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aaaaaaaahhhh
May. 1st, 2004 03:19 pmHow can one love an author's work and hate it at the same time? I'm within a few chapters of finishing Return of the Native, and that's how I feel about Thomas Hardy.
The majority of fiction has its very contrived moments: the hero just happens to be walking in the field at the same time the heroine is picking flowers there. The girl just happens to befriend a crotchety old gentleman, only to find out that (surprise, surprise!) he's her long-lost, super-rich grandfather. My own fiction has been filled with such happy coincidences.
But Hardy is different. His plots take opposite twists: the hero writes a heartfelt letter attempting to reconcile himself to the heroine, but the heroine never receives said letter. Main characters repeatedly make bad decisions and reap the consequences, but there's more at work than just that. Hardy's world is often devoid of salvation, of redemption, of forgiveness. His worldview is extraordinarily cynical (almost to the point of being comical in a macabre way).
I cringe as this novel progresses, its characters stuck in a downward spiral. And yet I love the writing style, love the setting, love Hardy's insight into humanity. And once again I ponder: if he had turned to Christ for redemption, how different would his writing be?
The majority of fiction has its very contrived moments: the hero just happens to be walking in the field at the same time the heroine is picking flowers there. The girl just happens to befriend a crotchety old gentleman, only to find out that (surprise, surprise!) he's her long-lost, super-rich grandfather. My own fiction has been filled with such happy coincidences.
But Hardy is different. His plots take opposite twists: the hero writes a heartfelt letter attempting to reconcile himself to the heroine, but the heroine never receives said letter. Main characters repeatedly make bad decisions and reap the consequences, but there's more at work than just that. Hardy's world is often devoid of salvation, of redemption, of forgiveness. His worldview is extraordinarily cynical (almost to the point of being comical in a macabre way).
I cringe as this novel progresses, its characters stuck in a downward spiral. And yet I love the writing style, love the setting, love Hardy's insight into humanity. And once again I ponder: if he had turned to Christ for redemption, how different would his writing be?
