HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE HO2056 9/14/02 "READERS' FAVORITE SCENES FROM HARDY" ======================================================================== Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 23:05:38 -0500 From: Glen & Sara van Alkemade Subject: Prose & Politics I was surprised and disappointed when the forum became a forum for political wrangling. I hope this is in the past. We haven't had a strictly literary topic in a while. How about this? Novelists generally assume a certain familiarity among their audience with the subject matter, and therefore do not find it necessary to describe what commonplace objects look like -- like houses, streets, vehicles, plants, etc. I recently read Middlemarch and could not fathom what that place looked like (an American speaking). But sometimes authors write specifically to record and preserve something for future generations. I delight in this form of prose, and of course Hardy wrote a lot of it. So... what are your favorite scenes, and why? Mine include the sheep shearing in FFMC, the cider press business which I believe is in Desperate Remedies, and the opening chapters of Under The Greenwood Tree. Each takes me to a time, place, and culture that I have no other access to, not as a spectator (as when we view a film) but as a participant. Glen ========== Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 23:07:56 -0700 From: Dale Kramer Subject: Re: Prose & Politics There's also some cider press business in The Woodlanders, as well as lots of other stuff about cider, perspectives of landscape (redundant?), and winds blowing through different species of tree, that makes this a particularly rich novel for people interested in fictional settings, or as the common term has it, "place". I suspect that the favorite scenes for people who have traveled (or live) in England are those that remind them of their own observations. For my part, all of Casterbridge comes back to me as I think about the numerous times my family and I have spent there (including the last time I've found genuine clotted cream, eaten with scones in the wonderful Victorian park [whose name I forget]), finding the remnant of the unremarkable Roman wall, walking through the Amphitheatre near dusk, spending an entire afternoon on Maiden Castle. Contra Glenn, though, I don't think Hardy's descriptions take me back to "a time, place, and culture that I have no other access to." Quite to the contrary, the scenes of Hardy's descriptions are recognizable today, in many if not all instances; and we can mentally recreate the physical settings and processes "as a participant" and not just "as a spectator (as when we view a film)." I think, in fact, that this is one of the reasons Hardy's novels outsell George Eliot's. Looking at the matter from another angle, I'd suggest that people who have never been to the West Country can read Hardy in the pre-nostalgic sentiment that the landscape and community they are reading about still exists, and can serve as a magnet for future travel. In any event, thanks, Glen, for suggesting the Hardy site deal however temporarily with Hardy himself, as a respite from organizational politics. (On the other hand, I support the principle of open discussion, which I don't think has got more nasty in the present case than the average faculty meeting. Quite ignorant of what actually went on, and of the motivations for what went on -- I hope that the governing boards of the British and American Hardy associations benefit from the public airing of the dispute.) Best wishes to ALL, Dale ========== Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 08:11:40 -0700 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Re: Prose & Politics >We haven't had a strictly literary topic in a while. Thank you Glen for this welcome return to the raison d'etre of the Forum Although _The Trumpet Major_ is not generally regarded as one of Hardy's best works, it was the first of his novels I was ever to encounter, and it made an enormous impression on me, when I read it in the ninth grade. That was so long ago that I can't remember if the book had illustrations, but I have carried a picture in my mind for years of women walking long distances dressed in the empire-line dresses of the Napoleonic era. The number of long walks taken was particularly striking to me at the time--a city schoolgirl who rode everywhere like everyone else. It was not until I went to Dorset and found that its natives are indeed wonderful walkers, doing so for the sheer pleasure of it, as many descriptions of treks in the Journal describe. Being a little out of condition, and suffering from a trick knee, I have nothing but admiration for them. Betty Cortus ========== From: "Perry Buckden" Subject: Prose (& No Politics) Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 11:46:44 +0100 Betty wrote: "Being a little out of condition, and suffering from a trick knee, I have nothing but admiration for them" [the vigorous perambulating natives of Dorset] Ah, Betty, did you not visit the strange little valley village of Upwey, whose mill is said to be the model for Loveday's in the Trumpet Major? While it's not Lourdes, its wishing well has a reputation for curative properties. And if the bubbling spring fails to knock one's gammy knee on the head, there's always the comfort of the very English tea room to fortify you for the trudge up to the downs. On unchanging scenes, I remember the excitement I felt when not long after first reading The Mayor of Casterbridge, I came out of the south door of Sherborne Abbey and noticed - as TH himself must have done - a name on a nearby tombstone: Abel Whittle. Cheers. Perry ========== Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2002 06:49:30 -0700 From: Betty Cortus Subject: Upwey's Well Thank you for your delightful posting Perry. Would that I had known about Upwey's well before consulting my orthopedist! Betty ========== From: "James Gibson" Subject: Prose and poetry Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 09:35:53 +0100 To continue with Glen's train of thought - chapter ten of Tess speaks for all of us who are so moved by the coming of spring with all its beauty. .............. Having just returned from a few days in North Cornwall, and driven >from the heights of Wessex - shaped as if by a kindly hand - to the dramatic awe-inspiring Cornish coastline - with Beeny still bulking to the sky, and yes, the seals were flopping lazily just below - one's experience is constantly enriched by the memory of Hardy's writing. good wishes to all, Jim and Helen ==========