The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


There is a claustrophobia about The Woodlanders, which echoes Far From the Madding Crowd in its tale of a good man’s love for a woman above his social station. In part the mood flows from the firm hand of fate, shepherding Giles Winterborne through years of stoically endured heartache. In part it’s generated by the woodland where he and most of the characters live, which encloses them in what often feels like a heavy cloak of damp and darkness. Literally and metaphorically there’s little sunlight in this novel, not even much of the usual comic banter from Hardy’s Dorset yokels.

Of course it is beautifully written, the passages about the natural world reading like lengthy prose poems. Giles and his true love, Grace Melbury, are sympathetic with all their human foibles. But the end comes as something of a relief and lacks the tragic weight of the finale of Tess or Jude.



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