Customer Reviews

Under the Greenwood Tree

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is one of my favorite Hardy novels! His vivid descriptions bring the rustic setting, characters, and customs to life. It's like peering through a window into a world gone by. The story weaves together love, social position, and the slow displacement of old traditions with modern conventions. A delightful read!

"Under the Greenwood Tree" does not rank among Hardy's greatest novels, but it includes many moving moments and memorable characters. This first of the great series of Wessex novels introduces the reader to Hardy's beloved and changing countryside. The landscape and it's occupants are lovingly invoked, and the natural humour of the locals shines through.

In fact, the supporting characters are far more interesting than the hero and heroine. "Under the Greenwood Tree" is really a tale of young love, and although Hardy touchingly illustrates the yearning and naivete of his lovers, both characters remain at arm's length. This is particularly true of Fancy, the heroine, whose emotions do not become apparent until close to the tale's end.

Hardy would explore many of "Greenwood Tree's" themes more effectivly in later books, but this novel is more than just a warm-up act. The decline of English country life- one of Hardy's greatest themes- has never been as tellingly illustrated as in the sub-plot of the Mellstock Quire, and the contented, ironic ending rings as true as any of the fatalistic horrors to come.

The painter Poussin's famous title might stand as a rubric for this lovely book. Hardy views his cast of rustics through the prism of music: the old church stringed instruments choir is to be replaced with the spanking new organ. There is the added romantic interest of young musician Dave and the controversially female organist, Fancy Day.

This is a story of established customs breaking down through the interloper: a new vicar in town. Structurally divided into Winter, Spring, Summer, Autumn, it follows the natural rhythms of the earth and of society. Hardy revels in his descriptive powers.

Filled with nostalgia and that increasingly fashionable concept, "Englishness", and seasoned with wisdom and wit, this is truly fabulous. It's a mini-masterpice in a similar bag to, say, Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford".

In Under the Greenwood Tree, Thomas Hardy combines many of the elements that would define his career as a novelist--colorful common folk and their equally colorful language, an ironic narrator, an unflinching perspective on changing times, and the marvelous "Wessex" countryside. All that is missing is a plot, the lack of which contributes to the uncharacteristic happy ending.

Under the Greenwood Tree addresses two related matters: the fate of the Mellstock choir and of the charming new schoolmistress. Although the members of the choir acknowledge that their way is becoming an anachronism, they see that it is not only the inevitability of change that is pushing them aside. Both Farmer Shiner and the vicar show a strong interest in schoolmistress Fancy Day, who happens to have musical ability. By eliminating the choir and installing Miss Day at Farmer Shiner's behest, the vicar believes he will achieve two objectives: modernizing a parish that has no desire to be modernized and impressing a woman who does wish to be wooed.

At the same time, the sight of Fancy at the window with her hair undone in the wee hours of Christmas morning is enough to win the heart of young choir member Dick Dewy, who devotes his energy to attracting Fanny's notice and attention. While he is more educated than his father and the other members of the choir, he seems to represent honest labor, sincerity, and singlemindedness, while his rivals the vicar and the farmer, represent culture and money, respectively. Fancy is educated and cultured, while her father is revealed to have some money. The question is not about her choice but about whether it is the right one--a question that cannot be answered by the end of the novel.

Fancy's response to the vicar shows some ambivalence about her commitment. At times, the parish's long-standing couples reveal their own sense of fate about their spouses and marriages. Mrs. Penny tells the tranter's Christmas gathering, " . . . and lo and behold the coming man came: Penny asked me if I'd go snacks with him and afore I knew what I was about a'most, the thing was done." Later she tells Fancy to reassure herself with the thought, "'tis to be, and here goes!" She adds that "'Twill carry a body through it all from wedding to churching if you only let it out with spirit enough." When Dick's father says to his wife, "You be a well-enough woman, Ann," then, "Mrs. Dewy put her mouth in the form of a smile and put it back again without smiling." An impressive subtext underlies these couples' anecdotes, exchanges, and expressions, with the narrator's--and reader's--knowledge that they were once in the same position as Dick and Fancy.

In his introduction, Simon Gatrell writes that "the heart of the novel is the right way to do things." Eliminating the tradition of the choir to impress a woman may not be the right way, but the members concede the vicar's right to do so. Their attempt, not altogether unsuccessful, to negotiate the timing of the change both affirms his right and preserves their dignity. It also allows the vicar to "win" without forcing the choir to "lose." As Reuben Dewy says, "Everybody must be managed"--including both vicar and choir, and both Dick and Fancy.

