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The Trumpet-Major and Robert His Brother
Light, humorous and observant as it is, The Trumpet-Major nevertheless has a vein of tragedy running through it--the unhappiness and despair of unrequited love.
Anne Garland lives with her widowed mother in a mill owned by Miller Loveday. She is wooed by three men: the stupid, coarse Festus Derriman, a man with expectations; John Loveday, the quiet, thoughtful trumpet-major; and Bob his brother, a sailor whose heart isn't as faithful as it should have been. In the course of the story, Anne has to overcome many obstacles and hazards before she marries the man of her choice.
Located firmly in the rural traditions that Hardy knew so well, it is also a wonderfully comic and affectionate picture of a small community set ablaze by the threat of Napoleon.
Anne Garland lives with her widowed mother in a mill owned by Miller Loveday. She is wooed by three men: the stupid, coarse Festus Derriman, a man with expectations; John Loveday, the quiet, thoughtful trumpet-major; and Bob his brother, a sailor whose heart isn't as faithful as it should have been. In the course of the story, Anne has to overcome many obstacles and hazards before she marries the man of her choice.
Located firmly in the rural traditions that Hardy knew so well, it is also a wonderfully comic and affectionate picture of a small community set ablaze by the threat of Napoleon.
394 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1880
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3366 people want to read
About the author
Thomas Hardy
2,273 books6,744 followersThomas Hardy, OM, was an English author of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural. He regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for financial gain.
The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineates characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy's poetry, first published in his 50s, has come to be as well regarded as his novels, especially after The Movement of the 1950s and 1960s.
The term cliffhanger is considered to have originated with Thomas Hardy's serial novel A Pair of Blue Eyes in 1873. In the novel, Hardy chose to leave one of his protagonists, Knight, literally hanging off a cliff staring into the stony eyes of a trilobite embedded in the rock that has been dead for millions of years. This became the archetypal — and literal — cliff-hanger of Victorian prose.
Excerpted from Wikipedia.
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November 4, 2019After reading Giap: The Victor in Vietnam I felt the need for something to settle my stomach - and hark what lay to hand but an old edition of The Trumpet-Major, ripe for re-reading.
I read most of my Thomas Hardy in one go, one Easter in the mid 90s. I had got a boxed set from the Folio society of Hardy's novels for a fiver or some such in return for buying three full priced books a year from them (or something along those lines) and I read a hundred pages before breakfast, two hundred between breakfast and dinner and then as many as I could stomach before going to sleep. So I got through five novels in almost as many days. No doubt leaving me with literary indigestion and a Hardy reader's belly .
This one, The Trumpet Major, has a historical setting - in contrast to other more well known novels by Hardy which have contemporary or near contemporary settings. The action occurs during the invasion scare prior to 1805 when Napoleon moved the grand army away from Boulogne and crushed the Austrians and their Russian allies, as one recalls from War and Peace at Austerlitz instead, and that battle paralleled by Britain's victory at Trafalgar. The inevitable melancholy of a Hardy novel here is not over the loss of a rural culture, but instead over individual deaths, the drama of the story driven by the encampment of several regiments of horse and foot by the village of Overcome (Wessex), Hardy at moments will fire a canister of battle names at a sentence, reminding us that Waterloo and the Peninsula war lie ahead of these men and that there they will lie lonely in their graves before the fighting is done. This affected me with a little jolt of shock like the ballroom scene from The Leopard , an idea that reaches its apogee I feel in Nostromo serving to show how little future there will be for the characters even before the story gets going as though the author had scrawled "Futility" in big blocky letters over the front page of the manuscript.
Aside from all that it is a charming love square story, in which charming young Anne Garland is obliged to chose between two doughty sons of the neighbouring miller Loveday (in whose mill building the Widow Garland and her charming daughter rent a dwelling), one - unreliable and a sailor as well as being her childhood sweetheart, the second - the eponymous and faithful Trumpet-Major, the third option is Hardy's take on Mr Darcy - a bombastic, boozy, braggart in this story known as Festus Derriman, whose only merit is his relative wealth.
From the first it was surprisingly comic - humour isn't a word I tend to yoke with Tom Hardy together, what with its "trifling deficiency of teeth" and other sly observations, the widow preferring to think of the flour dust that permeates her home as the 'stuff of life' or delightfully understated accounts of war wounds and cussing parrots. Since this is an early novel - of 1880, originally published in three volumes as was the custom of those times it seems his vision got only darker over time until he gave up writing novels altogether.
In Hardy's later novels we see the destruction and disappearance of a way of life to be replaced by an English rural new order which in turn vanished round about WWII to be replaced by another, which with the possible appearance of US style Mega- dairies and potentially the end of some farm subsidies in our current brave new economic and political environment is itself to disappear, however in setting his story back in the 'good old days' we see a society that is not bucolic, it is interconnected with a wider world of violence, which is out of it's control, not just the shadows of future deaths but also the veterans of past wars like a man with a metal plate fixed in his skull and rattling arm bones. This is also an interconnected world, fine fabrics and fancy hats from foreign places also intrude but not yet tea or coffee, here beer & cider still reign supreme, and in that the happiness of some is affected by the inabilities of others to live with their own emotions, Derriman differs from D'arbyville in being unsuccessful as a rapist, his efforts tend more towards the comically melodramatic of a Dick Darstardly, winding up to marry that other threat to rural society - the actress who may, for a consideration rendered in coin of the realm,in a most intimate manner, have raised the morale of most of the officers of a regiment of dragoons, not for his own pleasure, but in the false belief that by so doing he'd spite a love rival . As tends to be the case in Hardy, and may be you've noticed this some times - hopefully at a safe distance - in the lives of others too, self-destructive drives produce a lot of collateral damage.
This volume I misappropriated from my mother's shelves, an old paperback originally six shillings in price, which sounds like an incredible sum of money even though 'tis only thirty pence in new money.
I read most of my Thomas Hardy in one go, one Easter in the mid 90s. I had got a boxed set from the Folio society of Hardy's novels for a fiver or some such in return for buying three full priced books a year from them (or something along those lines) and I read a hundred pages before breakfast, two hundred between breakfast and dinner and then as many as I could stomach before going to sleep. So I got through five novels in almost as many days. No doubt leaving me with literary indigestion and a Hardy reader's belly .
This one, The Trumpet Major, has a historical setting - in contrast to other more well known novels by Hardy which have contemporary or near contemporary settings. The action occurs during the invasion scare prior to 1805 when Napoleon moved the grand army away from Boulogne and crushed the Austrians and their Russian allies, as one recalls from War and Peace at Austerlitz instead, and that battle paralleled by Britain's victory at Trafalgar. The inevitable melancholy of a Hardy novel here is not over the loss of a rural culture, but instead over individual deaths, the drama of the story driven by the encampment of several regiments of horse and foot by the village of Overcome (Wessex), Hardy at moments will fire a canister of battle names at a sentence, reminding us that Waterloo and the Peninsula war lie ahead of these men and that there they will lie lonely in their graves before the fighting is done. This affected me with a little jolt of shock like the ballroom scene from The Leopard , an idea that reaches its apogee I feel in Nostromo serving to show how little future there will be for the characters even before the story gets going as though the author had scrawled "Futility" in big blocky letters over the front page of the manuscript.
Aside from all that it is a charming love square story, in which charming young Anne Garland is obliged to chose between two doughty sons of the neighbouring miller Loveday (in whose mill building the Widow Garland and her charming daughter rent a dwelling), one - unreliable and a sailor as well as being her childhood sweetheart, the second - the eponymous and faithful Trumpet-Major, the third option is Hardy's take on Mr Darcy - a bombastic, boozy, braggart in this story known as Festus Derriman, whose only merit is his relative wealth.
From the first it was surprisingly comic - humour isn't a word I tend to yoke with Tom Hardy together, what with its "trifling deficiency of teeth" and other sly observations, the widow preferring to think of the flour dust that permeates her home as the 'stuff of life' or delightfully understated accounts of war wounds and cussing parrots. Since this is an early novel - of 1880, originally published in three volumes as was the custom of those times it seems his vision got only darker over time until he gave up writing novels altogether.
In Hardy's later novels we see the destruction and disappearance of a way of life to be replaced by an English rural new order which in turn vanished round about WWII to be replaced by another, which with the possible appearance of US style Mega- dairies and potentially the end of some farm subsidies in our current brave new economic and political environment is itself to disappear, however in setting his story back in the 'good old days' we see a society that is not bucolic, it is interconnected with a wider world of violence, which is out of it's control, not just the shadows of future deaths but also the veterans of past wars like a man with a metal plate fixed in his skull and rattling arm bones. This is also an interconnected world, fine fabrics and fancy hats from foreign places also intrude but not yet tea or coffee, here beer & cider still reign supreme, and in that the happiness of some is affected by the inabilities of others to live with their own emotions, Derriman differs from D'arbyville in being unsuccessful as a rapist, his efforts tend more towards the comically melodramatic of a Dick Darstardly, winding up to marry that other threat to rural society - the actress who may, for a consideration rendered in coin of the realm,in a most intimate manner, have raised the morale of most of the officers of a regiment of dragoons, not for his own pleasure, but in the false belief that by so doing he'd spite a love rival . As tends to be the case in Hardy, and may be you've noticed this some times - hopefully at a safe distance - in the lives of others too, self-destructive drives produce a lot of collateral damage.
This volume I misappropriated from my mother's shelves, an old paperback originally six shillings in price, which sounds like an incredible sum of money even though 'tis only thirty pence in new money.
