The Mayor of Casterbridge
Ratings26
Average rating3.8
15
Ratings26
Average rating3.8
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled 'A Story of a Man of Character', Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
Reviews with the most likes.
one of the best books i've read in what feels like forever. unpredictable, dramatic, and thrilling!
Quite the difficult read for a non-native english speaker as myself, but a very rewarding one. Gripping story, truculent characters, and a great use of repeating symbols throughout the pages. I felt for Mr Henchard and his impulsive and horrible decision-making skills. First Thomas Hardy work I've read so far, and it won't be the last.
Hardy has such a way of melding the happy & the tragic. A terrific story of an imperfect man.
I know so many regard this as Hardy's best novel, but not for me. It is not the bleakness, which I rather revel in, but the increasingly strained twists in the plot which rather annoyed me. (His superficial consideration of how Elizabeth-Jane is affected by all the deceit surprised me).