Under the Greenwood Tree is organized by seasons ("Part the First--Winter," "Part the Second--Spring," and so on), which reflects the cycle of life that Hardy portrays. Dick is not the first man to fall in love with a pretty face. ("A very good pink face, as far as that do go. Still, only a face, when all is said and done," according to the choir's erudite Mr. Spinks.) Fanny is not the first woman to be tempted by appeals to her vanity and her social and cultural refinement. The elder Dewys, the Pennys, and the other mature couples seem to regard Dick and Fancy with a wryness born of their own distant courting experience and their ensuing lives together. Even Fancy, who wants to be stylish and modern, gives in and honors the old cycle when, after some resistance, she agrees to follow the traditions, saying, "Respectable people don't nowadays. . . . Still, since poor mother did, I will." No one knows what their future will be, but Mrs. Penny observes, "Well, `tis humps and hollers with the best of us, but still and for all that Dick and Fancy stand as fair a chance of having a bit of sunsheen as any married people in the land." Had Hardy written Under the Greenwood Tree in the same spirit as Tess of the D'Urbervilles or Jude the Obscure, perhaps Mrs. Penny's prediction would have proven tragically wrong.

Under the Greenwood Tree was written by a Thomas Hardy who had not reached maturity as a writer, but he reveals the insights and the verbal beauty that would mark his place among the great Victorian writers. Phrases such as, ". . . if Fancy's lips had been real cherries, probably Dick's would have appeared deeply stained," ". . . your mother's charms was more in the manner than the material," and "I've walked the path once in my life and know the country, neighbors; and Dick's a lost man!" remind the reader that Hardy's true love as a writer would be poetry, not prose. Like his other novels, Under the Greenwood Tree reveals the poetry, comic, ironic, or tragic, in everyday life.

This is very undeveloped Hardy--pleasant, well conceived, but predictable and not much more than an extended character sketch. If you're in the mood for something light and atmospheric, this is a good fit. If you want complexity, drama, the transcendental--all of Life's biggies--choose Tess, Return of the Native, or Far From the Madding Crowd.

My review is written regarding, not to Hardy's charming novel, but the Oxford World Classics edition. (ISBN: 978-0-19-953851-5). This edition jumps from page 126 (chapter entitled Further Along the Road) to page 175 (chapter entitled Second Thoughts). There's nothing more disappointing when reading a novel than getting 3/4 of the way through the book only to discover that nearly FIFTY PAGES ARE MISSING! This is very poor, indeed. I'll think twice before purchasing another Oxford World Classics edition.

This is my first Thomas Hardy book, recommended as it eases you into his style of writing, and man alive is it a strange style! Hardy makes sure the conversations of country folk sound genuine so you get a lot of "ye", "o'ny", "squizzling", "stimmilent", "onmistakable", "husbird", all of which takes a lot of getting used to. The main character, Dick Dewy, is a "tranter" something I had to look up -it's basically a driver.

Anyway, Dick Dewy falls for the new schoolmistress, the ridiculously named Fancy Day, courting her with competition from Farmer Shiner and Vicar Medley. The side story is of the church "quire" (choir) made up of fiddle players being phased out in favour of an organ played by Fancy Day. I say story, that's it really. As for Dick Dewy, he of course marries Fancy Day.

It's a very gentle and good natured volume, a bit like reading about hobbits (the impression I got from their odd way of talking) and their obsessions with carol singing, cider, and "nutting" (something about gathering nuts). A cross between The Darling Buds of May, and the Wind in the Willows but the characters are humans. Tolerably quaint, even amusing at times. There is an attempt at drama toward the end which is quickly resolved and seemed, frankly, a bit of a cheap lunge at the reader's attention and is quickly resolved anyway. That said, there's very little here besides and I guess that Hardy's reputation comes from more famous books "Jude the Obscure", "Tess of the d'Ubervilles" etc. than from this novel. Not a great book but a nice introduction to Hardy's writing and, from what I hear of his other books, probably his least depressing.

Though probably Thomas Hardy's most overrated novel in that it is often put in his top tier but is really below it, Under the Greenwood Tree is a fine work - a must for fans and for several reasons possibly attractive for those usually not keen on Hardy.