October 23, 2021
*3.5 stars*
March 11, 2018
In the second collected edition of his novels, of 1912 (the “Wessex Edition”), Thomas Hardy divided his production into three groups: “novels of character and environment,” “romances and fantasies,” and “novels of ingenuity.” This proved a defining critical move where the reception of his novels was concerned. The first and largest group, the novels of character and environment, evolved into the canon of “major” works—the Hardy perennials, we might call them (Tess of the D’Urbervilles, The Mayor of Casterbridge, The Return of Native, etc.) The novels excluded from this dominant group were left more or less to wither on the vine.
This seems a shame to me, on the basis of a few recent forays into the “minor” Hardy. I enjoyed my one novel of ingenuity to date, the Wilkie Collinsesque Desperate Remedies, and I was intrigued by my first venture into Hardyan romance and/or fantasy, the bizarre, perverse The Well-Beloved. Minor Hardy is more restless and unpredictable than major Hardy, and less uniformly tragic and monumental. Where the canonical novels have an impressive, granitic unity of aesthetic purpose (such that they all tend to merge into one in my memory), the non-canonical ones are much more erratic; you never know quite which Hardy will show up.
That is true in spades for The Trumpet-Major (1880), which offers up a highly unexpected genre-bending, or genre-blending, concoction. It is a historical novel, set in the Napoleonic period, with a convoluted romantic plot, and a surprising element of comedy, which the notes to my edition attributes to Hardy’s interest in the Victorian theatrical tradition of harlequinades, deriving ultimately from the commedia dell’arte. Anything less likely to have been penned by the author of Jude the Obscure can barely be imagined. It is recognizably Hardyesque only in its “Wessex” setting and its rich evocation of a vanished rural world.
By chance, this is the third Victorian novel I have read in recent years which revisits the period of the Napoleonic wars, the others being Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1847-48) and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Sylvia’s Lovers (1863). Similarities with both of these novels may be traced in The Trumpet-Major. All three feature a love triangle made up of a young woman and two sharply contrasted male admirers, one dashing, the other doggedly devoted—although Hardy ramps up the tension and poignancy by making his two suitors brothers. All three novels are concerned with the way in which personal lives are entangled with the larger forces of history (in which respect, they also connect with that other great Napoleonic-era historical epic, War and Peace.)
In its treatment of this theme, The Trumpet-Major reminded me especially of Sylvia’s Lovers. It chooses a rural setting, far from the sites of power, and it draws much of its philosophical depth from the conjunction of a timeless country life (the main setting of The Trumpet-Major is an ancient mill, its threshold “worn into a gutter by the ebb and flow of feet … since Tudor times”) with an acute, historical crisis, in the form of the anticipated Napoleonic invasion.
The threat of war looms across the novel, in a strange—but, for me, successful—triangulation with the comedy and the romantic convolutions. The Trumpet-Major opens with the arrival of troops sent in 1804 to protect the port of Weymouth. This army sets up camp on the downs near Hardy’s fictional village of Overcombe, provoking unwonted ripples of excitement and foreboding among the locals. Across the course of the novel, the young men of the village come under increasing pressure to sign up for the war effort, voluntarily or otherwise (a dramatic press-gang episode is one of the features The Trumpet-Major shares with Sylvia’s Lovers.) The juxtaposition of comic and serious, high and low, in the novel recalls Shakespeare, whom Hardy cites frequently here.
One thing I loved in the novel is the way in which Hardy uses the motif of the written word to dramatize his rural world’s liminality. In one episode, we learn of the trajectory of the village’s sole newspaper, retained first for a few days by the decrepit “squireen” Benjamin Derriman; then passed on to the genteel, if impoverished, Mrs Garland, mother of the heroine, Anne Garland, before descending into the lower depths of Overcombe society, and eventually finishing up wrapping butter and cheese. Similarly, when Miller Loveday, father of the two rival brothers, receives news that a letter has arrived for him in Weymouth, the nearest post town, it sets off a frisson in the village such that, by the time he comes to read it, he is observed by an audience of neighbours, who line up in his doorway to watch, overlapping like a fanned pack of cards.
The introduction to the edition I read (Penguin Classics) speaks of the novel having attracted some criticism for its supposedly distant and ironic, empathy-sapping representation of its lead characters. I’m not so sure about that. I became quite involved in the entangled story of Anne’s love quadrangle (besides John and Bob Loveday, she counts among her suitors the absurd—and splendidly named—Festus Derriman, a kind of latter-day miles gloriosus.) Anne is an interesting and distinctive figure, not always entirely likeable; and both the melancholy and stalwart John Loveday, the trumpet-major of the title, and his more mercurial brother Bob, are well-drawn. There is some magnificent descriptive writing, as well—perhaps most sustained in the poignant episode of Anne’s pilgrimage to the isle of Portland to see the Trafalgar-bound Victory sail past.
In some ways, looking back, the Portland episode felt like the climax of the novel for me. The final fifth of the book reads as a little more rushed than what precedes it—the only reason why I gave this book four stars, rather than the five that it promised up to this point. Nonetheless, The Trumpet-Major was a hugely pleasurable read for me; and it left me determined to continue rooting around in Hardy’s supposed B-list. I have three more “romances and fantasies” to go (A Pair of Blue Eyes; Two on a Tower, and the short-story collection, A Group of Noble Dames) and three more “novels of ingenuity” (The Hand of Ethelberta; The Laodicean; and the short-story collection, A Changed Man.)
This seems a shame to me, on the basis of a few recent forays into the “minor” Hardy. I enjoyed my one novel of ingenuity to date, the Wilkie Collinsesque Desperate Remedies, and I was intrigued by my first venture into Hardyan romance and/or fantasy, the bizarre, perverse The Well-Beloved. Minor Hardy is more restless and unpredictable than major Hardy, and less uniformly tragic and monumental. Where the canonical novels have an impressive, granitic unity of aesthetic purpose (such that they all tend to merge into one in my memory), the non-canonical ones are much more erratic; you never know quite which Hardy will show up.
That is true in spades for The Trumpet-Major (1880), which offers up a highly unexpected genre-bending, or genre-blending, concoction. It is a historical novel, set in the Napoleonic period, with a convoluted romantic plot, and a surprising element of comedy, which the notes to my edition attributes to Hardy’s interest in the Victorian theatrical tradition of harlequinades, deriving ultimately from the commedia dell’arte. Anything less likely to have been penned by the author of Jude the Obscure can barely be imagined. It is recognizably Hardyesque only in its “Wessex” setting and its rich evocation of a vanished rural world.
By chance, this is the third Victorian novel I have read in recent years which revisits the period of the Napoleonic wars, the others being Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1847-48) and Elizabeth Gaskell’s Sylvia’s Lovers (1863). Similarities with both of these novels may be traced in The Trumpet-Major. All three feature a love triangle made up of a young woman and two sharply contrasted male admirers, one dashing, the other doggedly devoted—although Hardy ramps up the tension and poignancy by making his two suitors brothers. All three novels are concerned with the way in which personal lives are entangled with the larger forces of history (in which respect, they also connect with that other great Napoleonic-era historical epic, War and Peace.)
In its treatment of this theme, The Trumpet-Major reminded me especially of Sylvia’s Lovers. It chooses a rural setting, far from the sites of power, and it draws much of its philosophical depth from the conjunction of a timeless country life (the main setting of The Trumpet-Major is an ancient mill, its threshold “worn into a gutter by the ebb and flow of feet … since Tudor times”) with an acute, historical crisis, in the form of the anticipated Napoleonic invasion.
The threat of war looms across the novel, in a strange—but, for me, successful—triangulation with the comedy and the romantic convolutions. The Trumpet-Major opens with the arrival of troops sent in 1804 to protect the port of Weymouth. This army sets up camp on the downs near Hardy’s fictional village of Overcombe, provoking unwonted ripples of excitement and foreboding among the locals. Across the course of the novel, the young men of the village come under increasing pressure to sign up for the war effort, voluntarily or otherwise (a dramatic press-gang episode is one of the features The Trumpet-Major shares with Sylvia’s Lovers.) The juxtaposition of comic and serious, high and low, in the novel recalls Shakespeare, whom Hardy cites frequently here.
One thing I loved in the novel is the way in which Hardy uses the motif of the written word to dramatize his rural world’s liminality. In one episode, we learn of the trajectory of the village’s sole newspaper, retained first for a few days by the decrepit “squireen” Benjamin Derriman; then passed on to the genteel, if impoverished, Mrs Garland, mother of the heroine, Anne Garland, before descending into the lower depths of Overcombe society, and eventually finishing up wrapping butter and cheese. Similarly, when Miller Loveday, father of the two rival brothers, receives news that a letter has arrived for him in Weymouth, the nearest post town, it sets off a frisson in the village such that, by the time he comes to read it, he is observed by an audience of neighbours, who line up in his doorway to watch, overlapping like a fanned pack of cards.
The introduction to the edition I read (Penguin Classics) speaks of the novel having attracted some criticism for its supposedly distant and ironic, empathy-sapping representation of its lead characters. I’m not so sure about that. I became quite involved in the entangled story of Anne’s love quadrangle (besides John and Bob Loveday, she counts among her suitors the absurd—and splendidly named—Festus Derriman, a kind of latter-day miles gloriosus.) Anne is an interesting and distinctive figure, not always entirely likeable; and both the melancholy and stalwart John Loveday, the trumpet-major of the title, and his more mercurial brother Bob, are well-drawn. There is some magnificent descriptive writing, as well—perhaps most sustained in the poignant episode of Anne’s pilgrimage to the isle of Portland to see the Trafalgar-bound Victory sail past.
