The Return of the Native

This classic of British literature was great, despite everyone in it being a hot mess, each in their own way. I loved the tension between love vs. possession and nature vs. society, and Hardy's descriptions of the heath were very evocative, if occasionally over-long. Eustacia is a piece of work, Clym is a boring milquetoast, Wildeve is a d-bag, and Thomasin would benefit from some 21st century ideas of agency. Yes, I'm being a bit flip and reductive, but I truly did enjoy listening to this, especially as read by Alan Rickman. It was my first Hardy but I don't think it will be my last.

I hope I am not exaggerating when I say that this is a wonderful story. The most interesting character is the reddleman whose name is Diggory Venn. He is a mysterious and unmistakeable figure who appears at every turning point in the book. His trade is selling the dark red substance that is applied to sheep to distinguish them and he tours with his caravan the tangled web that is Egdon Heath. He becomes a mythical and symbolic figure through his red hue, the red substance covering his clothes and body. Sometimes he seems to be the devil, at others he is omniscient and a power for good. His repeated appearance signals action. Some other characters are unforgettable - the passionate Eustacia Vye with her raven hair, her impulsiveness and show more her knack of making the wrong decisions in love and poor Clym Yeobright, entrepreneur turned homely furze cutter, the native returned, who somehow comes to terms with the misery and despair that inflict him. There are unexpected incidents: gambling for the 50 guineas, the adder bite, the lost glove, the mummers dance, witchcraft and the drowning in the weir. To reread is to see new things and to understand so much more. show less

Hardy at his best. First tier in storytelling, character development, and use of language and description. It is like being served a feast to listen to Hardy entone over the features of the heath. The wet young beeches were undergoing amputations, bruises, cripplings, and harsh lacertations, from which the wasting sap would bleed for many a day to come, and which would leave scars visible till the day of their burning. Each stem was wrenched at the root, where it moved like a bone in its socket, and at every onset of the gale convulsive sounds came from the branches, as if pain were felt" So real and bleak and unforgiving a place, yet so full of love and loveliness and longing.

Was there ever a more heartbreaking woman than Eustacia show more Vye? I feel so deeply for her angst at being misplaced in Egdon and pity her dreams and desires of another world (which most likely does not exist in the way that she believes it does). She makes a poor bargain, and she makes it over and over again. She always takes the wrong course and is so thoroughly misunderstood by everyone, with the possible exception of Damon.

Was there ever a man more inept than Clym Yeobright? While he dawdles over who should make the first move, who is owed forgiveness most, and what is the best action to take, he lets every opportunity to stem disaster slide through his fingers. He is so sadly on that path of good intentions that leads to a sure hell, that he makes you scream in your head, "do something".

Was there ever a man harder to fathom than Damon Wildeve? He is neither good enough to love nor evil enough to hate. In the end, he is the catalyst that sets all the sadness in motion and makes it inevitable that no one can be truly happy who falls within his sphere. He seems incapable of any real love until his choice seals his fate.

So much misunderstanding and misadventure is overwhelming, as if it were God playing with Job or perhaps just winking at the way the humans stumble into one avoidable quagmire after another. The sense of doom hangs over everything, even the joyful wedding parties, in such a typically Hardy fashion. One cannot help wondering if happiness is even possible in this environ or if the heath itself does not eschew human delights and loves.

Living in a time when so few options were open to women, Hardy is a master of capturing the sadness and despair that can accompany them in their lot. Eustacia fights against this norm, and finds herself more trapped than most. Thomasin might find herself in the same situation but for a kinder fate guiding her steps (and the interferences of Diggory Venn). That a woman can be too easily ruined is obvious; that she is at the mercy of the morality of men leaves her in constant danger. She has, in fact, very little control over her own fate.

I loved this novel. Like [b:Jude the Obscure|50798|Jude the Obscure|Thomas Hardy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1389403264s/50798.jpg|41342119] and [b:The Mayor of Casterbridge|56759|The Mayor of Casterbridge|Thomas Hardy|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388276915s/56759.jpg|2390173], this left me heart torn and feeling very vulnerable and human. I kept wanting to warn the characters, especially Clym, to be more aware of the possible consequences of their choices, to hurry or to slow down, to make one small change and save themselves and all around them. But, of course, none of Hardy's characters ever listen to me. show less

I loved revisiting Egdon Heath, especially while reading during the long autumnal evenings of October. In The Return of the Native, Hardy is off doing what Hardy does best: bitter romances unfolding in a richly portrayed (but often coldly indifferent) natural setting. As usual, he explores disastrous marriage choices and how our impulsive romantic delusions can destroy not only our own lives, but also our familial relationships and the lives of others around us! WOO HOO

Though Eustacia Vye certainly makes for a memorably tragic heroine, I must admit that in my opinion the show is stolen by Diggory Venn (The Reddleman? More like the Meddleman, am I right ladies?!)-- one of my all-time favourite Hardy characters. His narrative of show more persistence in the face of rejection is slightly creepy but majorly inspirational. Some people handle romantic rejection in a #basic way (tears, ice cream, Internet stalking) and some people handle it in an #iconic way (dying yourself red from head to toe, lurking in the woods, becoming a mythical figure, thwarting your adversary in morally-questionable-but-undeniably-epic ways). So even though this is an undeniably sad novel, Diggory Venn brought me a lot of joy so I’d say it all balances out in the end.