It is certainly very different from Desperate Remedies, Hardy's first published novel - a striking early instance of great diversity. Under is in many ways more similar to later work but also unique in several ways. Though imbued with Hardy's singular genius in embryo, Desperate was essentially an entry in the then popular sensation genre; it is immediately clear that Under is the kind of book he actually wanted to write, though he later admitted to holding back on the darker elements that became his signature. Hardy had not formally launched Wessex - the part-real, part-dream area, based on his native Southwest England, that he made world famous -, but this has much in common with the great Wessex novels and is always put with them. It is thus notable for a profound sense of place. Perhaps no one equals Hardy at making place so important that it is an integral part of the story; setting is never mere backdrop with him. Though early, this is a preeminent example. Closely based on his rural England hometown and the surrounding area, Under's Mellstock comes alive as very few settings do - all the more remarkable in that it is so very different from our world. Hardy's profoundly rural countryside was disappearing even before his birth and had largely passed away by the novel's 1872 publication. Yet it is a mark of his genius that it seems as real as any contemporary setting. His descriptions of things like trees and roads are lush and vivid, giving a vibrant peek into a bygone era, not to mention being beautiful - nay, near-sublime - in themselves. Hardy clearly had not only a great knowledge of the area but a vast love for it; this comes across in every aspect of the writing, and Under greatly benefits. Related to this is his great appreciation of nature's beauty; Under also conveys a grand sense of this, showing Hardy had a strong Romantic streak despite realist leanings.

Perhaps even more valuable is the insight into Mellstock's people; Hardy's Preface notes that the portrait is essentially realistic, thus giving a good idea of how early nineteenth century English villagers thought, lived, and acted. It indeed goes far beyond this, as the culture it describes had been virtually unchanged for a thousand years. Under is largely a comedy of customs, a fascinating glimpse at the mores and standards behind rural culture plus compellingly realistic depictions of speech - Hardy's dialect mastery was already in place - and other elements. Hardy indeed considered Under primarily a portrayal of The Mellstock Quire, a group of church musicians with a long tradition of performing sacred music not only in chapel but at each individual neighborhood cottage each Christmas. His family had been in the real-life equivalent for generations, but the custom was gone by the time of the book. He returned to the subject several times in both prose and verse, but this is the fullest depiction. We get a good idea of how this quaint custom worked along with associated elements; it was a lifelong fascination for Hardy, and he conveys much of its wonder and interest despite such a thing being now near-unimaginable.

Hardy thought this aspect so important that he wanted to call the book The Mellstock Quire and indeed later subtitled it so, but the Quire's goings on happen episodically by the wayside. The ostensible main plot is a very simple love story of the kind that had been told countless times before and nearly as often since. There are some complications - a minor love triangle, class and financial obstacles, etc. -, but the story basically turns out as anyone would have predicted. This may disappoint those used to Hardy's later grand and complex plots but could even be a relief to those who dislike them. Hardy is in any case such a master that he makes the story seem fresher than one would have thought possible, interesting us in the characters and engrossing us in the story far more than the material would seem to warrant. The picturesque, nostalgic setting has much to do with this by making the story seem less typical than it is, but another important ingredient is timelessness. Love may be the most universal feeling, and very few have depicted it as realistically and movingly. Even at this early juncture he writes of young love and first love in a way that will be strikingly familiar to anyone who has ever experienced them. His dramatization of their roller coaster ride - ups and downs, hopes and fears - has rarely been matched; no one can walk away from Under without new appreciation for why love is not only the best thing in life but also one of the most trying. Hardy of course later wrote far more darkly of it, but this is a genuine instance of his vision. He is almost unequaled at portraying emotion, and this early work runs us through a gamut of them; they ring true because of their universality but also because of his stunningly individual genius.

Characterization, always a Hardy strength, is also very important. Fancy Day is a memorable heroine and has many facets characteristic of Hardy's more famous later examples. With a strong independent streak and far more education than nearly all women - and many men - of her time, she was a very advanced character for an early nineteenth-century rural setting and, indeed, for 1872. Under does not take on women's issues in the overt way of later Hardy, but the discerning can see implications in addition to the seeds of what was to come. Dick Dewy is not a typical Hardy hero but has many admirable qualities and quickly gains sympathy. Hardy is well-known for intriguing, nuanced preachers, and Maybold is no exception. There are subtle critiques of the profession and of religion but nothing like his later scathings. Maybold is above all notable for being balanced; he is certainly far from the stock Victorian preacher. Then there are of course the Quire members, who often steal the proverbial show. Colorful rustics became a staple of Hardy novels but were never again so prominent. Entertaining and often humorous - especially the aloof and mentally limited Leaf, very unusual in Hardy for being almost purely comic -, they are close to laughably naïve by today's standards, but honesty and good-heartedness make them more admirable than risible.