In some ways, looking back, the Portland episode felt like the climax of the novel for me. The final fifth of the book reads as a little more rushed than what precedes it—the only reason why I gave this book four stars, rather than the five that it promised up to this point. Nonetheless, The Trumpet-Major was a hugely pleasurable read for me; and it left me determined to continue rooting around in Hardy’s supposed B-list. I have three more “romances and fantasies” to go (A Pair of Blue Eyes; Two on a Tower, and the short-story collection, A Group of Noble Dames) and three more “novels of ingenuity” (The Hand of Ethelberta; The Laodicean; and the short-story collection, A Changed Man.)
December 24, 2025
Maybe even 4.5. I really enjoyed this Hardy - it has an interesting and clever mix of light and dark tone, and is set not in the Victorian times but during the Napoleon Wars, which adds an interesting historical dimension to the book as well. Hardy's writing is beautiful as ever.
May 12, 2024
2023/58
The following lines were written to tell Hardy 'This could have been said this way,' but I don't intend to rewrite a story that is perfectly crafted. Neither do I (as a huge Hardy fan) try to change the course of things. If you want to find out why some characters are never forgotten, because I believe the protagonists of this 'romance' can live with you for a long time, go and read The Trumpet-Major, and please enjoy another masterpiece written by one of my favorite Victorian novelists.*
01/18--
Dearest Anne:
Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. Now that I am here, I wonder if some things could have been different for you and for me, for all of us. This war, I just don't understand. Is it supposed to last forever? You know, on the one hand, I can't complain at all, being here for my country, for my people, defending our nation, that's what really matters in the end. But on the other hand, sometimes when I find some peace inside my tent if I ever can find a moment to reflect on such things, I just wonder why we are fighting. I feel guilty for having such thoughts, I don't even know if I'll dare to show you these lines someday, if I will even have a chance to do so, but, I just can't help feeling this way.
03/18--
Dear Anne:
Do you remember that time when we saw each other again? I was back at home, and everyone was so scared of that dreadful news, that Napoleon and his troops might be arriving in our peaceful town sooner or later. We, together, needed to be prepared to defend our land, and you know what? We were prepared, we were ready, but somehow I needed another reason to fight, another reason to die or to come back victoriously. Then I saw you, and you gave me the strength I needed and the hope I was looking for. Now, every time I am on the battlefield I just have to remember that—those moments we spent together will never fade away.
04/18--
Dear Anne:
It's me again. Suppose my life ends tomorrow, what would I say to you today? First of all, I'd miss you, all of you, but I wouldn't be sad by any means; on the contrary, I'd be happy to give all I have for your safety, for your happiness, yours and your family's, my family's too. For my country, of course, I'd fight till the end.
Then, I'd say 'If you wish to see me again, dear Anne, look up at the stars and you'll find me there; look at the waves, the horizon, a sunset, a rainbow, those little things that make us feel alive, that make us forget this dreadful war. You'll find me there too, and you'll be fine.'
05/18--
Anne:
Things don't seem good over here. I believe you should never see these lines I've been writing recently; perhaps I've been writing them for me as a reminder of these terrible days after all. Some of my friends are gone, they won't come back home anymore; a general told me yesterday that there is a considerable number of Napoleon's soldiers deployed at 'strategic locations' almost in front of us, waiting for us. Don't you worry, my dear, we also have a plan, and we won't let them win.
05/18-- at night
Dear Anne:
No matter what happens, dearest, I will always care about you. I know we made decisions, we loved, we felt, we suffered and were hurt, we loved again, but ultimately, it was beautiful while it lasted. If, one starry night, you look out the window, that window on the second floor where your room is, and you pay attention, maybe you can hear something that reminds you of me. Maybe the sound of the ocean will bring that particular sound to you again, one last time. Who knows. I only know that I might not come back to you either.
----
* This is constantly changing, but you already know the names: Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and so on.
My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:
Quality of writing [4.5/5]
Pace [5/5]
Plot development [4.5/5]
Characters [4.5/5]
Enjoyability [5/5]
Insightfulness [4.5/5]
Easy of reading [5/5]
Photos/Illustrations [N/A]
Total [33/7] = 4.71
The following lines were written to tell Hardy 'This could have been said this way,' but I don't intend to rewrite a story that is perfectly crafted. Neither do I (as a huge Hardy fan) try to change the course of things. If you want to find out why some characters are never forgotten, because I believe the protagonists of this 'romance' can live with you for a long time, go and read The Trumpet-Major, and please enjoy another masterpiece written by one of my favorite Victorian novelists.*
01/18--
Dearest Anne:
Sometimes I wonder if I made the right decision. Now that I am here, I wonder if some things could have been different for you and for me, for all of us. This war, I just don't understand. Is it supposed to last forever? You know, on the one hand, I can't complain at all, being here for my country, for my people, defending our nation, that's what really matters in the end. But on the other hand, sometimes when I find some peace inside my tent if I ever can find a moment to reflect on such things, I just wonder why we are fighting. I feel guilty for having such thoughts, I don't even know if I'll dare to show you these lines someday, if I will even have a chance to do so, but, I just can't help feeling this way.
03/18--
Dear Anne:
Do you remember that time when we saw each other again? I was back at home, and everyone was so scared of that dreadful news, that Napoleon and his troops might be arriving in our peaceful town sooner or later. We, together, needed to be prepared to defend our land, and you know what? We were prepared, we were ready, but somehow I needed another reason to fight, another reason to die or to come back victoriously. Then I saw you, and you gave me the strength I needed and the hope I was looking for. Now, every time I am on the battlefield I just have to remember that—those moments we spent together will never fade away.
04/18--
Dear Anne:
It's me again. Suppose my life ends tomorrow, what would I say to you today? First of all, I'd miss you, all of you, but I wouldn't be sad by any means; on the contrary, I'd be happy to give all I have for your safety, for your happiness, yours and your family's, my family's too. For my country, of course, I'd fight till the end.
Then, I'd say 'If you wish to see me again, dear Anne, look up at the stars and you'll find me there; look at the waves, the horizon, a sunset, a rainbow, those little things that make us feel alive, that make us forget this dreadful war. You'll find me there too, and you'll be fine.'
05/18--
Anne:
Things don't seem good over here. I believe you should never see these lines I've been writing recently; perhaps I've been writing them for me as a reminder of these terrible days after all. Some of my friends are gone, they won't come back home anymore; a general told me yesterday that there is a considerable number of Napoleon's soldiers deployed at 'strategic locations' almost in front of us, waiting for us. Don't you worry, my dear, we also have a plan, and we won't let them win.
05/18-- at night
Dear Anne:
No matter what happens, dearest, I will always care about you. I know we made decisions, we loved, we felt, we suffered and were hurt, we loved again, but ultimately, it was beautiful while it lasted. If, one starry night, you look out the window, that window on the second floor where your room is, and you pay attention, maybe you can hear something that reminds you of me. Maybe the sound of the ocean will bring that particular sound to you again, one last time. Who knows. I only know that I might not come back to you either.
----
* This is constantly changing, but you already know the names: Charlotte Brontë, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and so on.
My rating on a scale of 1 to 5:
Quality of writing [4.5/5]
Pace [5/5]
Plot development [4.5/5]
Characters [4.5/5]
Enjoyability [5/5]
Insightfulness [4.5/5]
Easy of reading [5/5]
Photos/Illustrations [N/A]
Total [33/7] = 4.71
February 26, 2023
3.5 stars, rounded down. "I liked it".
It does not pay to be a handsome young girl in a Hardy novel; the path of love is never smooth for them. Others have deemed this a romance with a happy ending, but I do not see it as such. It was, in fact, for me, a very unsatisfactory ending. Hardy is better when he confronts the tragedy, head on, and sees how unavoidable it truly is. Give me Eustacia Vye.
Ah, but that is another novel, isn't it? This is the story of Ann Garland, a widow’s daughter, living with her mother, in reduced circumstances, on the opposite side of a miller’s home. The miller has two sons, both of whom become besotted with her, and there is a local squire’s nephew who makes the number of suitors three. All are soldiers, the novel being set during the Napoleonic wars.
One cannot help lamenting the customs of the time, for none of these people is really able to clearly state their feelings or intentions, least of all Anne. She isn’t a foolish girl, in most respects, but in the tradition of the old adage, love makes fools of us all, she is. I wanted, at times, to slap her face and scream “snap out of it.”
While I enjoyed the novel for the most part, it has obvious flaws and is clearly one of Hardy’s lesser works. I was glad to see the end come, because I was tired of the cat and mouse game that seemed endless. About that happy ending, if this novel had pursued the main characters beyond the last page, I don’t expect there would have been an ounce of happiness to go around.
It does not pay to be a handsome young girl in a Hardy novel; the path of love is never smooth for them. Others have deemed this a romance with a happy ending, but I do not see it as such. It was, in fact, for me, a very unsatisfactory ending. Hardy is better when he confronts the tragedy, head on, and sees how unavoidable it truly is. Give me Eustacia Vye.
Ah, but that is another novel, isn't it? This is the story of Ann Garland, a widow’s daughter, living with her mother, in reduced circumstances, on the opposite side of a miller’s home. The miller has two sons, both of whom become besotted with her, and there is a local squire’s nephew who makes the number of suitors three. All are soldiers, the novel being set during the Napoleonic wars.
