None of the characters seemed remotely likeable or even sympathetic. I was not feeling this novel at first! It wasn’t just the seemingly-endless pages of description of the heath.

As such, The Return of the Native might be simultaneously one of Hardy’s best and worst novels, for it has such deep, abiding passion yet also suffers from rough edges. This is a proving ground for Hardy’s cynicism, much more fully explored in his later novels and poems, about the influence of class, wealth, and misguided moralism on people’s happiness. While the characters’ downfalls are rooted in their personalities, arguably the tragedies that befall them are also an indictment of contemporary norms around love and relationships. Hardy’s fascination with Greek and Shakespearean modes of tragedy is on full display here. So this book has the same environmental sensations as the earlier Under the Greenwood Tree and, like Far from the Madding Crowd, it flirts with the theme that loving “wrongly” leads to disaster. There is something so profanely ironic about Hardy setting such unabashed tragedies within these idyllic pseudo-utopian worlds. It also exists in a kind of bubble, with only the barest of interruptions-all of Wessex is like that, of course, but Egdon Heath seems isolated even from wider Wessex itself. Hardy wants you to understand that this is the most beautiful green place in all the beautiful green places in England-and unlike the rest of England, in Wessex it only rains when Hardy needs pathetic fallacy. The novel opens with an exhaustive description of the picturesque Egdon Heath and its bucolic pre–Industrial Revolution furze-cutters and reddlemen. The Return of the Native is firmly in the middle of Hardy’s career as a novelist, and it shows. If I was worried I’ve been ploughing through Hardy’s novels too fast, I shouldn’t be: my last review was over a year ago! Time to rectify that! It’s also a nice break from the YA/SF-heavy binge I’ve been on (and to which I will likely return shortly!). Does anyone know what love is? Haddaway has been zero help, by the way. I’m not sure Thomas Hardy knows what love is.

Return of the native book