Synopsis (credit: www.amazon.co.uk)

Grace Melbury, the only daughter of a timber-merchant, arrives home in Little Hintock after an expensive education and her father looks to find a husband for her. There are two rivals for her hand: Giles Winterborne, a good-hearted yeoman and her childhood sweetheart, and Edred Fitzpiers, an ambitious young doctor of a good family. Fitzpiers wins her, but the mismatch brings unhappiness not just to the young couple, but to a wider circle in the woodland community.

The Woodlanders is one of Hardy’s most powerful works and the one he liked best. With brooding sexual undertones, it addresses themes about which the author held strong views: the laws of divorce, the inequalities of society, and the uncertainty of land tenure.

On the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die List.

(Bought second-hand at Kloof Street Library, Tamboerskloof.)

With Thomas Hardy one doesn't get a sketch or a portrait; one gets the full, pastoral landscape in realistic detail to the last bit of vegetation. It's never a quick read, but worth the effort.

According to the introductory notes, this was Hardy's favourite of his novels. One can see why. Much of it is sentimental: reflections of a time and a lifestyle past. The changes to come are already hinted at. Fortunately the author is too much of a realist to oversimplify things. There were as many problematic aspects about the time as there were those to be treasured and fondly remembered. Ultimately the book is about human interactions against this backdrop, and in Hardy's works these are never straightforward.

A good read for a wintery weekend.

Left on the long table.

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