
    • 4/5
      A surprisingly modern tale.
    • 1/5
      I was bored to tears. I went through the first five chapters and found nothing remotely interesting. I've seen previews of the movie adaption and was curious enough to read the book first. Now I'm not sure I'll even bother to rent the movie.

      Moving on!
    • 5/5
      Why did I enjoy this story so much? Among other reasons, I could visualize easily the settings and the costumes of characters. Another reason I liked this story is that it kept me conjecturing how the human relationships--intense and serious--would resolve, even though from the start the end was quite predictable. It was the how that kept my interest. Loved this book.
    • 4/5
      I've only read three of his books now, but I kind of love Thomas Hardy. Because he gets it. He gets how shitty social and moral conventions are to women. Does Hardy have an avid following like Austen or Dickens? Because he totally should! I demand more Hardy adaptations!

      Bathsheba Everdene - what an awesome name - is a beautiful, intelligent, confident, and fiercely independent young woman. Upon inheriting her uncle's farm, she moves to Weatherbury, where she attracts the attention of three very different men: loyal shepherd Gabriel Oak, reserved farmer William Boldwood, and dashing soldier Francis Troy.

      There are so many vividly drawn scenes - for instance, Bathsheba falls for Troy after he gives her a display of his swordsmanship. (How perfectly Freudian!) And Bathsheba is just such a wonderful character, female or otherwise. She makes her own decisions, some of which are mistakes, but she is strong enough to own to those mistakes and grow from them.

      Hardy is truly one of the masters of his craft. Despite his books' gloomy reputations, he has a sense of humor that shines through. And I'm not a fan of descriptive prose, but his is gorgeous without being self-indulgent. I also learned more than I ever wanted to know about raising sheep and what can go wrong. (I admittedly did tune out whenever architecture or farming practices came up, but those passages don't last long.) I highly recommend this book if you're a fan of the marriage plot and/or soapy Masterpiece Theater productions.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 2/5
      This was really not my cup of tea. I would likely have put it down early on, were it not for my drive to complete books (fostered in no small part by Goodreads). My main observation about it is that the most exciting scenes tended to be about sheep.

      To be fair, Hardy has a certain stylistic audacity. But while his frequent digressions sometimes hit on a particularly beautiful or funny sentence, they usually come across as self-conscious and ineffective displays of literary wit. The ending of the book did charm me, despite all of my accumulated boredom and annoyance. On the whole, the story seems strong enough to carry a film adapation; I won't, however, be recommending the book to anyone I know.
    • 5/5
      The main character of this 19th century British classic is Bathsheba Everdene, an independent woman who through an inheritance gains ownership of a farm. Bathsheba is feisty, smart and both willing and able to succeed in a man's world. That is until she falls in love with Sargeant Troy, a womanizer and overall scoundrel. This book could be a 19th century version of 'Why Women Choose the Wrong Men'. Although the language and the setting make this a classic, the personalities and the motivations were very much relevant to today's times.