One cannot help lamenting the customs of the time, for none of these people is really able to clearly state their feelings or intentions, least of all Anne. She isn’t a foolish girl, in most respects, but in the tradition of the old adage, love makes fools of us all, she is. I wanted, at times, to slap her face and scream “snap out of it.”
While I enjoyed the novel for the most part, it has obvious flaws and is clearly one of Hardy’s lesser works. I was glad to see the end come, because I was tired of the cat and mouse game that seemed endless. About that happy ending, if this novel had pursued the main characters beyond the last page, I don’t expect there would have been an ounce of happiness to go around.
May 19, 2018
“Gratitude is not love, though I wanted to make it so for the time.”
A woman and three suitors, and Thomas Hardy. That sounds a lot like the frivolous Bathsheba Everdeene and her entourage in Far from the Madding Crowd, but, in fact, it seems to be quite a recurrent constellation in Thomas Hardy’s works. The Trumpet-Major tells the story of the rather bland heroine Anne Garland, the genteel daughter of a defunct landscape painter, who is wooed by two working class brothers, the sons of the miller Loveday, in whose house Anne and her mother have taken up quarters, finding that, financially, they have slightly come down in the world. The younger brother Robert Loveday is a sailor, and Anne’s childhood sweetheart, but he has grown somewhat oblivious of his affections for Anne and even considers marrying other women. He actually puts his tendency to look on the other side of the garden fence like this:
His elder brother John is the eponymous Trumpet-Major, and unlike Robert, his love for Anne is more serious and lasting, but of little use to him because Anne regards him more in the light of a brother. At the same time, notwithstanding his strong feelings for the young woman, John would not for the world step in between her and his brother. Last, but not least, there is the uncouth braggadocio yeoman Festus Derriman, miles gloriosus, fortune hunter and bully, who has also taken a fancy to Anne and takes it as a matter of course that that “misguided rosebud”, as he once calls her, should prefer him over his less well-to-do rivals.
This complicated love story carries the bulk of the novel, but it is so full of twists and unforeseen situations – some of them more believable than others – that you will not get tired of the novel, although you may of Anne’s prissiness and stupidity, and may not even guess who is going to lead her to the altar. As you know, true love does not alter when it altaration finds. What makes the novel even more interesting is the fact that Hardy set it into the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when the south coast of England was in constant dread of a French invasion, or, as Hardy wryly puts it:
Although very light-hearted and playful in tone, unusually so for Hardy, The Trumpet-Major gives a vivid idea of how the imminent danger of war and of French occupation haunts the countryfolks of that time – just remember the false alarm that starts a mass exodus of the villagers of Overcombe and that eventually exposes Festus as the coward he is – and how, in spite of all that, everyday life goes on as usual to a certain extent. Boney might be a daily worry of people like Anne and her mother, but still some worrying time must be set aside for considering which of the three suitors is the best catch. Quite at the beginning of his novel, Hardy cleverly implies that even the great footsteps of history and the great names of the people who think they are making it – we actually have real historical people such as Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy, Admiral Nelson and King George III. among the characters of the novel –, do not obliterate the tipper-tapper of the “common” people, who will not even leave a footnote in the history books. When he introduces the miller Loveday, he says,
This, of course, also ironically comments on the matrimonial pretensions of Anne and her mother, but at the same time it makes us think of how History and history might be connected. Hardy definitely manages to draw a colourful picture of how the big events cast their shadows or their lights on everyday people’s lives – like in Gaskell’s Sylvia’s Lovers, the press gangs, as harbingers of naval battles “out there” can change the course of simple people’s lives, and men born in quiet English villages will find premature death on the battlefields of sunny Spain, “lying scattered about the world as military and other dust”. The voice of History will hum her thunderous tune, even though Overcombe people still dance to their rural ditties.
What I found quite unusual about this novel was the extensive use of farcical elements that Hardy makes: Festus Derriman is quite a ridiculous figure in many ways, until towards the end he suddenly reveals himself as a potential rapist and a mean schemer, and his uncle, the squire, is a typically Dickensian miser, whose exploits belong exclusively into the realm of gross comedy. And yet, they do not spoil the novel but add to its colour and appeal, although they may sometimes leave us bewildered.
You might not like the ending of the novel, but on second thoughts you might learn to like it because it teaches you one great truth that is everywhere around you but that you might want to deny for the sake of your peace of mind and your trust in humankind. The novel left me with a deep insight in that respect, but also with the unanswered question what “an anonymous nose” is.
A woman and three suitors, and Thomas Hardy. That sounds a lot like the frivolous Bathsheba Everdeene and her entourage in Far from the Madding Crowd, but, in fact, it seems to be quite a recurrent constellation in Thomas Hardy’s works. The Trumpet-Major tells the story of the rather bland heroine Anne Garland, the genteel daughter of a defunct landscape painter, who is wooed by two working class brothers, the sons of the miller Loveday, in whose house Anne and her mother have taken up quarters, finding that, financially, they have slightly come down in the world. The younger brother Robert Loveday is a sailor, and Anne’s childhood sweetheart, but he has grown somewhat oblivious of his affections for Anne and even considers marrying other women. He actually puts his tendency to look on the other side of the garden fence like this:
”[W]hen you come ashore after having been shut up in a ship for eighteen months, women-folks seem so new and nice that you can’t help liking them, one and all in a body; and so your heart is apt to get scattered and to yaw a bit […]”
His elder brother John is the eponymous Trumpet-Major, and unlike Robert, his love for Anne is more serious and lasting, but of little use to him because Anne regards him more in the light of a brother. At the same time, notwithstanding his strong feelings for the young woman, John would not for the world step in between her and his brother. Last, but not least, there is the uncouth braggadocio yeoman Festus Derriman, miles gloriosus, fortune hunter and bully, who has also taken a fancy to Anne and takes it as a matter of course that that “misguided rosebud”, as he once calls her, should prefer him over his less well-to-do rivals.
This complicated love story carries the bulk of the novel, but it is so full of twists and unforeseen situations – some of them more believable than others – that you will not get tired of the novel, although you may of Anne’s prissiness and stupidity, and may not even guess who is going to lead her to the altar. As you know, true love does not alter when it altaration finds. What makes the novel even more interesting is the fact that Hardy set it into the period of the Napoleonic Wars, when the south coast of England was in constant dread of a French invasion, or, as Hardy wryly puts it:
”It should be stated that at this time there were two arch-enemies of mankind — Satan as usual, and Buonaparte, who had sprung up and eclipsed his elder rival altogether.”
Although very light-hearted and playful in tone, unusually so for Hardy, The Trumpet-Major gives a vivid idea of how the imminent danger of war and of French occupation haunts the countryfolks of that time – just remember the false alarm that starts a mass exodus of the villagers of Overcombe and that eventually exposes Festus as the coward he is – and how, in spite of all that, everyday life goes on as usual to a certain extent. Boney might be a daily worry of people like Anne and her mother, but still some worrying time must be set aside for considering which of the three suitors is the best catch. Quite at the beginning of his novel, Hardy cleverly implies that even the great footsteps of history and the great names of the people who think they are making it – we actually have real historical people such as Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy, Admiral Nelson and King George III. among the characters of the novel –, do not obliterate the tipper-tapper of the “common” people, who will not even leave a footnote in the history books. When he introduces the miller Loveday, he says,
”His ancestral line was contemporaneous with that of De Ros, Howard, and De La Zouche; but, owing to some trifling deficiency in the possessions of the house of Loveday, the individual names and intermarriages of its members were not recorded during the Middle Ages, and thus their private lives in any given century were uncertain. But it was known that the family had formed matrimonial alliances with farmers not so very small, and once with a gentleman-tanner, who had for many years purchased after their death the horses of the most aristocratic persons in the county — fiery steeds that earlier in their career had been valued at many hundred guineas.”
This, of course, also ironically comments on the matrimonial pretensions of Anne and her mother, but at the same time it makes us think of how History and history might be connected. Hardy definitely manages to draw a colourful picture of how the big events cast their shadows or their lights on everyday people’s lives – like in Gaskell’s Sylvia’s Lovers, the press gangs, as harbingers of naval battles “out there” can change the course of simple people’s lives, and men born in quiet English villages will find premature death on the battlefields of sunny Spain, “lying scattered about the world as military and other dust”. The voice of History will hum her thunderous tune, even though Overcombe people still dance to their rural ditties.
What I found quite unusual about this novel was the extensive use of farcical elements that Hardy makes: Festus Derriman is quite a ridiculous figure in many ways, until towards the end he suddenly reveals himself as a potential rapist and a mean schemer, and his uncle, the squire, is a typically Dickensian miser, whose exploits belong exclusively into the realm of gross comedy. And yet, they do not spoil the novel but add to its colour and appeal, although they may sometimes leave us bewildered.
You might not like the ending of the novel, but on second thoughts you might learn to like it because it teaches you one great truth that is everywhere around you but that you might want to deny for the sake of your peace of mind and your trust in humankind. The novel left me with a deep insight in that respect, but also with the unanswered question what “an anonymous nose” is.
May 28, 2025
“It should be stated that at this time there were two arch-enemies of mankind--Satan as usual, and Buonaparte, who had sprung up and eclipsed his elder rival altogether.”
The Trumpet-Major was published in 1880, and is looking back three-quarters of a century to the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Set in his Wessex country, Hardy shows us a small village and the impacts of war on soldiers and their loved-ones.
