Wednesday, March 12, 2008

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

This is an account of a man who, despite good intentions, can never master his emotions sufficiently to recompense his wife and daughter for the wrongs he did them.

The plot is entirely unpredictable. Twists occur periodically that set the story, as understood up to that point, on its head. Today's soap operas cannot begin to accommodate the tortuous relationships of the main characters and the way their secrets complicate their behavior in the moment as revealed in this book.

Thomas Hardy made this story work by the careful way he sets out each character's personality, temperament and motivation. In contrast to Dickens, he relies less on pathos and humor and more on detailed psychological description to illustrate the developing fates of his actors. ( 4 stars )

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