      I both listened and read this book - great narration by Nathaniel Parker (the Artemis Fowl narrator) who gives a stellar performance of the quirky rural characters in this book. This is only the 2nd Thomas Hardy that I've read, but I've enjoyed them both. Great author.
    • 4/5
      While I quite enjoyed this novel, I spent much of it extremely frustrated with Gabriel. He's such a good and honest guy, saving the farm on multiple occasions, but he's so fixated on Bathsheba he can't take himself away from the vain and thoughtless woman. Bathsheba may have been beautiful, but no woman is worth the hell that Gabriel put himself through for her.
    • 4/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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:)
    • 2/5
      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.
    • 5/5
      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!
    • 5/5
      Loved it!! I thought this was so much better than Jude the Obscure. It took me a couple of chapters to really get into. By the middle of the book I couldn't put it down. A challenge to read because of the language and it does get pretty wordy in terms of Hardy’s description of the scenery and all... Definitely worth it though. Highly recommend to all ages.
    • 4/5
      I found this to be one of the least depressing Thomas Hardy books I've read. It is set in an idyllic pastoral setting in England, and follows Batsheba, a beautiful independent farmer that has 3 men completly in love with her. Of course, being a Hardy novel there are some dark melodramatic moments. I didn't like it as much as Jude the Obscure, but worth the read.
    • 4/5
      I read this many years ago and it is one of Hardy's best novels.
    • 4/5
      Far From the Maddening Crowd by Thomas HardyWhen Bathsheba Everdene, a beautiful young woman full of life inherits a farm and moves to the remote country she creates chaos in the hearts of the local men. She finds that her overseer has been stealing from the farm and fires him, determined to run the farm herself.Gabriel, a local sheep farmer who is poor but rich in integrity soon proposes marriage to her but Bathsheba refuses him. She is not in love with him though she likes him very much.Later she mischievously sends a valentine card to the wealthy farmer Boldwood. He too falls in love and becoming obsessed with her also proposes marriage. She refuses him as well for the same reason. She is not in love with him.Then a handsome and charming young scoundrel of aman, Sergeant Troy appears and Bathsheba falls madlyin love with him. They secretly wed but Bathsheba soon discovers that his one true love is one of her maids and that he is still in love with her.Bathsheba eventually learns that Sergeant Troy is an unfaithful small minded husband who can be trusted neither with her heart nor her farm. When the young maid Fanny, who loved the Sergeant is discovered dying giving birth to his stillborn child he becomes terribly and inconsolably remorseful and leaves Bathsheba.But this classic has much more to it than just the romantic interests. There is much about the farming and husbandry of those days that I found to be quite interesting. There are crops to be grown and harvested. There are also the interactions between all of the people in the novel.My least favorite character was Bathsheba herself. She was a fairly flat character and even the peasant folk seemed to have more body to them.I found this book to be lively & exciting which I know is quite the opposite of how some view Hardy's work. However I really enjoyed it and recommend it to those of you who enjoy the classics and to all Hardy lovers.
    • 5/5
      In nineteenth century England Gabriel Oak has worked himself up from a position as a shepherd to being a farmer in his own right. A solid, dependable, hard-working young man who is the master of his trade he seems likely to succeed in the world. And for such a solid young man Bathsheba Everdene, a headstrong and penniless girl of twenty or so who has recently come to live with her aunt nearby, is not the sort that he should be thinking of marrying. He admits to himself that a woman who can bring some money, or some stock for the farm, to the partnership would be much more sensible. But love is not always sensible, or indeed reciprocated, as Gabriel discovers when his attempts to woo Bathsheba with images of domestic bliss fall on deaf ears ('And at home by the fire, whenever you look up there I shall be -- and whenever I look up there will be you.') and his offer of marriage is refused.But then comes a time of great change for both. When the bulk of Gabriel's sheep are killed when his new dog drives them over the edge of a quarry at night 'under the impression that since he was kept for running after sheep, the more he ran after them the better', he is left owning nothing more than the clothes that he stands up in, and is forced to hire himself out as a mere shepherd once more. While meanwhile Bathsheba's fortune's rise when she inherits the farm of an uncle in another neighbourhood and suddenly becomes a woman of property. Unable to find work locally, Gabriel travels further afield and is hired as shepherd on the very farm belonging to Bathsheba. And then the stage is set for the love triangle that occupies the rest of the novel as three men compete for the love of Bathsheba: Gabriel Oak, who is now very much her inferior in social status; Mr Boldwood, a neighbouring farmer and man of property to whom Bathsheba has thoughtlessly sent a valentine; and Sergeant Troy, a somewhat dissolute but dashing soldier.In this novel the modern world ( well what constituted the modern world in nineteenth century England, anyway) does not intrude like it does it some of Hardy's other novels: the pattern of life in the village Weatherbury, where most of the novel is set, goes on as it has for centuries. I think this may perhaps be a reason why this is not my favourite of Hardy's novels. But still a great book. 
    • 2/5
      Was surprised to find this book kind of trashy. Everything seemed simplistic and over the top, and the characters made such terrible, unrealistic decisions. Quick read, though.
    • 4/5
      I had previously read 2 of Hardy's other works, so I was not all that surprised that this one played out the way it did. Bathsheba, the heroine of the story, is living with a poor aunt in the hill country tending sheep, & meets Gabriel, himself a sheepman, having come down from the position of bailiff to a large landholding. When he loses his sheep to a tragic accident concerning a young & untrained dog, he is left penniless, & hires himself out as a shepherd at a job fair. By then, Bathsheba has inherited a large estate from her uncle when he passes away, & as it turns out, Bathsheba on the grounds of their previous friendship & initial romantic feeling for each other, hires him, but won't marry him. She eventually marries a ne'er do well soldier by the name of Troy, who is not a good man, to say the least. She also has to contend with Farmer Boldwood, who owns the neighboring estate, & who she on a whim sends a Valentine to, & causes him to fall in love with her, even though he is twice her age.This book is a tragedy in the sense that she makes bad choices throughout, & has to deal with the consequences of those, as well as the men in her life. However, it does eventually have a happy ending......
    • 4/5
      It's been a few days since I finished Far From The Madding Crowd but life has been crazy so I haven't had the time to write this review, which is unlike me because I usually make time. Oh well, here we go anyway...My first experience with Hardy came from Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which completely surprised me. I loved it. But it had been a while since then so I opened this one without a great deal of expectation despite the 'classic' status. After finding the first couple of chapters a little slow, general setting the scene type chapters, by the time we met Bathsheba again on her own farm I was really enjoying it.Bathsheba Everdene is spirited and independent and fiercely determined to be able to run her uncle's farm after firing the stealing bailiff (manager). This was the part of her I most admired. She cared about the farm and her employees, she was resourceful and clever - I hadn't realised that female characters like her popped up in literature from the 1800s. What let me down was her stupidity when it came to men (although I realise without this there may have been no story!)Gabriel Oak is our other main character in this story, and in him I can find few faults. His loyalty to Bathsheba may be considered a bit extreme but at least he wasn't crazy like Farmer Boldwood. No matter Gabriel's feelings, he put them aside to do his work and to build a friendship with Bathsheba that is perhaps one of my favourite literary friendships. He was the only one who would be completely honest with her and she respected his opinion even if she didn't always like it. What progressed seemed very natural, unlike her romances with Sergeant Troy and poor infatuated Farmer Boldwood, who I felt sorry for but really needed to just let go. He wanted her because he felt he deserved her, he loved her but without taking into account her feelings on the matter. There was no foundation for either of these romances like there was between her and Gabriel.Hardy writes a great story although some of his description can get a bit tedious, I guess he just liked to set his scene. I really enjoyed the supporting characters in this novel as well as Bathsheba and Gabriel and I think it is a great addition to anyone's library. 
    • 3/5
      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.
    • 3/5
      The first of Thomas Hardy’s great novels, Far From the Madding Crowd established the author as one of Britain’s foremost writers. It also introduced readers to Wessex, an imaginary county in southwestern England that served as the pastoral setting for many of the author’s later works.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. A delicately woven tale of unrequited love and regret, Far from the Madding Crowd is also an unforgettable portrait of a rural culture that, by Hardy’s lifetime, had become threatened with extinction at the hands of ruthless industrialization.I found it rather boring and very predictable, lots of description of the times and places though.
    • 5/5
      Hardy's mastery of the English language is what made this book truly worthwhile. Thoroughly enjoyable, and I found it very touching in places. I think this will go on my favorites list.

    Book preview

    Far From the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

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