Far From the Madding Crowd

By Thomas Hardy

Apart from reading Mayor of Casterbridge in my teens, I somehow did not find my way to Thomas Hardy all these years. That book perhaps I half understood or probably very little. But on picking up Far from the Madding Crowd, I do wonder all the reading delights I have missed and perhaps can look forward to in his other books as well.

Still ongoing for me (two-thirds done), it is a joy and delight. I enjoy reading about both Gabriel Oak and Bathsheba Everdene. And although there's a lot of plot and happenings and a little drama and some sentiment, there's a lot of joy of life in the writing, and many passages need to be read again, my mental note being perhaps I need to read the book again. Gabriel Oak is an inspiration and his good sense a beacon. Bathsheba, her freedom of spirit and keenness of life, another inspiration. And Hardy's observations throughout the book, a pleasure to read and re-read. 

In a long while a book which I do not exit from or switch to other books. Only sometimes when I need breathing space. Perhaps it would have inspired a lot of drama, but I enjoy the language. Glad that I am reading it, and wondering how come haven’t heard people talk about it. But perhaps people have read all the classics long time ago. Sometimes, some passages I wish to reread the book. Like the stoicism of Gabriel Oak. Guess somewhere, there’s life advice there. All the high drama comes and goes, it passes, but his constancy, his stoicism, his cheerfulness, loyalty and sense of duty – simplicity. All that wins the day for me. Lots to absorb there. 

Somehow the books of yore have a peace and quiet in them which modern books leave one thirsty for. There's a lot of strife in modern life, and so much of it is self-made, a bit pointless seeming but perhaps never seeming pointless to the concerned parties. There's a sort of despair, dissatisfaction, incompleteness, a sense of loss, fragmentation in modern novels. But somehow the older books - may be the writers were wiser, maybe they created some wise characters, there's a sense of peace, a sense of fulness, and irrespective of the vicissitudes of life, a sense of joy in living.

**

Some excerpts from the book:

"Stupors, however, do not last for ever, and Farmer Oak recovered from his. It was as remarkable as it was characteristic that the one sentence he uttered was in thankfulness:" 

"another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise."

"Gabriel was paler now. His eyes were more meditative, and his expression was more sad. He had passed through an ordeal of wretchedness which had given him more than it had taken away. He had sunk from his modest elevation as pastoral king into the very slime-pits of Siddim; but there was left to him a dignified calm he had never before known, and that indifference to fate which, though it often makes a villain of a man, is the basis of his sublimity when it does not. And thus the abasement had been exaltation, and the loss gain."

"He drew out his flute and began to play “Jockey to the Fair” in the style of a man who had never known moment’s sorrow. Oak could pipe with Arcadian sweetness, and the sound of the well-known notes cheered his own heart as well as those of the loungers. He played on with spirit, and in half an hour had earned in pence what was a small fortune to a destitute man."

"He fancied that he had felt himself in the penumbra of a very deep sadness when touching that slight and fragile creature. But wisdom lies in moderating mere impressions, and Gabriel endeavoured to think little of this."

"He also thought of plans for fetching his few utensils and books from Norcombe. The Young Man’s Best Companion, The Farrier’s Sure Guide, The Veterinary Surgeon, Paradise Lost, The Pilgrim’s Progress, Robinson Crusoe, Ash’s Dictionary, and Walkingame’s Arithmetic, constituted his library; and though a limited series, it was one from which he had acquired more sound information by diligent perusal than many a man of opportunities has done from a furlong of laden shelves."

"This picture of to-day in its frame of four hundred years ago did not produce that marked contrast between ancient and modern which is implied by the contrast of date. In comparison with cities, Weatherbury was immutable. The citizen’s Then is the rustic’s Now. In London, twenty or thirty years ago are old times; in Paris ten years, or five; in Weatherbury three or four score years were included in the mere present, and nothing less than a century set a mark on its face or tone. Five decades hardly modified the cut of a gaiter, the embroidery of a smock-frock, by the breadth of a hair. Ten generations failed to alter the turn of a single phrase. In these nooks the busy outsider’s ancient times are only old; his old times are still new; his present is futurity"

"Like Guildenstern, Oak was happy in that he was not over happy. He had no wish to converse with her: that his bright lady and himself formed one group, exclusively their own, and containing no others in the world, was enough."

"What a way Oak had, she thought, of enduring things. Boldwood, who seemed so much deeper and higher and stronger in feeling than Gabriel, had not yet learnt, any more than she herself, the simple lesson which Oak showed a mastery of by every turn and look he gave—that among the multitude of interests by which he was surrounded, those which affected his personal well-being were not the most absorbing and important in his eyes. Oak meditatively looked upon the horizon of circumstances without any special regard to his own standpoint in the midst. That was how she would wish to be."

"In the worst attacks of trouble there appears to be always a superficial film of consciousness which is left disengaged and open to the notice of trifles,"

All Excerpts From

Hardy, Thomas. “Far from the Madding Crowd.”