An ancient manor house turned flour mill is run by Mr. Loveday. His son John is a Trumpet Major in the cavalry; his other son Bob is a sailor. He rents a section of the house to Mrs. Garland, the widow of a landscape painter, and her lovely daughter Anne. Their elderly neighbor Squire Derriman is well-off, and hounded by his soldier nephew Festus, who is trying to secure his inheritance.
The plot revolves around the brothers and Festus each trying to win the love of lovely Anne, with lots of well-meaning and ill-meaning trickery. It’s silly in parts, but behind it are sometimes exciting and sometimes touching descriptions of how the war has invaded all of their lives.
Overall, it’s a gentle read with soothing descriptions of time and place, and characters who disrupt the calm with their human faults and foibles, all in a way that I found very comforting. Four stars from me, because Hardy is really growing on me.
The Trumpet-Major was published in 1880, and is looking back three-quarters of a century to the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Set in his Wessex country, Hardy shows us a small village and the impacts of war on soldiers and their loved-ones.
An ancient manor house turned flour mill is run by Mr. Loveday. His son John is a Trumpet Major in the cavalry; his other son Bob is a sailor. He rents a section of the house to Mrs. Garland, the widow of a landscape painter, and her lovely daughter Anne. Their elderly neighbor Squire Derriman is well-off, and hounded by his soldier nephew Festus, who is trying to secure his inheritance.
The plot revolves around the brothers and Festus each trying to win the love of lovely Anne, with lots of well-meaning and ill-meaning trickery. It’s silly in parts, but behind it are sometimes exciting and sometimes touching descriptions of how the war has invaded all of their lives.
Overall, it’s a gentle read with soothing descriptions of time and place, and characters who disrupt the calm with their human faults and foibles, all in a way that I found very comforting. Four stars from me, because Hardy is really growing on me.
August 23, 2011
Those who criticise this remarkable novel should really go back to school to find out why they are missing the point. It has never achieved the accolades that so many of Hardy's other novels have. Although I more than adequately could, I will not repeat the several other complimentary reviews which are on this site.
Suffice to say that 'The Trumpet Major' occupies an almost unique slot in the Hardy 'repertoire' in that, unlike many of his works (such as 'Jude', Far From The Madding Crowd and 'Tess') there is not such a great preponderance of morbidness and death considering that it takes place in the shadow of of war. Conversely, the book is laced with the humour of rustic characters and situations such as the romantic disasters of Festus Derriman or the pride that an old military veteran has in the metal plate within his head. The ribald guttsiness of rural Wessex shines through despite the huge Army encampment mushrooming above the village and the endless rumours of imminent Napoleonic invasion.
For years, this book was a school examination (especially 'O' Level) text - but deserves far greater respect than this. An an ex-English Teacher, now an Author, I can vouch for that !
Suffice to say that 'The Trumpet Major' occupies an almost unique slot in the Hardy 'repertoire' in that, unlike many of his works (such as 'Jude', Far From The Madding Crowd and 'Tess') there is not such a great preponderance of morbidness and death considering that it takes place in the shadow of of war. Conversely, the book is laced with the humour of rustic characters and situations such as the romantic disasters of Festus Derriman or the pride that an old military veteran has in the metal plate within his head. The ribald guttsiness of rural Wessex shines through despite the huge Army encampment mushrooming above the village and the endless rumours of imminent Napoleonic invasion.
For years, this book was a school examination (especially 'O' Level) text - but deserves far greater respect than this. An an ex-English Teacher, now an Author, I can vouch for that !
October 19, 2019
Wessex in the time of the Napoleonic Wars. John Loveday loves Anne Garland. Festus Derriman wants to rape Anne Garland. Bob Loveday loves Matilda the stage strumpet (perhaps). Anne Garland loves Bob Loveday (perhaps). A howling farce ensues, a notable precursor to Benny Hill’s chase-me sexual-assault slapstick, with more flipflops of the heart than a Love Island boxset. One of Thomas’s overlong curios.
October 19, 2021
Not my favourite Hardy but an enjoyable story nonetheless.
October 23, 2021
A good time at reading with the beautiful Anne Garland and the two brothers John and Bob Loveday, and many other minor characters (not always lovely elsewhere), all in the beautiful English countryside, at the time of the Napoleonic wars. A provincial idyll? Not only.
August 10, 2011
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I read it for O level English Lit - ooooh, SO many years ago now. But it had exactly what I want from a Hardy novel. I've never bought into the "misery is good" atmosphere of Tess of the d'Urbervilles or Jude the Obscure. What I want from Hardy is fabulous descriptions of Wessex country life in the 1800s, great characterisation, one or two tangled love affairs and a sense of a world no longer here.
That is exactly what I got from this novel. The story is as good as any Jane Austen, what with the two brothers both in love with Anne Garland, the dastardly and cowardly Festus Derriman, the miserly old Squire Derriman and the unusual, but fascinating, backdrop of the mid-Napoleonic war. Most of Hardy's novels were almost contemporary, so this is unusual in being set roughly 75 years before it was written, at a time when the threat of invasion was real and expected (and without any form of speedy communication beyond fire beacons along the coastline, also the first you might know would be the French walking up the footpath to the mill).
In other reviews on here, I think that Anne Garland is treated harshly, as though she were a modern woman, with modern attitudes to marriage and modern freedoms. But she's not, she's as hidebound and restricted by convention as any Austen heroine. She's also probably only 17 when the novel opens (although we're never actually told her age). I liked Anne, and she was put into difficult situation by all three men who come courting her. Her decision was made not using modern reasoning, such as being in love, but by pre-Victorian reasoning such as "will this man be a good husband, will he be a suitable match". Anne is feisty enough, without being sugary sweet.
One thing that was a surprise me though was that Mrs Garland, Anne's mother, is considered an old woman when she's only about 40. when I read it at school, I thought that she and the Miller must have been ancient when they got married.
Ho-hum, time comes to us all. Anyway - go read this, don't accept the dashing it gets from the miseryguts who prefer their Hardy to be a bottomless well of despair.
That is exactly what I got from this novel. The story is as good as any Jane Austen, what with the two brothers both in love with Anne Garland, the dastardly and cowardly Festus Derriman, the miserly old Squire Derriman and the unusual, but fascinating, backdrop of the mid-Napoleonic war. Most of Hardy's novels were almost contemporary, so this is unusual in being set roughly 75 years before it was written, at a time when the threat of invasion was real and expected (and without any form of speedy communication beyond fire beacons along the coastline, also the first you might know would be the French walking up the footpath to the mill).
In other reviews on here, I think that Anne Garland is treated harshly, as though she were a modern woman, with modern attitudes to marriage and modern freedoms. But she's not, she's as hidebound and restricted by convention as any Austen heroine. She's also probably only 17 when the novel opens (although we're never actually told her age). I liked Anne, and she was put into difficult situation by all three men who come courting her. Her decision was made not using modern reasoning, such as being in love, but by pre-Victorian reasoning such as "will this man be a good husband, will he be a suitable match". Anne is feisty enough, without being sugary sweet.
One thing that was a surprise me though was that Mrs Garland, Anne's mother, is considered an old woman when she's only about 40. when I read it at school, I thought that she and the Miller must have been ancient when they got married.
Ho-hum, time comes to us all. Anyway - go read this, don't accept the dashing it gets from the miseryguts who prefer their Hardy to be a bottomless well of despair.
July 25, 2011
Anne Garland is quite possibly Hardy's least appealing heroine, which unfortunately makes this his least appealing novel. Status-conscious, shy, cold, boring beyond her years, with no apparent talents or hobbies, Anne finds herself the object of the affections of two working-class brothers as well as the heir of the kindly local squire.
Anne is unlike other 'Hardy Girls' and Hardy is unlike himself in this story. He more interested in the military maneuvers during the Napoleonic wars than he is the characters and their interactions, adventures and romances.
Supporting players like Squire Derriman, Anne's mother, the miller, the vixen Matilda, and the servants make a much stronger impression than our heroine and one of our heroes. The title character, the army trumpeter John, son of the miller, makes no impression whatsoever other than his dedication to Anne. His brother Bob the seaman gets very little 'screen time,' and the suggestion that Anne and Bob were childhood sweethearts feels like an afterthought - because in fact it was: Hardy added that nugget in between the novel's appearance as a serial in a newspaper and his preparation for the book to appear in novel form. Of her suitors, only the big, strong, cowardly guardsman Festus has a personality worth noting, albeit an unpleasant personality.
I recommend this book only to serious students of Hardy or nutsos like me who merely want to read everything ever written by significant English novelists.
Anne is unlike other 'Hardy Girls' and Hardy is unlike himself in this story. He more interested in the military maneuvers during the Napoleonic wars than he is the characters and their interactions, adventures and romances.
Supporting players like Squire Derriman, Anne's mother, the miller, the vixen Matilda, and the servants make a much stronger impression than our heroine and one of our heroes. The title character, the army trumpeter John, son of the miller, makes no impression whatsoever other than his dedication to Anne. His brother Bob the seaman gets very little 'screen time,' and the suggestion that Anne and Bob were childhood sweethearts feels like an afterthought - because in fact it was: Hardy added that nugget in between the novel's appearance as a serial in a newspaper and his preparation for the book to appear in novel form. Of her suitors, only the big, strong, cowardly guardsman Festus has a personality worth noting, albeit an unpleasant personality.
I recommend this book only to serious students of Hardy or nutsos like me who merely want to read everything ever written by significant English novelists.
