Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn’d to stray;
Along the cool sequester’d vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.
~ “Elegy Written In A Country Churchyard” – Thomas Gray
February, as we all know, is the month of love, and so I bring you an arguably lesser known (but still certainly known) classic romance novel, Far From the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, a Victorian Romanticist. Through his illustrious career, he wrote many novels and collections of poetry, and he’s now known mostly for his Tess of the D’Urbervilles. He’s known for his not-happy-endings – Madding Crowd is his only real “happy ending” novel out of the many he wrote. But of course, like all good novels, the characters undergo frustrations and disasters before said happy ending. And in the vein of all Hardy novels, this is a slow, languid read – but then again, Hardy’s emphasis on the pastoral setting is really just its charm.
The story mostly follows Bathsheba Everdene, an independent young woman with hopes of running the largest estate in the area, left to her by her late uncle, and Gabriel Oak, a sheep farmer in the vicinity. I say mostly because this novel is really Bathsheba’s story over anything else because everything’s driven by her (debatable) decision making. Besides Oak, steady and very much the perfect love interest, there’s William Boldwood, the passionate 40-odd bachelor who lives next door, and there’s Francis Troy, a dashing, bewilderingly romantic, entirely unscrupulous sergeant in the vein of Pride & Prejudice’s Wickham. This is love geometry at its finest, brought upon by Bathsheba’s impetuous nature and reckless decisions.
Far From the Madding Crowd explores the tempestuous relationships of Bathsheba Everdene, from Oak to Boldwood to Troy. Bathsheba’s decision-making is questionable at best, she’s certainly not a role model, and there’s definitely the feeling of Hardy writing her with the nature of, well, being a 19th century writer, but then – Hardy is a master of the ‘human nature’ – it all just makes sense at some point or other. Oak and Boldwood and Troy represent three very different and unique love interests and characters in their own right. Many have pointed out Hardy’s psychology of his characters through his novels, and Madding Crowd illustrates that well with this very convoluted story. Beyond Bathsheba and the men, there are the inhabitants of the village, each a strangely delightful character in their own ways despite whatever role they play, however small.
And there’s just so much sheep in here, and that’s what makes it amazing. Hardy considered himself a poet over anything else, and it’s rather obvious in the way he wrote his novels, especially given he was a Romantic, filling his novels with descriptions of scenery. His dialogue is witty and sarcastic and overall delightful; his characterizations are wonderful. There are so many quotable and humorous moments – the entirely surprising deadpan humor of many of the old authors is one of my favorite things about them. He brings Wessex to life; he illustrates the life of the farmers, the trials and tribulations and triumphs of country life, the slowness and gentleness of the village. Just the thought of Bathsheba and her incredibly complicated love geometry coming into this generally peaceful scenery is jolting, but Hardy manages to weave them together in ways that complement each other.