Thomas Hardy: a Biography by Claire Tomalin

Simply put, I LOVED this book!

I will admit that I do not write from a place of objectivity here. I am totally enraptured by Mr. Hardy.  I recently finished and reviewed Jude the Obscure which marks the completion of my reading of his major works.  I have now read seven of his novels, and with each reading my love for him grew by leaps and bounds.  He is one of the most prolifically deep and soulful writers that I have yet encountered.

As for the biography, Tomalin manages to be detailed but not tedious – which in my view is no small feat.  Her writing is fluid, simple, and unpretentious.  She does not make too many assumptions.  I imagine that when compiling a biography, particularly for an enigmatic character like Hardy, it would be easy to infer too much.  Tomalin mostly sticks to what she can corroborate with  journals, letters, news articles and the like.  And her volume is well annotated.  Nearly every chapter (of which there are 24) lists no less than 40 citations.  Some notes simply supply the source while others expound with additional information to back up whatever claim is being made.  All in all, Tomalin puts forth an informed while also sensitive and poignant portrayal without being overly biased.

In line with the chronological happenings of Hardy’s life, Tomalin offers a synopsis and brief assessment of each of his major novels as well as a few of the minor ones.  More often, she incorporates timely excerpts from his poetry.  I was reading a volume of Hardy’s poems alongside this book so I appreciated Tomalin’s insights into the inspiration and events surrounding the writing of certain poems and her anecdotes also served to enhance both my enjoyment and understanding of specific poems.

There are also ruminations of Hardy’s boyhood, his adolescent flirtations, his carving out of a life in London, the literary transgressions on his way to becoming a writer, his lamentations through not one, but two, unfulfilling marriages, in addition to numerous accounts of literary figures that he rubbed elbows with.  I, for one, did my best to absorb every word of it.

Emma Gifford - Hardy's 1st wife -You can just look at this picture and tell that she is one who might have a flair for ridiculous tenacity.

I also ached for Hardy.  I know that he was by no means faultless in his relationships, but I sort of yearned for him to find true love the way I yearned for Jude to experience success.  Although by all accounts it doesn’t sound like he was the easiest person to live with, particularly in his old age.  I had to laugh at this little account of Hardy’s obstinacy whenever Florence (his second wife) tried to go anywhere:

He announced that he felt ill just as she was about to leave.  {Florence says,} ‘He began to put his papers in order and told me he was doing it lest he should die suddenly . . . By this time I began to think it would be wrong to leave him and so I . . . cancelled all my engagements . . . whereupon he suddenly became quite well.’”

I was enamored by all the seemingly insignificant little glimpses into Hardy’s daily life and idiosyncrasies.   Am I romanticizing him?  Sure I am.  I’m pretty sure that Florence didn’t find this behavior at all charming; but as a snippet in the life of a man I have so come to revere, I’ll admit, to me it’s endearing.  As I’m a bit phone-phobic myself, he totally won me over with his neuroses when I learned that he also apparently refused to answer the telephone when they had one installed.

If anything, this book has also served to increase my protectiveness of Hardy.  I respect everyone’s reading preferences and tastes but I will admit to feeling a twinge defensive when I hear people write off his work as “too tragic” or “overly depressing.”  To see Hardy’s work as merely tragic is to miss the point.  Of course, to overlook or downplay the tragedy would also be equally false.  As Tomalin relates specifically about the characters in Hardy’s novel, The Woodlanders;

To deny that their fate is tragic is to deny them their dignity and truth, and to miss Hardy’s gloomy point of the vulnerability of the poor.”

Hardy’s novels ARE tragic, but tragedy is not the essence of any of them.  Unfortunate events speak to larger issues – things like poverty, fate, the human condition, and societal constraints.  The tragic elements are more than mere sensationalism.

Tomalin also shares an appraisal of The Woodlanders in which the reviewer says that the book was “written with an indifference to the moral effect it conveys . . . {that} lowers the art of his works quite as it lowers the moral tone.”

I couldn’t disagree more.

It’s true that it’s easy to “miss the point,” as I said earlier, because the essence and substance of Hardy’s work is often subtle, but it IS there brimming below the surface, waiting to be unearthed with a little extra time and contemplation.  The fact that most of his novels lack an overtly stated moral message or a didactic tone infinitely ADDS to the artistry of his work, rather than the opposite.  I am no writer but I imagine that it’s easier to write with a heavy hand than it is to construct an elusive mosaic of ideas that only comes into view with some reflection and scrutiny.  I liken it to looking at one of those “Magic Eye” pictures that were popular when I was a kid in the 90s.  At first glance they appear to be just an obscure and convoluted swirl of colors – with the embedded image only coming into view with special focus and attention.

It was no secret that the book would end with Hardy’s death, obviously I was aware of the inevitability of that – but I won’t lie, I shed a tiny tear.  That tear was indicative of mixed emotion – I felt the natural remorse of death that comes with witnessing the course of a great man’s life from boyhood through old age.  I felt sad for him in a way, seeing what a tortured soul he was.  Mostly, I felt the bittersweet triumph of his accomplishments blended with the impermanence of life.  It might seem like an odd reaction.  But somehow it feels strangely appropriate that a major theme of his work should well up upon beholding the events of his life.

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Published: 2007

My Rating:  ***** 5/5

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P.S. I have NO idea what the Magic Eye image is supposed to be.

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