April 29, 2024
An interesting and entertaining story of the 1804-6 when Napoleon may have invaded England. This patriarchal tale of Anne Garland and her wooing by three suitors is both comic and sad. The comical yet also threatening giant Festus Derriman who is after his Uncle Benjy’s wealth and Anne’s hand. There is also the two brothers Jack the Trumpet Major a solid caring considerate man and Bob the feckless easily led seaman. Anne of course loves Bob.
The story is set in another world with the Mill and the homage to King George III who I think may have been still sane. The agrarian myth of community is evident especially with the rustic symbolism of the mill. The invasion scare is brought to a climax with the false alarm and is the strength of the novel in Hardy using factual information and oral histories of people alive at that time.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The ending brings together the characters and end f the invasion threat with the victory at Trafalgar. Miller Loveday and Anne’s mother married early in the story, Festus and Matilda marry who was Bob’s unsuitable fiancé and of course Bob and Anne marry and she also inherits the miser’s Benjy’s wealth. John or Jack goes off to the Peninsula Wars with his unrequited love never to return.
A good story but the characters were weak.
The story is set in another world with the Mill and the homage to King George III who I think may have been still sane. The agrarian myth of community is evident especially with the rustic symbolism of the mill. The invasion scare is brought to a climax with the false alarm and is the strength of the novel in Hardy using factual information and oral histories of people alive at that time.
SPOILERS AHEAD
The ending brings together the characters and end f the invasion threat with the victory at Trafalgar. Miller Loveday and Anne’s mother married early in the story, Festus and Matilda marry who was Bob’s unsuitable fiancé and of course Bob and Anne marry and she also inherits the miser’s Benjy’s wealth. John or Jack goes off to the Peninsula Wars with his unrequited love never to return.
A good story but the characters were weak.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 2, 2014
See my review on my book blog: http://quirkyreader.livejournal.com/3...
February 6, 2011
Hardy has written enough books to keep me happy for years now - and there are still more for me to read, thank goodness! There is something about him - an earthiness, a darkness, that makes his stories (which are always about the complications of human relationships, and explorations of human character weighed against fate) very satisfying and full, though not always happy. This one might be lighter than most, but I very much enjoy how he refuses to simplify relationships. I could say more, but I don't want to give the story away. This may not be my favorite of his novels, but every one has been worthwhile, and "The Trumpet Major" is no exception. It has definitely whetted my Hardy appetite.
December 26, 2021
Free download available at Project Gutenberg.
And the audio version is available at LibriVox.
4* Tess of the D'Urbervilles
3* The Mayor of Casterbridge
4* Far from the Madding Crowd
3* The Three Strangers
4* An Imaginative Woman and Other Stories
4* The Woodlanders
5* A Pair of Blue Eyes
4* Under the Greenwood Tree
4* The Return of the Native
4* Jude the Obscure
4* Two on a Tower
4* The Hand of Ethelberta
3* Desperate Remedies
3* The Withered Arm
4* Short Stories
3* The Trumpet-Major
TR Wessex Tales
Tr The Distracted Preacher
TR A Laodicean: A Story of Today
About Thomas Hardy:
TR Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man
TR Portraits from life;: Memories and criticisms of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy...
And the audio version is available at LibriVox.
4* Tess of the D'Urbervilles
3* The Mayor of Casterbridge
4* Far from the Madding Crowd
3* The Three Strangers
4* An Imaginative Woman and Other Stories
4* The Woodlanders
5* A Pair of Blue Eyes
4* Under the Greenwood Tree
4* The Return of the Native
4* Jude the Obscure
4* Two on a Tower
4* The Hand of Ethelberta
3* Desperate Remedies
3* The Withered Arm
4* Short Stories
3* The Trumpet-Major
TR Wessex Tales
Tr The Distracted Preacher
TR A Laodicean: A Story of Today
About Thomas Hardy:
TR Thomas Hardy: The Time Torn Man
TR Portraits from life;: Memories and criticisms of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Thomas Hardy...
January 26, 2019
"The Trumpet Major" is one of Thomas Hardy's less well known works, and if less social importance. It is a romance novel, nothing more, although complicated.
Hardy did not have much good opinion of the steadfastness of young men's hearts, and his young girls did not seem to know their own minds.
This theme occurs in many of his novels, but it is the entire plot of "The Trumpet Major."
When will these young fools grow up, and when will Anne make up her mind?
Hardy did not have much good opinion of the steadfastness of young men's hearts, and his young girls did not seem to know their own minds.
This theme occurs in many of his novels, but it is the entire plot of "The Trumpet Major."
When will these young fools grow up, and when will Anne make up her mind?
October 6, 2023
The Trumpet Major is Hardy's only historical novel, and is often described as one of his minor works.
Nevertheless, it provides an interesting glimpse of England, more specifically the fictional seaside resort of Budmouth (Weymouth), where Napoleon Bonaparte, a small Corsican First Consul with great ambitions, is expected to land with his armadas at any moment. The historical background merges skilfully with the intricacies of the plot itself, a young girl courted by two soldier brothers and a tyrannical yeoman.
The novel has its flaws and can be tedious at times, despite the frenetic pace that follows more (too) quiet moments with (too) many tergiversations.
The descriptions of the landscape are poetically beautiful, but I also noticed that Thomas Hardy is never better than when he is faced with tragedy, particularly in the very last paragraph of the novel.
"The candle held by his father shed its waving light upon John’s face and uniform as with a farewell smile he turned on the doorstone, backed by the black night; and in another moment he had plunged into the darkness, the ring of his smart step dying away upon the bridge as he joined his companions-in-arms, and went off to blow his trumpet till silenced for ever upon one of the bloody battle-fields of Spain." (Chapter 41)
The most moving pages were, in my opinion, when Robert Loveday meets Captain Hardy and when Anne watches the warship Victory slowly disappear on the horizon.
"The great silent ship, with her population of blue-jackets, marines, officers, captain, and the admiral who was not to return alive, passed like a phantom the meridian of the Bill. Sometimes her aspect was that of a large white bat, sometimes that of a grey one. In the course of time the watching girl saw that the ship had passed her nearest point; the breadth of her sails diminished by foreshortening, till she assumed the form of an egg on end." (Chapter 34)
"The courses of the Victory were absorbed into the main, then her topsails went, and then her top-gallants. She was now no more than a dead fly’s wing on a sheet of spider’s web; and even this fragment diminished. Anne could hardly bear to see the end, and yet she resolved not to flinch. The admiral’s flag sank behind the watery line, and in a minute the very truck of the last topmast stole away. The Victory was gone." (Chapter 34)
Nevertheless, it provides an interesting glimpse of England, more specifically the fictional seaside resort of Budmouth (Weymouth), where Napoleon Bonaparte, a small Corsican First Consul with great ambitions, is expected to land with his armadas at any moment. The historical background merges skilfully with the intricacies of the plot itself, a young girl courted by two soldier brothers and a tyrannical yeoman.
The novel has its flaws and can be tedious at times, despite the frenetic pace that follows more (too) quiet moments with (too) many tergiversations.
The descriptions of the landscape are poetically beautiful, but I also noticed that Thomas Hardy is never better than when he is faced with tragedy, particularly in the very last paragraph of the novel.
"The candle held by his father shed its waving light upon John’s face and uniform as with a farewell smile he turned on the doorstone, backed by the black night; and in another moment he had plunged into the darkness, the ring of his smart step dying away upon the bridge as he joined his companions-in-arms, and went off to blow his trumpet till silenced for ever upon one of the bloody battle-fields of Spain." (Chapter 41)
The most moving pages were, in my opinion, when Robert Loveday meets Captain Hardy and when Anne watches the warship Victory slowly disappear on the horizon.
"The great silent ship, with her population of blue-jackets, marines, officers, captain, and the admiral who was not to return alive, passed like a phantom the meridian of the Bill. Sometimes her aspect was that of a large white bat, sometimes that of a grey one. In the course of time the watching girl saw that the ship had passed her nearest point; the breadth of her sails diminished by foreshortening, till she assumed the form of an egg on end." (Chapter 34)
"The courses of the Victory were absorbed into the main, then her topsails went, and then her top-gallants. She was now no more than a dead fly’s wing on a sheet of spider’s web; and even this fragment diminished. Anne could hardly bear to see the end, and yet she resolved not to flinch. The admiral’s flag sank behind the watery line, and in a minute the very truck of the last topmast stole away. The Victory was gone." (Chapter 34)
May 25, 2025
This is a love story with a historical setting and I enjoyed the setting much more than the romance. We are again in Hardy’s beloved Wessex, a small village with a mill near to the coastal town of Budmouth (actually Weymouth), at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. Life for Miller Loveday and his beloved, the widowed Mrs Garland, is disrupted by the arrival of the troops to camp nearby. Loveday has two sons involved in the war - John is the Trumpet Major of the title while Bob is a sailor.
The love affair involves Mrs Garland’s daughter Anne who is courted by both the brothers as well as the volatile (and rather ridiculous) Festus Derriman, nephew of the local squire. Anne is torn between her regard for the sensitive and honourable John and her feelings for her fickle childhood sweetheart Bob. Unfortunately her vacillations and the series of misunderstandings that stoke them become rather tiresome, and Anne’s own character never really comes through - there’s a lot of fainting and weeping though.
I really liked the descriptions of the military camp, the uniforms of the soldiers, and the feeling of danger as the townspeople await Bonaparte’s invasion. The moments when the war intrudes on our characters are the most effective for me, changing the tone from the rather stilted romantic comedy to something more powerful and realistic. Hardy’s storytelling skills are excellent as always but for me the main characters never really developed into more than stock types.
