Posted on 02/16/2017 6:09:46 AM PST by C19fan
Valentine’s Day is here, and with it, the usual slew of literary and pop culture reminders of what love does to us. Pick your poison—Jane Austen, Nicholas Sparks, the Brontes, Old Hollywood, 90s rom coms, BBC bodice rippers—we are saturated by reminders that a rewarding life includes a worthy, rewarding and, above all, romantic relationship.
I don’t hate the romantic canon. But I want to convince you that we should broaden it by reviving an underrated masterpiece: Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd. (The novel has also been made into a beautiful movie, although, full disclosure, I’ve not seen the 1967 version with Julie Christie, only the 2015 version). Hardy was a master at capturing the messy struggle between the rational mind and our worst human impulses. Although set in the nineteenth century, the story retains a hit-you-in-the-gut relevance.
(Excerpt) Read more at acculturated.com ...
Me too. I read his works in college. I believe that was his only novel that had a happy ending. I will never forget the astonishment of how Jude the Obscure ended, only equaled by 1984. We are all accustomed to successful outcomes in stories.
You probably know this but Jude ended Hardy’s career as a novelist.
I am a big fan of the 1967 John Schlessinger movie, which is beautifully shot by the great cinematographer Nicholas Roeg in Dorset and Wiltshire, has a beautiful music score by Richard Rodney Bennett, and a dream cast with Julie Christie as Bathsheba, Terence Stamp as Troy, Alan Bates as Gabriel, Peter Finch as Boldwood, and Prunella Scales as the tragic Fanny. A winner all the way.
The copyright holders have done a good job keeping that movies out of YouTube. :0
My first “introduction” to Hardy was his Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Specifically the film adaption with Nastasia Kinski.
Very haunting, coming of age story.
I've bought the film several times through the years on laserdisc, DVD and now Blu-ray. I first saw it in widescreen on TCM. Not sure if they show it much any more. It is one of those rare film adaptations of a great literary work (like Lean's Dickens films) that is as great as a film as the novel is as a book.
I hate to support a rapist like Polanski, but that is also one of my favorite films. Beautifully shot by Geoffrey Unsworth and with a great score by Phillipe Sarde. Interesting that Polanski was attracted to a story that involves a mature man raping a young girl and ruining her life.
Yes. I remember the professor mentioning what would make a man die cursing the day he was born. I was familiar with the book of Job, but what he said had no impact on me. I was probably looking at that silky, succulent babe sitting to the right and ahead of me. She would sit back, cross her legs, and kick her ankles back and forth ever so gently in just the right rhythm.
I was brought up as an army child in Dorchester, Dorset in the 1930's. Lived at the army barracks mentioned in the novel. I tried to have my wife name her daughters after the two women in that novel. One was the headstrong Eustacia, the other was the gentle Thomasin. My wife allowed the names as a middle name only. I learned that Eustacia, feminine of Eustace would have been shortened by friends as Stacy. The name Thomasin, feminine of Thomas would be shortened to Tamsie.
Yes, Troy is a very present type of figure today in the affairs of women. There are many Gabriel Oaks as husbands also. The handsome dogs like Troy, have spent their famous wives fortune in bad deals. Doris Day for one.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.