The Beaker tradition is that we start reading Thomas Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree" every year on Xmas Eve. This year, I kept to the tradition.
Of course, the nature of life is such that you never know how far you will progress. So far I've just reached "Autumn".
And the concerns of Miss Fancy Day have merged with my listening this evening to the music of Kirsty MacColl. Which is never going to incline me to the dominant male's view on life.
Fancy Day is on the verge of committing herself to Dick. I say, "don't do it, Fancy!" Why should Fancy be the only woman in Hardy's dream-world who doesn't end up producing children who will suck the life out of her, or be at risk of death themselves? Hardy's most cuddly-bunny novel is, at the same time, as devoid of hope as any other. Ten kids then a sad bereavement is my guess.
Fancy Day! We're 150 years apart, and both imaginary! My plea is simple... ditch Dick and join an Anglo-Catholic order of nuns! You know it makes sense.
Why not give up Thomas Hardy for Lent Archdruid?
ReplyDeleteFollowing his doomed heroines and heroes down his dark and gloomy lanes is not good for the soul.
Try a little light reading for a change, perhaps The fall of the house of Usher, or The Innocents for example.
If all else fails there's always "From the house of the dead".