Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Black chaos comes., January 26, 2005
"Gloomy fatalism" influenced by Schopenhauer is how critics described this novel when it was first published. Thomas Hardy's (1840-1928) sixth novel is about doomed love and chance, and when it is measured against his masterpieces, TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES (1891) and JUDE THE OBSCURE (1895), THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE (1878) succeeds as one of the Victorian novelist's most powerful works. It tells the story of an idealistic and intellectual young man, Clym Yeobright, who abandons the ambitious goals set for him by his strong-minded mother, after becoming infatuated with a free-spirited, sensuous woman, Eustacia Vye, in a wild and lonely place. The plot unfolds on Hardy's "partly real and partly dream country," Egdon Heath, a dark Wessex moor associated with tragic possibilities. As Alexander Theroux observes in his Introduction to this edition of Hardy's novel, Hardy was committed to the deep expression of nature's ironic chaos and strange apathy, even hostility toward man (p. x), and in this respect, Egdon Heath could be described as a major protagonist in the novel. It has been said that Hardy viewed life as something to put up with.
When Clym Yeobright (the "native") returns to Egdon Heath from his studies in Paris, he decides to reject his chosen profession and marry Eustacia Vye instead. Eustacia is a darkly complicated young woman (and one of Hardy's most fascinating characters), who hopes to escape her dreary existence on the Heath for a more cosmopolitan life in Paris. (In a heart-wrenching subplot, Clym's passion for Eustacia leads to his estrangement from his mother, Mrs. Yeobright, who disapproves of the union.) Prior to Clym's return, Eustacia loved Damon Wildeve; that is, until he proposed marriage to Clym's cousin, Thomasin Yeobright. To further complicate things, Diggory Venn, a reddleman, secretly admires Thomasin. For his self-destructive characters, the course of love is never happy in in Hardy's cruel universe. "Black chaos comes," he writes, "and the fettered gods of the earth say, Let there be light" (p. 15).
Reading Victorian fiction does not get any better than reading Thomas Hardy. Returning to Hardy's brooding, melancholy novels after first reading them more than twenty five years ago, I am re-discovering Hardy's brilliant ability to convey familiar, primordial truths through his fiction, making him worth reading again and again.
G. Merritt
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The narrative genius of Hardy, February 24, 2003
There are two and a half sets of lovers in Thomas Hardy's "The Return of the Native," which, if your math is correct and your idea of the number of lovers in a set concurs with mine, makes five people. Romance, deceit, misunderstanding, and misfortune affect their destinies, and those to whom the novel is cruelest come to tragic ends because they refuse to forgive themselves or others for mistakes.The central tragic figure is Eustacia Vye, a young woman who has come to live on Egdon Heath with her cantankerous grandfather. Despising the dreariness of the heath and generally secluding herself from the local populace, she is somewhat of an outsider and not well liked by some in the community. She was in love with Damon Wildeve, a former engineer who now owns an inn and is not too happy about it; but their affair has since cooled and Wildeve has turned his attention to a girl named Thomasin Yeobright. Wildeve and Thomasin's wedding is aborted when the marriage license turns out to be invalid, and Thomasin, running home to her aunt in shame and anger, is caught on the rebound by Diggory Venn, her long-time admirer. A word about Venn's profession is in order: He is a "reddleman," who, not unlike the ice cream man in the summertime, rides around the heath in a van selling a strange product that shades its vendor most memorably. Completing the quintet is Thomasin's cousin Clym Yeobright, an Egdon Heath native who is returning permanently after living for some time in Paris as a diamond merchant. Destiny eventually unites Clym and Eustacia in love, but Clym's mother does not approve of the union; she doesn't like Eustacia, and she fears their being married would prevent or discourage Clym from returning to his lucrative career in Paris. They get married anyway, as do Wildeve and Thomasin on a second try, leaving Venn as the fifth wheel but still not out of the running. The catalyst for the tragedy of the novel involves an attempted reconciliation between Clym's mother and Eustacia, which results in the kind of ugly situation that could be cleared up by simple explanations and apologies but instead is exacerbated by normal circumstances. On top of this, Wildeve realizes he still loves Eustacia and is willing to help her in any course of action, no matter how lacking in judgment, that she thinks is an appropriate response to her plight. This novel swells with Hardy's typical narrative genius, but no less impressive than the plot, the characters, the dialogue, and the prose, is the barren but hauntingly beautiful setting of Egdon Heath. Like the famous Casterbridge of his later novel, it is a world unto itself, defined by its own peculiar topography and populated by denizens who, with their own special jargon, customs, and folklore, act as a sort of Greek chorus towards the drama of the principal characters, commenting on events with humor and gravity. The heathmen and women don't much mind the hardships of life; they're the kind of people that will joyfully dance around their bonfires on the barrows even without musical accompaniment.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
'A face on which time leaves little impression', November 20, 2001
By A Customer
Egdon Heath is the wild and hostile environment in which Hardy's tale of love and loss takes place. The setting of the novel is inescapable and its influence so strong that the heath is almost a character in itself. The action of the novel focusses around three men and three women; Clym Yeobright, Diggory Venn and Damon Wildeve and Mrs Yeobright (Clym's mother), her niece Thomasin whom she has adopted and Eustacia Vye. The other charcters in the novel are the heath people who form a greek chorus to the novel and are occasionally used as instigators of the action. The main theme of the novel is doomed love and the way in which the characters are unable to escape their destiny. It is also interesting to note that the ending to the novel was not the one Hardy inteneded, he had intended to end it after the scene by Shadwater weir. However, his publishers demanded a more positive ending and one which I feel slightly undermines the power of the novel. Most editions have a footnote at the point where Hardy had intended to finish, allowing readers to choose which ever ending they prefer.
Hardy's characterisation is highly realistic in that the boundaries between 'good' and 'bad' characters are somewhat fluid. He also explores the idea of the 'fatal flaw' and how people inevitably destroy themselves and those they hold most dear. If you're looking for a 'feel-good' novel this is not the one to go for but if you enjoy enjoy novels like Wuthering Heights and Tess of the Durbervilles then place your order now...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Eustacia and the Heath: Two Sides of the Same Coin
Yes, the Heath is the centerpiece, but no more than Eustacia, for they are mirrors of one another, by turns cold and aloof, brooding, mysterious, somewhat wild, tempestuous, and a...
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Published on March 24, 2006 by Neil Cotiaux
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