The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 6 June 1999
by Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy had a gift for writing of life's pain and frequent degradation. From without, society enforces its norms. From within, personal corruption brings self-destruction. In this book (first published in 1886), the author tells the tale of Henchard, a lowly farmer who walks into a town, gets ripping drunk, and sells his wife and child to the highest bidder. This happens in only the opening chapters of this disturbing novel. Henchard, gripped with a regretful hangover, goes on to vow to refrain from drink for 21 years. In the interim, he becomes a successful businessman and mayor of the town of Casterbridge. The reappearance of his wife and her daughter, many years later, triggers a series of events that feed off of Henchard's guilt, his greed, and his alcoholic rage. Serendipitously, a sharp Scottish businessman and another former lover arrive in Casterbridge. All these people, merely searching for some semblance of happiness in Hardy's broad pastures of pain, bring on the collapse of Henchard's life. He feels set upon, but wallows in his decades-old guilt. Henchard is self destructive, violent, greedy. But he is also brought down by his sense of duty and fickle moments of kind-heartedness. The book is a sad tale with glimmers of hope. Henchard's character is well-defined and disturbing. Hardy's writing is as often brilliant as it is dark.