Thomas Hardy

When a sophomore in high school, I was assigned to read Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. My first thought was, "Of all the great novels we could be assigned, why this one?" I knew Hardy as a poet whom I had read ("The Man He Killed") and as a novelist by reputation (Far From The Madding Crowd). I had never heard of Mayor and assumed that there was probably a good reason for that.

But I was wrong. Within the first few pages, the novel swept me off my feet, and Hardy's notion that "character is fate" continues to haunt me some four decades later. Reading further into his work, I discovered that Hardy was not limited to that one notion; moreover, his worldview was layered and complex.

My favorite Hardy novel was his last: Jude the Obscure. In that novel, one can see how much Hardy taught D. H. Lawrence about deriving great art from personal suffering and stifling societal mores. It is, in many respects, an excruciating read--but well worth the time and trouble. Properly handled, the novel trains our sensibilities; it educates us morally. Or did, at any rate, through the 20th century.