As promised, I begin as I mean to go on: with a book.

‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’ certainly isn’t a book for lighthearted readers. It’s long, Hardy’s description, although vivid, and intrusive narration can become tiresome, and those of you who’ve read it will know that it’s not a happy book. In fact, those of you who’ve read any of Hardy’s novels will know that he generally avoids a ‘happy’ plot, apart from in ‘Under the Greenwood Tree.’

The reader is constantly re-evaluating the headline character, the Mayor Michael Henchard, which is, in my opinion, what makes the novel so interesting. Hardy succeeds in making Henchard more than just a 2D character, which so many authors fail in. The reader is encouraged to both dislike Henchard due to his bitter and rash actions, but Hardy continually juxtaposes this with his continual exposing of how, beneath his anger and bitterness, there is a good man. So much so that you are left not knowing how to evaluate the final chapter- a deserving end? Certainly I felt it was rather rushed and sudden, but maybe that was what Hardy was aiming for.

Overall, I find Hardy a good read, more enticing than the oestrogen-fuelled, rashly ended and thin plot of  ‘Jane Eyre,’ but I much more enjoyed Hardy’s ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles,’ of course both are ideal for a bit of male criticism, females brought down by the hands of men etc. and they both succeed in making their main characters more than just characters in a book. To me, the plot of the latter is much richer, and there’s so much more emotion and feeling in the novel (and it was rumoured this was so because Hardy himself fell in love with his own fictionalised character, Tess Durbeyfield) and whilst a good book, in my opinion if you’re looking for a more interesting storyline than I’d look to the other of Hardy’s famous novels.