Photo credit: Adam Tinworth via Foter.com / CC BY-ND
I was as heartbroken as anyone when I heard about Alan Rickman’s death. Of course, Book Riot was there to comfort me with a list of his best bookish roles, including the fact that he narrated an audiobook of Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, which of course I promptly bought. (I also watched Sense and Sensibility because it’s just the best movie ever.)
I love Hardy’s writing style. His prose is downright poetic and the way he describes the scenery and the weather makes it a character in and of itself. Now imagine Alan Rickman’s magnificent voice narrating that poetic scenery and you’ll know why I was practically swooning when I started listening to this audiobook.
Unfortunately, that was the only part that had me swooning. Unlike many of Hardy’s books, The Return of the Native has a happy ending, although he certainly makes his characters go through hell and back in order to achieve their happy ending.
The plot starts with a marriage that has been accidentally broken off. If you think bureaucracy is a new thing, this book will reassure you on that score. The couple accidentally went to the wrong parish, and so were unable to get married. The bride (Thomasin Yeobright) freaked out and ran home. There’s no good reason for this, but then there rarely is when Hardy wants his female characters to do something purely for the sake of starting or furthering the action. After all, we women are such flighty creatures *bats eyelashes*.
Once the still-unmarried couple has returned home, their marriage remains in a sort of limbo, since the groom (Damon Wildeve) makes no move to attempt the wedding again, despite having promised to do so.
Instead, Wildeve is tempted by Eustacia Vye, a young, beautiful, headstrong woman with whom he had previously been involved before he left her in favor of Thomasin. Eustacia uses a secret signal formerly used between herself and Wildeve to summon him to her home and he comes and admits to her that he has failed to follow through in marrying Thomasin because he still has feelings for Eustacia. Wildeve asks Eustacia to run away with him to America and she says she’ll think about it.
Meanwhile, poor Thomasin, an orphan, is back to living with her aunt, Mrs. Yeobright, who takes matters into her own hands. Diggory Venn, the man who helped bring Thomasin home after the failed wedding, is a reddleman who once proposed to Thomasin and was rejected on account of his position not being sufficiently high to be considered a good fit for Thomasin. A reddleman is considered a lowly position, though Venn has managed to make good money.
Since Thomasin is not in fact married, and it doesn’t look like she will be married any time soon, Venn asks Mrs. Yeobright’s permission to court Thomasin. Mrs. Yeobright doesn’t really say yes or no, but she uses this information to prompt Wildeve to make a move one way or the other.
With another potential suitor, Thomasin is suddenly much more appealing to Wildeve, who runs back to Eustacia to demand an answer right away regarding whether she’ll run away with him. Finding out Thomasin no longer wants Wildeve makes him that much less appealing to Eustacia and she rejects Wildeve, who then marries Thomasin.
By this point, Wildeve’s flip-flopping has also made Thomasin fall out of love with him, but she has to marry him in order to protect her honor (this being the 19th century, Thomasin was disgraced after having run off with a man and returned as anything other than his wife).
The title refers to Clym Yeobright, Mrs. Yeobright’s son and Thomasin’s cousin, who returns for a visit from Paris. His mother made sure he got an education so he could earn a good living as a jeweler, but he’s had an existential crisis and decided he’d rather move back home and set up a school for the poor. His mom isn’t happy about this, but there’s nothing she can do about it.
Meanwhile, having been away in the big city of Paris has made Clym much more attractive to the local girls and Eustacia sets her sights on him almost as soon as she hears of his return. They fall in love and get married, but Eustacia hates Egdon Heath and has no desire to be married to a schoolteacher.
I’m pretty sure Hardy meant for her unhappiness in her marriage to make her a tragic figure, but I had no sympathy. I thought Clym was pretty clear about what he planned to do with his life and Eustacia’s assumption that he would change his mind was completely unfounded. Nevertheless, she claims that, had she known how she would be expected to live so many months after their wedding, she would not have consented to marry him. Then an accident happens for which Clym blames his wife (which is only semi-justified) and she moves back in with her grandfather.
Eustacia makes plans to run off and enlists Wildeve’s help to do so, which is not to say that she has any intention of running off with Wildeve. But Wildeve has his own ideas about what’s going to happen and fully intends to run away with her (having changed his mind about his feelings for her yet again as soon as Eustacia married Clym). Whether or not Eustacia would have consented to Wildeve’s offer is anyone’s guess. He never gets a chance to make the offer because Eustacia, realizing she has no money to run away with, and too proud to ask Wildeve for money, drowns herself. Wildeve drowns himself trying to save her and good riddance to both of them.
The good news is Venn gets to marry Thomasin and they both live happily ever after. I guess that’s good, since they’re the only two characters who deserve to live happily ever after, even if they were also the most boring characters. Clym takes up a life as an outdoor preacher, and I wouldn’t say he gets to live happily ever after, but he at least ends up satisfied with his position in life.
Through it all, Rickman’s voice is a treasure, as always.
What did you guys read/listen to this week? Anything with weak characters? I want to hear all about it!