The love affair involves Mrs Garland’s daughter Anne who is courted by both the brothers as well as the volatile (and rather ridiculous) Festus Derriman, nephew of the local squire. Anne is torn between her regard for the sensitive and honourable John and her feelings for her fickle childhood sweetheart Bob. Unfortunately her vacillations and the series of misunderstandings that stoke them become rather tiresome, and Anne’s own character never really comes through - there’s a lot of fainting and weeping though.
I really liked the descriptions of the military camp, the uniforms of the soldiers, and the feeling of danger as the townspeople await Bonaparte’s invasion. The moments when the war intrudes on our characters are the most effective for me, changing the tone from the rather stilted romantic comedy to something more powerful and realistic. Hardy’s storytelling skills are excellent as always but for me the main characters never really developed into more than stock types.
October 11, 2021
I was on chapter 3 when I realized, I was rereading The Trumpet Major. I am so mad at myself for not even remembering that I had already read it. But as I am already reading it now, I will continue the reread of The Trumpet Major.
I read it the first time at the time I was getting married and have rated it a 1 star. I think I was too occupied with the wedding preparations at the time to do justice to this book, as I am really enjoying it as I am rereading it.
After finishing my reread I’m bumping up the rating from a 1 star to a 3. I enjoyed the first half of the book, but I was disappointed with the ending. I know now why I gave it a 1 star earlier because the ending was not exactly what I was hoping for. The love triangle got more messy during the second half and Anne kept jumping from one man to another. I can’t even remember the no of times she switched her interest from 1 guy to the next.
One interesting scene in the book was when John (It was him, right? And not the other brother: it was pretty confusing keeping up with all the love gestures which Anne was receiving from her suitors) saves Anne from a hot cup of water/tea and it was this moment which made Anne realize he kept her safety a priority over his own. There is an exact replication of this scene in a famous Pakistani drama Zindagi Gulzar Hai and now I know where the author got her inspiration from.
I read it the first time at the time I was getting married and have rated it a 1 star. I think I was too occupied with the wedding preparations at the time to do justice to this book, as I am really enjoying it as I am rereading it.
After finishing my reread I’m bumping up the rating from a 1 star to a 3. I enjoyed the first half of the book, but I was disappointed with the ending. I know now why I gave it a 1 star earlier because the ending was not exactly what I was hoping for. The love triangle got more messy during the second half and Anne kept jumping from one man to another. I can’t even remember the no of times she switched her interest from 1 guy to the next.
One interesting scene in the book was when John (It was him, right? And not the other brother: it was pretty confusing keeping up with all the love gestures which Anne was receiving from her suitors) saves Anne from a hot cup of water/tea and it was this moment which made Anne realize he kept her safety a priority over his own. There is an exact replication of this scene in a famous Pakistani drama Zindagi Gulzar Hai and now I know where the author got her inspiration from.
December 3, 2019
Hardy is such a master of the human, flawed character development and this story did not disappoint. I found myself (as usual with his novels) extremely frustrated with each character and their fickle ways, which means the author did a good job making his characters interesting and realistic. At first, I was angry with Festus Derriman, who is a big bully of a man, and his name associated more with "fester" or "infest" in my mind than with "festive". Bob Loveday annoyed me with his immature womanizing, and both he and Festus crossed such lines in harassing Anne that I was surprised several times that Anne escaped being raped. Anne herself was irritating in her wavering between Festus and the two Loveday bothers, but a person can't help their feelings I guess. John Loveday bothered me in being too much of a martyr, and since the book is titled after him, I found the ending to be a bit disappointing. The book as a whole was very interesting and satisfying though, and I'll definitely add more Hardy to my reading list.
April 27, 2021
As expected, Hardy's writing style is visual and pleasant. But this was also an engaging read: a lot of suspense between characters -- what's going to happen in the next chapter? who is the girl going to end up with?...and then, BAM! Hardy surprised me at the very end. At first I was disappointed, but then I thought about it: a husband or five properties? Hmmm...which would you prefer?
January 22, 2020
The Trumpet-Major is a novel by Thomas Hardy set during the time of the Napoleonic Wars and first published as a serial in Good Words from January to December 1880. It seems like a lot of books in the 1800's were published in serial form, I'm glad I wasn't there for it, I want to read my books all at one time. Hardy says of the novel in the introduction:
"The external incidents which direct its course are mostly an unexaggerated reproduction of the recollections of old persons well known to the author in childhood, but now long dead, who were eye-witnesses of those scenes. If wholly transcribed their recollections would have filled a volume thrice the length of ‘The Trumpet-Major.’"
I wish he would have wholly transcribed their recollections, I like long novels, this novel wasn't that long. The book begins with the sudden arrival in the village of Overcombe a great army. The villagers expect an imminent French invasion, and the arrival of soldiers close to the villager's homes only endorses these rumours. Throughout the book, in humourous scenes or serious scenes, there is always that hidden fear among the people in the area that they are about to be invaded. They spend quite a bit of time discussing when Buonaparte will invade their country; deciding it will be at night, during the summer, in 1,500 flat-bottomed boats that hold 100 men each, that they will land in Budmouth Bay within sight of the village and all sorts of other things they have no real way of knowing. There is an amusing scene where the men of the village who have "volunteered" to defend their country are going through the drills before the service at church:
‘Now, I hope you’ll have a little patience,’ said the sergeant, as he stood in the centre of the arc, ‘and pay strict attention to the word of command, just exactly as I give it out to ye; and if I should go wrong, I shall be much obliged to any friend who’ll put me right again, for I have only been in the army three weeks myself, and we are all liable to mistakes.’
‘So we be, so we be,’ said the line heartily.
‘’Tention, the whole, then. Poise fawlocks! Very well done!’
‘Please, what must we do that haven’t got no firelocks!’ said the lower end of the line in a helpless voice.
‘Now, was ever such a question! Why, you must do nothing at all, but think how you’d poise ’em if you had ’em. You middle men, that are armed with hurdle-sticks and cabbage-stumps just to make-believe, must of course use ’em as if they were the real thing. Now then, cock fawlocks! Present! Fire! (Pretend to, I mean, and the same time throw yer imagination into the field o’ battle.) Very good—very good indeed; except that some of you were a little too soon, and the rest a little too late.’
‘Please, sergeant, can I fall out, as I am master-player in the choir, and my bass-viol strings won’t stand at this time o’ year, unless they be screwed up a little before the passon comes in?’
‘How can you think of such trifles as churchgoing at such a time as this, when your own native country is on the point of invasion?’ said the sergeant sternly. ‘And, as you know, the drill ends three minutes afore church begins, and that’s the law, and it wants a quarter of an hour yet. Now, at the word Prime, shake the powder (supposing you’ve got it) into the priming-pan, three last fingers behind the rammer; then shut your pans, drawing your right arm nimble-like towards your body. I ought to have told ye before this, that at Hand your katridge, seize it and bring it with a quick motion to your mouth, bite the top well off, and don’t swaller so much of the powder as to make ye hawk and spet instead of attending to your drill. What’s that man a-saying of in the rear rank?’
‘Please, sir, ’tis Anthony Cripplestraw, wanting to know how he’s to bite off his katridge, when he haven’t a tooth left in ’s head?’
‘Man! Why, what’s your genius for war? Hold it up to your right-hand man’s mouth, to be sure, and let him nip it off for ye."
The heroine of our story is Anne Garland, the only daughter of an impoverished widow. Anne’s father was a respected, local artist, but his death unfortunately left the mother and daughter in limited means, and giving up their larger home at the other end of the village, mother and daughter now occupy one half of Overcombe Millhouse with the miller, Miller Loveday, occupying the other side. There is a partition constructed to separate the two dwellings, with the Garlands occupying the smaller section, and there are also invisible class divisions between the two households. Materially the miller is better off than the widowed Mrs Garland, but she is considered more “genteel” socially than the miller. I am not at all sure why. It seems that a respected, local artist is socially above a respected, local miller. I never figured out why. I suppose that would mean that a respected, local musician may be socially above a respected, local merchant, or visa-versa, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, Anne has three suitors; the incredibly annoying Festus Derriman; nephew of Benjamin Derriman. Benjamin Derriman is owner of Oxwell Hall, once the seat of a family now extinct, and having no other family, his nephew is expected to inherit all his wealth when he dies. The other two suitors are John Loveday, eldest son of Miller Loveday and a trumpet-major in the army; and his younger brother Bob, a sailor.
Although fairly early in the book Mrs. Garland marries our Miller Loveday despite her social beliefs, she isn't as open to her daughter marrying "beneath" her and therefore her choice for Anne would be Festus, this would satisfy her social ambitions. John is a good honourable man who is madly in love with Anne, but Anne we find, lost her heart to younger brother Bob when she was a young girl. Bob however, when he arrives home after years at sea arrives home with a fiance, Miss Matilda Johnson. He tells his family in a letter that he has known Miss Johnson for a fortnight which is ample time to study her character, and that she could play the part of mistress of the mill with "grace and dignity". When Bob arrives excited for everyone to meet his finance, who will arrive in a few days, he laughs at how he used to be Anne's beau when they were young. She leaves the room in tears. Miss Johnson arrives at the mill a few days later, preparations for the wedding are being made, but before the wedding is carried out Miss Johnson mysteriously disappears (don't worry she reappears later in the story).
Now Bob, who seems to jump from one woman to another quite easily turns his attentions to Anne. Now we get to see which one of these suitors Anne eventually chooses. Hopefully not the horrible Festus who takes advantage of every opportunity to corner her when she is alone. I find however, that Anne very rarely acts the way I would in the same situations, and I won't tell you who or what her final choice is. I will say that no matter what her choice, I don't see any happily ever after at the end of this book.
