Book Blog #201: The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

Title: The Mayor of Casterbridge
Author: Thomas Hardy
# of Pages: 231 (PDF)
Genre: Classics, Fiction, Literature
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled ‘A Story of a Man of Character’, Hardy’s powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
Review: This classic took me longer than usual to read, most likely because I didn't have the pressure of school deadlines to keep me reading. As far as Victorian classics go, The Mayor of Casterbridge is pretty standard - a mundane setting with the characters being interconnected and overdramatic plot-twists.

I became interested in reading this book because of an excerpt I read in an AP test; it decently easy to read and the conflict between father (Henchard) and daughter (Elizabeth-Jane) was strange; I wanted to know more about why this father rejected her daughter so cruelly. While the story was interesting, the ridiculousness of some of the characters' actions made the story less compelling than the excerpt seemed to portray. For its time period, it is a good read, and if it were to be written again with a more modern style, it would probably rival many well-written young adult novels.

For a classic, it is not as enlightening as others I have read; the themes of love, loyalty, and duty are all ones I've seen before. However, it is (or at least should be) a quick read and like all classics gives the reader a peek into the lifestyle of that time period. I would recommend reading this book if you're to-be-read shelf is a bit empty and you feel you have time to do some close reading.