(Also quick shout out to my second fave, true-tragic-hero Christian Cantle!) show less

Hardy is synonymous with 19th century English country landscapes, and never more so than in Return of the Native. Set on the mythical Egdon Heath, this novel is the next best thing to a time machine, so evocative are his descriptions of these bygone Wessex rural scenes. One doesn't just read a Hardy novel - it's a completely immersive virtual reality experience, and for this reason he remains up there as one of my favourite novelists of all time.

Although perhaps not so well known as Hardy's greats such as The Mayor of Casterbridge, this is still a very fine novel. In typical Hardy fashion there is heartbreak and tragedy in spades, yet it is the rural landscape that almost becomes the main protagonist. The descriptions are incredibly show more vivid, yet their conveyance is so deftly subtle that it adds an additional dimension and depth to the story rather than getting in the way of it.

Whilst many novels of that era excel at transplanting you as a fly on the wall to the centre of English social history, I can't think of a better way to experience English natural history than through the experience of a Hardy novel. By the end of Return of the Native the heath was as familiar to me as the countryside on my own doorstep. No, on second thoughts, it was significantly more familiar. Our green space has changed in so many ways since that time, but whilst some of the flora and fauna has changed forever (for instance, adders are much rarer in number now in the English countryside than they would have been back then), it is our interaction with it which has changed most acutely. In Hardy's time the average rural dweller had little option but to traverse their local countryside by foot, often travelling many miles in a day to run an errand or visit a neighbour. Imagine, therefore, how much more familiar and in touch with the earth you become when you are literally walking through it's rural midst every day. And that is precisely the experience that Hardy brings with this novel. You feel 19th century England.

This was Hardy book number six for me, and thinking I'd already peaked with his best work I was absolutely delighted to be proved wrong with this novel.

4 stars - a wonderful sojourn in rural Victorian England. show less

Two words: Alan Rickman.

Okay, well the book deserves more than two words, and about Mr. Rickman I could go on and on. This is a heartbreaking story of love and betrayal, and of scheming and misunderstanding set on the wildly bleak and beautiful Egdon Heath. The story opens with Thomasin Yeobright being returned home in disgrace in reddleman Diggory Venn's van, her anticipated marriage to inn-owner Damon Wildeve not taking place due to an error in the marriage license. In the aftermath of the non-wedding, Wildeve receives a bonfire signal from former lover Eustacia Vye, and the two resume their flirtation. Wildeve is ready to return to Eustacia, Eustacia considers, and Thomasin and her aunt attempt to save Thomasin's honor by proceeding show more with the wedding to Wildeve. Into this climate returns Thomasin's cousin Clym, the handsome, educated pride of the village, home from Paris. The idea of Clym captivates Eustacia, who is miserable on the heath and dreams of a grand life in Paris. Thus a web is woven, with strands connecting Clym, Eustacia, Thomasin, and Wildeve, with Clym's mother Mrs. Yeobright and reddleman Diggory Venn (long in love with Thomasin) worrying on the periphery.

Mr. Hardy writes well-developed characters, the most interesting and complex of which is Eustacia. With Eustacia, as with the timeless heath, marked by the ancient Celts, Mr. Hardy brings to life the uneasy blend of Christian and Pagan. "Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman." A beautiful outsider disinclined to interact with any neighbors, she is admired by some and suspected by others to be a witch. She can be maddeningly selfish, fiendishly scheming, and utterly tragic.

As for Mr. Rickman... I could hardly attend to the story for pretty much the entire first disc, I was so giddy about his narration! But as with the best narrators, Mr. Rickman gradually disappeared and the story came to full, glorious, tragic life. This was one of the best audiobook experiences ever -- right up there with Jeremy Irons narrating [Brideshead Revisited]. What a shame that Mr. Rickman never narrated another book, for this one was amazing. show less

"Best natures commit bad faults sometimes, don't they-I think they do."

Eustacia Vye. One of my favorite characters in literature. Bored, isolated, misunderstood, accused of witchcraft, longing for a different life. Eustacia rebels against the confines of the heath where she lives but ends up marrying a man determined to stay and live on the heath. Throughout she was driven by impulsive actions that sent the story into a spiral of inevitable sadness (it is Thomas Hardy after all).

This was, technically, my second reading of the Return of the Native. Eustacia Vye has intrigued me since my early teens. I don’t think I was really ready for Thomas Hardy the first time I read this. I was still reading fairly juvenile books but I was show more determined I was going to read the classics and randomly picked the Return of the Native off the shelves at the library. I was bolstered in my attempts by a teacher seeing my copy of the book and being very impressed that I was reading Thomas Hardy. But, honestly, most of it went over my head and I just wasn’t able to appreciate Hardy the way I can now. It was years before I picked up another Thomas Hardy and even more years beyond that before I decided to read The Return of the Native again. I am so glad I did.
Before re-reading I could remember only a few of the characters and the very bones of the plot. I remembered the reddleman and Mrs. Yeobright (and I remembered not liking her, an opinion that sifted a bit with this re-read). I remembered that Eustacia’s husband began to lose his sight, something that haunted me for years after. What if I were to start losing my eyesight from too much reading? Was that even really possible?
Mostly, I remembered Eustacia. Flaws and all. Her name alone fascinated me. Eustacia Vye-the best name in fiction.
I’ve grown to really appreciate Thomas Hardy and so far, Return of the Native is a decided favorite. The character development, the description of the heath, the unfolding of the plot all amount to superb storytelling. show less