The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

The native of the title is Clym Yeobright, who returns to the area from the bright society of Paris and, as any reader of Hardy knows, all is not smooth. He is quickly taken by and marries the one woman he should not--Eustacia Vye. The suffering that follows is mitigated somewhat by the ending.

i have no idea why i was putting off reading a thomas hardy because, boy, did i enjoy this.

this book is filled with characters you love to hate, and thus the demise of anyone feels really righteous and deserved. i sound like a terrible person when i say that, but honestly most of the enjoyment of reading this novel for me came from the downfall of the main characters after everything they had put each other through. while loathesome and annoying, the main characters seem like caricatures but also very real at the same time. in modern contexts, i'm sure there are a lot of plots and stories that can follow eustacia's (is there a late 90's/early 00's movie based off of this because there should be). the plot moved along a little slowly at first, but once it picked up towards the second half, it was hard to put the book down.

highly recommend for an interesting story about the desire of escape and grandeur, and how we may make grave mistakes that cost us our happiness in our pursuit for them.

How does this novel have such a good reputation? Contrived, dull, with no character development and unlikable people doing foolish and stupid things, screwing up their own and other people's lives. Pretentious and pompous pontifications from a benighted fool of an author. Several hours of my life I will never get back. Rubbish.