The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy

Published: 1887

My Rating: ****1/2, 4.5/5

Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, is a nearly perfectly balanced novel.  It’s not so melodramatic as The Mayor of Casterbridge, nor is it as tragic as Tess of D’Urbervilles.  The plot revolves around a group of woodlanders living in a village called Little Hintock.  Grace Melbury is a frontrunner among the protagonists along with her two love interests Giles Winterborne and Edred Fitzpiers.  When the novel opens Grace has just returned home after a long absence at school.  Though she has been promised to the rustic Giles, her newfound education and eloquence make the match seem less suitable.  Her well-intentioned, though often unwise, father eventually sets his sights on the new and more refined village doctor, Fitzpiers, as a better match for Grace.

As is usual with Hardy, the ill effects of fate wreak havoc on the lives of these characters.  What is most prevalent in The Woodlanders is the fatalistic force of the past upon the present.  Some additional themes and questions explored by Hardy concern marriage, the effects of the class system, and whether or not the rustic can harmoniously coexist with the modern.  As always, what keeps Hardy’s novels from being unbearably grim is his expressive and powerful prose coupled with his exceptional characterization.   Hardy also doesn’t fail to deliver a healthy dose of suspense.  Towards the end of the novel I thought I was sure what the outcome would be and then Hardy surprised me with yet another twist in the plot.

While reading Woodlanders, what stood out most to me was the isolation.  The seclusion throughout this novel is both physical and emotional.  The manner in which Hardy conveys that sense of isolation is nothing short of incredible.  This is the sixth novel that I have read by him and I never cease to be amazed at how eloquently, stylishly, and profoundly he can convey an image, a thought, or an idea.  For instance, consider this passage from the first page:

“The physiognomy of a deserted highway expressed solitude to a degree that is not reached by mere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades and pools.  The contrast of what is with what might be, probably accounts for this.  To step, for instance, at the place under notice, from the edge of the plantation into the adjoining thoroughfare, and pause amid its emptiness for a moment, was to exchange by the act of a single stride the simple absence of human companionship for an incubus of the forlorn.”

Almost every time I read that I get goose bumps.  Hardy’s manner of communicating solitude here evokes so much emotion and encapsulates so much more power than merely saying, “An empty highway is a lonely place.”  The feeling builds up like a crescendo, much like the novel as a whole.

Hardy suggests that the vacant highway is lonelier than the dale or the pool because the highway is suggestive of civilization but doesn’t deliver.  A man may not have ever thought to be lonely if he remained gazing into a pool, but by stepping over onto the highway, he suddenly realizes that he’s alone.  Likewise, this image and the thought that follows it correlates with the isolated existence of several characters in The Woodlanders, but the character who stands out to me in this regard is Grace Melbury.  Having been educated and having experienced the finer things in life, when she returns home to the woodland, she realizes what she’s missing in a way that would have never occurred to her if she had not left home.

The more I read Hardy, the more acutely aware I become of his painterly prose.  The introduction in my 1986 Penguin Classics edition points to the effect of Impressionism on Hardy.  I love this thought that was related from his journal:

“I don’t want to see landscapes, i.e. scenic paintings of them, because I don’t want to see the original realities – as optical effects that is.  I want to see the deeper reality underlying the scenic, the expression of what are sometimes called abstract imaginings.  The ‘simply natural’ is interesting no longer.”

I am grateful that Hardy was so astute at communicating his inspiration and intention as I often feel the brilliance of Hardy much more than I am able to articulate it.  What he expresses above speaks to one of his most amazing abilities as a writer.  Experiencing his work is often very much like looking at a painting.  Not just a pretty picture of mountains and stream – but the kind of painting that incites an emotional reaction.  That’s why Hardy’s lengthy descriptions of the landscape don’t become boring or exhaustive.  He’s not just laying out the details of the landscape; he’s letting you know what it feels like to be there.  What sets Hardy’s descriptions of the natural world apart can perhaps be illustrated by comparing two distinct landscape paintings.

The first is from American painter Bob Ross:

You might say that this painting is “pretty,” you might comment on the nice colors, or relate that the composition works well – but looking at this painting does not give you any real sense of what it feels like to be there.  Though precise in its detail, it’s emotionally flat.  Were I asked to describe it I might say, “It’s a nice mountain, a still stream, and some evergreen trees.”  Accurate, but not particularly gripping.

Compare that with this next painting by J.M.W. Turner (of whom Hardy was apparently a fan):

Instantly, upon gazing at this painting we can feel the power, the grandeur, and the turbulence of the scene.  It almost feels dangerous.   You certainly don’t walk away from this painting just saying, “It’s a mountain.”  What the first painting merely states, the second communicates.  There is the transference of emotion and thought.  The Turner painting is infinitely more visually interesting.  I could look at it 10 times longer than the former without getting bored with it.  The fact that the image is less distinct only serves to add to the interest.  I can leave this painting, come back to it later, and see something different in it.  Though you might say that the Ross painting is more realistic, the Turner, in its obscurity, feels truer.

And so it is with Hardy.  He thought that what was left in obscurity was just as important and powerful as what was described in detail.  He does not just paint flat pictures that are bogged down with rigid and unimportant details.  He describes the natural world in such a way that you don’t just see it, you feel it.    The scenes, natural and otherwise, that he constructs are specific and intentional in their composition, detail, and emotion.  He is truly an artist with words.

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• Victorian Literature Challenge

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