202. Thomas Hardy - The Return Of The Native

Started this on our abortive trip to Dorset.

A strange book, fell a bit between two stools as a novel of manners about intrigues between relative gentlefolk and the wilds of Egdon Heath, a fictional wilderness in Dorset.

Eustacia is almost a villainess, but Hardy doesn’t really give his women any malice, more an eye for the main chance, if the main chance is male.

I found it slightly tired conceptually; Clym’s ambitions to be a teacher, then preacher, carry no weight in comparison with Jude. His cousin and mother, whom he idolises, are weakly drawn.

I don’t think I would bother to re-read this.

Get this from Waterstones