It takes your breadth away!!. Review on Mayor of Casterbridge, The - Thomas Hardy

How many novels do you think are there that can make you cry? Or you do not care. You think that it an emotion which not worth exploring. That’s why you always want happy endings. Even if the story has to be turned on its head, even if some supernatural elements have to be introduced in perfectly normal tales, the end should be happy. Do you realise how many stories, movies, dramas must have been destroyed by this tendency of yours, which would otherwise have gone on to become legends. Legends like The Mayor of Casterbridge. Yes, it’s a legend, penned by that wizard Thomas Hardy.

The novel is centred on its protagonist, Michael Henchard and is widely considered to be the best ever drawing of a male character in English literature. The attention of the reader is caught right in the first chapter with the famous wife-selling episode. Henchard is thus shown as violently passionate man, who is then filled with remorse when he gets sober and vows not to touch liquor for twenty years and he keeps his promise(Are you listening New-Year-Resolutionists!!). From a humble hay- trusser he rises to be rich man and The Mayor of Casterbridge. But how his unbridled passion brings about his downfall is the main theme of this story.

The novel is strewn here and there with the usual humours and satires as is the hallmark of Hardy. Like when Donald Farfrae a Scotchman sings longingly about his country, someone remarks…..”What did ye come away from yer own country for, young maister, if he be so wownded about it?” inquired Christopher Coney. Then again “…his voice being distinctly audible in the street, giving strong expression to a song of his dear native country that he loved so well as never to have revisited it.”

As to the end--- it is simply mind blowing. The will of Michael Henchard evokes such emotions as rarely done in a book. All in all a great novel and a must read.