This brings up another important point - Under is often called Hardy's gentlest novel and probably is. Perhaps English fiction's most famous tragedian, he is known for immensely dark and depressing work, and this is a bold exception. Comic elements are obvious, but a blithe light-heartedness pervades nearly the whole; it often feels almost like Dickens' lighter side. Perhaps even more fundamentally, Under has an idyllic quality none of his other novels even approach; the setting has a near-magical air and is put forth almost as paradise. It is often said of later Hardy fiction that the plots almost seem malevolently contrived to inflict the most possible damage on innocent characters, but there is none of that here. Clear implications of humanity's cosmic insignificance, the lack of Providence, the sense that earth is not conducive to human life, and the cruelty of fate and chance - so common in later Hardy - are also missing. Hardy later said he regretted the Quire's depiction, feeling he almost burlesqued them and that they were fit for higher things; the Preface suggests he felt constrained by circumstances to write a happy story. Those turned off by his blacker moods will thus be not only relieved but likely surprised that he could convey the opposite sentiment nearly as believably and movingly.

There are in fact darker forces lurking even here, though so deep that they never really surface. Fans and scholars will see points where Hardy could have easily made a tragedy as well as factors that were later used in just such a way. The climactic scene between Fancy and Maybold is a paramount example; initial readers could only have been shocked at such an unexpected turn, and those who have read more representative Hardy will be surprised at how long it took. In great contrast to later Hardy, though, it is resolved almost immediately via the kind of coincidence he later reserved almost exclusively for tragedy. His critics have always claimed that he has an overreliance on melodramatic chance, but anyone who knows anything about him knows he used it deliberately; he was mesmerized by it and extensively milked its dramatic import. He was well aware of how chance can not only ruin lives but seem nothing less than cruel; this is an interesting early instance of how it can sometimes work the other way. The final scene is another case in point. There are many reasons to think Dick and Fancy will be happy, but it is important to realize the significance of the novel stopping before the marriage really begins. The irony of Dick's last words is devastating, and it is hard to feel confident about a marriage with such an undercurrent of falsehood; later Hardy certainly showed its often catastrophic effects. Fancy's secret will likely never come out, and Dick would probably forgive even if it did, but marriage is certainly not what he thinks. Hardy probably stopped here because it was the only way he could write a basically happy story, which says much, as does closing with irony. There is also a slight hint of the fatalism that would come to dominate his work in the cyclical plot based around the seasons. All is kept in check here but soon exploded uncontrollably; Under remains valuable as a counterpart, of varying and substantial value to fans and others. Those who have read a later novel or two and liked them should read about six or seven before this, but those turned off by Hardy's darkness should consider skipping to it.

Ok, I'll admit it. I'm not a Hardy fan. Ever since I read his Tess of the D'Urbervilles (a book filled with endless bad fortune for the title character) I said I'd nvever read another. However, my book club did choose this book and I have dutifully read it.

First, the good. There is no doubt but that Hardy is a superb writer. He captures perfectly what life was like in the 1840s (when the actions in this book were supposed to take place) as well as depicting the characters so well that you feel almost as if you'd recognize them on the street. If that is all you're looking for, then read this book. However, if like me you also want to ENJOY the process of reading, I'd recommend against this book.

For the plot, Hardy uses his writing skills to paint a tale of courtship between a young man and woman. He captures well the angst and naivete involved. For a subplot, he writes about the church choir's angst at being replaced by one person who plays the organ.

The above being said, there is such an undercurrent of cynicism in this book. The two characters as he paints them are very shallow in their courtship and it is apparent that soon after their marriage reality will set in. No one in this book is happily married and it almost seems as if that cannot be. No, the picture Hardy paints is that there is a rush of infatuation resulting in marriage. After marriage, the infatuation quickly fades and one just has to make the best of it. Depressing. I much prefer Dickens books that portray good and bad marriages as is closer to the truth in real life.

One last opinion here. Reading about Hardy's life I can't help thinking that he unfortunately could not keep a good relationship with either of his wives (he married again after being widowed) and thus thinks it is the same for all.