Samuel West gives a beautiful reading of Hardy's elegant novel about innocence lost and love tragically squandered. Grace Melbury has been educated much above her social station by a father who wanted her to have a better life than could be made in the woodland village of her birth. To assuage his own guilt about a past incident in his life, he had always intended for Grace to marry Giles Winterborne, an honest, reliable man. Grace and Giles had been dear friends since childhood, but when Grace returns to the village after her schooling, Giles seems beneath her in sophistication. Giles loses Grace to dashing doctor Edred Fitzpiers, a charming, unfaithful, weak man who is subsequently dazzled by the local aristocrat, a rather coquettish widow named Mrs. Felice Charmond. This story becomes much deeper through Hardy's elegiac prose and keen eye for detail. One never tires of West's dramatization. This quiet work won't appeal to all patrons, especially those who want only the latest best sellers. Although not one of Hardy's most well-known works (e.g., Jude the Obscure, Audio Reviews, LJ 4/1/98), this is a gem that deserves to be heard.--Nancy Paul, Brandon P.L., WI
In this classically simple tale of the disastrous impact of outside life on a secluded community in Dorset, Hardy narrates the rivalry for the hand of Grace Melbury between a simple and loyal woodlander and an exotic and sophisticated outsider. Betrayal, adultery, disillusion, and moral compromise are all worked out in a setting evoked as both beautiful and treacherous.
The Woodlanders, with its thematic portrayal of the role of social class, gender, and evolutionary survival, as well as its insights into the capacities and limitations of language, exhibits Hardy's acute awareness of his era's most troubling dilemmas.
In this classically simple tale of the disastrous impact of outside life on a secluded community in Dorset, Hardy narrates the rivalry for the hand of Grace Melbury between a simple and loyal woodlander and an exotic and sophisticated outsider. Betrayal, adultery, disillusion, and moral compromise are all worked out in a setting evoked as both beautiful and treacherous.
The Woodlanders, with its thematic portrayal of the role of social class, gender, and evolutionary survival, as well as its insights into the capacities and limitations of language, exhibits Hardy's acute awareness of his era's most troubling dilemmas.