This must have been an earlier work of Thomas Hardy than his more famous, better known in being more read, other works that are evoked successively when reading this - Far From The Madding Crowd, and Tess Of The d'Urberville, most clearly evoked.
But not immediately at the beginning. The haunting familiarity comes later as one reads on, and the comparatively rough, elusive things in this one are far more polished, defined in those.
One of those, for example, is Hardy's typical descriptions of nature, lyrical and beautiful.
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To begin with there is the odd title, and a homage to blue eyes, that's perplexing in that Hardy wasn't known to be a racist or a colonial expansionist, exactly. So one assumes it's a homage of a personal nature.
But then the first part that follows is on one hand a ghost of his later familiar style, of a dark rural valley close to sea at a West corner of Cornwall, with hills and cliffs and more, sort of illustration of the dark lonely life of the blue eyed beauty, the vicar's daughter Elfriede, whose life is secluded until a visitor arrives, a young architect sent by his firm to work on church restoration.
This seclusion is not merely due to the time and location, which would do a great deal towards making it comparatively lonely, what with no schooling, difficulties of transport and more. It has much more to do with the society as it was in not only England but most of Europe, even most of West except frontier country across the pond - and that was as lonely a life as it gets.
Here in this tale, it was also due to what can only be called caste system - that of England, of Europe and of West in general.
Thomas Hardy is one of the honest authors who not only portray this caste system of England, thus giving lie to and exposing the propaganda by colonial regimes that strove to equate the very word with India, leading ignorant Indians to infer that Europe, England or West in general had no caste system whatever, for what it was - fraudulent propaganda in accord with Macaulay policy of u dermining India by badmouthing everything that was good about it.
Hardy's expose' of this caste system in this work might seem like a novelty, until one reflects that in Far From The Madding Crowd it's very much present too, throughout, just camouflaged unlike here, which leads one to think this was an earlier work. Here, it's not merely exposed and portrayed, it's practically hammered into the reader, what with the vicar's treatment of Stephen Smith changing from courteous and encouraging until he is told about Smith being the son of a local mason, when it not only changes to his cold dismissal but to an outraged accrual of deception, and curt forbiddance of his aspiring to Elfriede's hand.
Needless to say the same consideration then has vicar encouraging a proximity between his daughter and men he considers acceptable, of higher caste than himself.
To begin with there is the odd title, and a homage to blue eyes, that's perplexing in that Hardy wasn't known to be a racist or a colonial expansionist, exactly. So one assumes it's a homage of a personal nature.
But then the first part that follows is on one hand a ghost of his later familiar style, of a dark rural valley close to sea at a West corner of Cornwall, with hills and cliffs and more, sort of illustration of the dark lonely life of the blue eyed beauty, the vicar's daughter Elfriede, whose life is secluded until a visitor arrives, a young architect sent by his firm to work on church restoration.
This seclusion is not merely due to the time and location, which would do a great deal towards making it comparatively lonely, what with no schooling, difficulties of transport and more. It has much more to do with the society as it was in not only England but most of Europe, even most of West except frontier country across the pond - and that was as lonely a life as it gets.
Here in this tale, it was also due to what can only be called caste system - that of England, of Europe and of West in general.
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Thomas Hardy is one of the honest authors who not only portray this caste system of England, thus giving lie to and exposing the propaganda by colonial regimes that strove to equate the very word with India, leading ignorant Indians to infer that Europe, England or West in general had no caste system whatever, for what it was - fraudulent propaganda in accord with Macaulay policy of u dermining India by badmouthing everything that was good about it.
Hardy's expose' of this caste system in this work might seem like a novelty, until one reflects that in Far From The Madding Crowd it's very much present too, throughout, just camouflaged unlike here, which leads one to think this was an earlier work. Here, it's not merely exposed and portrayed, it's practically hammered into the reader, what with the vicar's treatment of Stephen Smith changing from courteous and encouraging until he is told about Smith being the son of a local mason, when it not only changes to his cold dismissal but to an outraged accrual of deception, and curt forbiddance of his aspiring to Elfriede's hand.
Needless to say the same consideration then has vicar encouraging a proximity between his daughter and men he considers acceptable, of higher caste than himself.
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That the man who steals Elfriede from Smith happens to be his mentor is the ironic twist perhaps necessary to the story, despite the confusion it produces for the reader for a while, is a smaller part. The greater and subtle part is the kind of man Knight is, who has spent his years with books and written about women but never dealt with any. That the pedagogue was seen by most, but not all, as exemplary intellectual wise enough to be admired and more, is no more than a mirror image of the sermons delivered weekly by the priest in more than one church, and his own standing in the society.
Hardy portrays the Smith society, too, and without any rosy tinted glasses either. But it's the absolute ridiculousness of Knight as a superior thinker or a wise man, his being in reality someone with education and certainty of his superiority rather than one with wisdom or ability to see, that makes it both good and difficult reading simultaneously. One can just see Elfriede making a mistake and wishing she wouldn't, helplessly.
Tess Of The d'Urberville ends with her death, and so does Anna Karenina; it's fair to question if the respective authors intended to satisfy the moralists of their time, or invoke a revulsion of such ends of such living beings with innocence and love. Here it comes again as a part question, part because one suspects the author intended to indict the men who caused these deaths by breaking those hearts - the curate husband of Tess, and here Knight who wasn't intelligent enough to realise Elfriede was still virgin but for a couple of kisses.
That she lived for a while after his leaving, and even married the neighbour Lord Luxellian, is no counter to Knight's guilt. She died of broken heart, only, not immediately. But soon enough at that.
One does wish she'd lived on, happy, snubbed Knight and more, but then it would require a normalcy and growth that would hide the injustice done to her, as it happens in life.
That the man who steals Elfriede from Smith happens to be his mentor is the ironic twist perhaps necessary to the story, despite the confusion it produces for the reader for a while, is a smaller part. The greater and subtle part is the kind of man Knight is, who has spent his years with books and written about women but never dealt with any. That the pedagogue was seen by most, but not all, as exemplary intellectual wise enough to be admired and more, is no more than a mirror image of the sermons delivered weekly by the priest in more than one church, and his own standing in the society.
Hardy portrays the Smith society, too, and without any rosy tinted glasses either. But it's the absolute ridiculousness of Knight as a superior thinker or a wise man, his being in reality someone with education and certainty of his superiority rather than one with wisdom or ability to see, that makes it both good and difficult reading simultaneously. One can just see Elfriede making a mistake and wishing she wouldn't, helplessly.
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Tess Of The d'Urberville ends with her death, and so does Anna Karenina; it's fair to question if the respective authors intended to satisfy the moralists of their time, or invoke a revulsion of such ends of such living beings with innocence and love. Here it comes again as a part question, part because one suspects the author intended to indict the men who caused these deaths by breaking those hearts - the curate husband of Tess, and here Knight who wasn't intelligent enough to realise Elfriede was still virgin but for a couple of kisses.
That she lived for a while after his leaving, and even married the neighbour Lord Luxellian, is no counter to Knight's guilt. She died of broken heart, only, not immediately. But soon enough at that.
One does wish she'd lived on, happy, snubbed Knight and more, but then it would require a normalcy and growth that would hide the injustice done to her, as it happens in life.
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April 26, 2020 -
May 09, 2020 - May 20, 2020.
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April 26, 2020 -
May 09, 2020 - May 20, 2020.
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