Before I end, just to show how my mind works (or doesn't) this is the one quote in the book I can't seem to forget, it is when he is describing Matilda Johnson when she first arrives on the scene:
"The sun shone occasionally into Matilda’s face as they drove on, its rays picking out all her features to a great nicety. Her eyes would have been called brown, but they were really eel-colour, like many other nice brown eyes; they were well-shaped and rather bright, though they had more of a broad shine than a sparkle."
Her eyes were eel-coloured? I have brown eyes and never have I ever thought of them as being eel-coloured, nor do I want to. It just seemed the oddest way to describe someone's eyes. There is absolutely no fish that I can think of I want to be compared to, but that's just me. Ok, I'm done, I think I'll give it three stars. I liked the book, but I didn't love it, I'm not sure if the eel had anything to do with it.
"The external incidents which direct its course are mostly an unexaggerated reproduction of the recollections of old persons well known to the author in childhood, but now long dead, who were eye-witnesses of those scenes. If wholly transcribed their recollections would have filled a volume thrice the length of ‘The Trumpet-Major.’"
I wish he would have wholly transcribed their recollections, I like long novels, this novel wasn't that long. The book begins with the sudden arrival in the village of Overcombe a great army. The villagers expect an imminent French invasion, and the arrival of soldiers close to the villager's homes only endorses these rumours. Throughout the book, in humourous scenes or serious scenes, there is always that hidden fear among the people in the area that they are about to be invaded. They spend quite a bit of time discussing when Buonaparte will invade their country; deciding it will be at night, during the summer, in 1,500 flat-bottomed boats that hold 100 men each, that they will land in Budmouth Bay within sight of the village and all sorts of other things they have no real way of knowing. There is an amusing scene where the men of the village who have "volunteered" to defend their country are going through the drills before the service at church:
‘Now, I hope you’ll have a little patience,’ said the sergeant, as he stood in the centre of the arc, ‘and pay strict attention to the word of command, just exactly as I give it out to ye; and if I should go wrong, I shall be much obliged to any friend who’ll put me right again, for I have only been in the army three weeks myself, and we are all liable to mistakes.’
‘So we be, so we be,’ said the line heartily.
‘’Tention, the whole, then. Poise fawlocks! Very well done!’
‘Please, what must we do that haven’t got no firelocks!’ said the lower end of the line in a helpless voice.
‘Now, was ever such a question! Why, you must do nothing at all, but think how you’d poise ’em if you had ’em. You middle men, that are armed with hurdle-sticks and cabbage-stumps just to make-believe, must of course use ’em as if they were the real thing. Now then, cock fawlocks! Present! Fire! (Pretend to, I mean, and the same time throw yer imagination into the field o’ battle.) Very good—very good indeed; except that some of you were a little too soon, and the rest a little too late.’
‘Please, sergeant, can I fall out, as I am master-player in the choir, and my bass-viol strings won’t stand at this time o’ year, unless they be screwed up a little before the passon comes in?’
‘How can you think of such trifles as churchgoing at such a time as this, when your own native country is on the point of invasion?’ said the sergeant sternly. ‘And, as you know, the drill ends three minutes afore church begins, and that’s the law, and it wants a quarter of an hour yet. Now, at the word Prime, shake the powder (supposing you’ve got it) into the priming-pan, three last fingers behind the rammer; then shut your pans, drawing your right arm nimble-like towards your body. I ought to have told ye before this, that at Hand your katridge, seize it and bring it with a quick motion to your mouth, bite the top well off, and don’t swaller so much of the powder as to make ye hawk and spet instead of attending to your drill. What’s that man a-saying of in the rear rank?’
‘Please, sir, ’tis Anthony Cripplestraw, wanting to know how he’s to bite off his katridge, when he haven’t a tooth left in ’s head?’
‘Man! Why, what’s your genius for war? Hold it up to your right-hand man’s mouth, to be sure, and let him nip it off for ye."
The heroine of our story is Anne Garland, the only daughter of an impoverished widow. Anne’s father was a respected, local artist, but his death unfortunately left the mother and daughter in limited means, and giving up their larger home at the other end of the village, mother and daughter now occupy one half of Overcombe Millhouse with the miller, Miller Loveday, occupying the other side. There is a partition constructed to separate the two dwellings, with the Garlands occupying the smaller section, and there are also invisible class divisions between the two households. Materially the miller is better off than the widowed Mrs Garland, but she is considered more “genteel” socially than the miller. I am not at all sure why. It seems that a respected, local artist is socially above a respected, local miller. I never figured out why. I suppose that would mean that a respected, local musician may be socially above a respected, local merchant, or visa-versa, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, Anne has three suitors; the incredibly annoying Festus Derriman; nephew of Benjamin Derriman. Benjamin Derriman is owner of Oxwell Hall, once the seat of a family now extinct, and having no other family, his nephew is expected to inherit all his wealth when he dies. The other two suitors are John Loveday, eldest son of Miller Loveday and a trumpet-major in the army; and his younger brother Bob, a sailor.
Although fairly early in the book Mrs. Garland marries our Miller Loveday despite her social beliefs, she isn't as open to her daughter marrying "beneath" her and therefore her choice for Anne would be Festus, this would satisfy her social ambitions. John is a good honourable man who is madly in love with Anne, but Anne we find, lost her heart to younger brother Bob when she was a young girl. Bob however, when he arrives home after years at sea arrives home with a fiance, Miss Matilda Johnson. He tells his family in a letter that he has known Miss Johnson for a fortnight which is ample time to study her character, and that she could play the part of mistress of the mill with "grace and dignity". When Bob arrives excited for everyone to meet his finance, who will arrive in a few days, he laughs at how he used to be Anne's beau when they were young. She leaves the room in tears. Miss Johnson arrives at the mill a few days later, preparations for the wedding are being made, but before the wedding is carried out Miss Johnson mysteriously disappears (don't worry she reappears later in the story).
Now Bob, who seems to jump from one woman to another quite easily turns his attentions to Anne. Now we get to see which one of these suitors Anne eventually chooses. Hopefully not the horrible Festus who takes advantage of every opportunity to corner her when she is alone. I find however, that Anne very rarely acts the way I would in the same situations, and I won't tell you who or what her final choice is. I will say that no matter what her choice, I don't see any happily ever after at the end of this book.
Before I end, just to show how my mind works (or doesn't) this is the one quote in the book I can't seem to forget, it is when he is describing Matilda Johnson when she first arrives on the scene:
"The sun shone occasionally into Matilda’s face as they drove on, its rays picking out all her features to a great nicety. Her eyes would have been called brown, but they were really eel-colour, like many other nice brown eyes; they were well-shaped and rather bright, though they had more of a broad shine than a sparkle."
Her eyes were eel-coloured? I have brown eyes and never have I ever thought of them as being eel-coloured, nor do I want to. It just seemed the oddest way to describe someone's eyes. There is absolutely no fish that I can think of I want to be compared to, but that's just me. Ok, I'm done, I think I'll give it three stars. I liked the book, but I didn't love it, I'm not sure if the eel had anything to do with it.
June 9, 2014
Oh Thomas,
Read June 2014
We were doing so well, you and I. I was thinking of reading your poetry and planning Far from the Madding Crowd as my next big read. And then came along The Trumpet-Major. It started well, although a bit mellow for you, but then turned into what felt like (but was not actually) a long, long, long read. Your love quandrangle between boring Anne and her three suitors is a bit, well, dull. The plot and choices are very Austen, but without her sparkle. Your characters are a bit Elliot, only without her themes, prose, or depth, and I am left wondering why you would ever serialize anything. I think there are bits you actually stuck in between serialization and publication.
Anne, our heroine, such as she is, is a painter's daughter brought low(ish) by her Father's death. She lives in a partioned mill with her mother, despite their obviously superior class. They initially do not deign to socialize with the Miller Loveday, but finally Mom is just in the mood for fun. She throws a ribbon in her hair and ends up married to Mr. Loveday. Anne, on the other hand, is very much above the Lovedays, initially bad-mouthed by her Mom, her now-step songs Bob (the boring sailor) and John (the dreamy Trumpet major) both think Anne is the greatest. She's not. Early in this book I was struck by the potential for star-crossed love between John and Anne, something you do so well, Thomas. But no. Not to be. Booo!!!!!!!!
In addition to the man Anne should have married but instead sent to war with Napolean and his brother Bob, the one she actually married for reasons best known to no one, Anne is also hounded (perhaps literally at one point) by Festus Derryman, who is such a ridiculously awesome character, he should have had more air time. If Charles had written The Trumpet-Major instead of you, Derryman would have been the star and it would have been a different book. As it is, you relegate him to a funny side line.
As a result, the characters don't move the plot. While two of them want something, they are stymied by Anne's indifference, and we wait for you to tell us the direction, instead of feeling the book move from the urgency of the characters. So it plods.
At the same time, this is your only historical novel, set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. And while this could have been an interesting way to move the story, or set the story, or drive the story, it ends up being like a studio movie back drop. All scenery and no movement. When John leaves for the war, your reader SHOULD feel bereft, he's going to fight in some of the scariest wars of the 19th century. Instead, it's like by brother-in-law/step-brother. I'm going to hang at the mill. Drop me a line.
Oh Thomas.
To be fair, Thomas, this book has its lovers, but I think they might all be Conrad fans or stark realists, so I'm a bit inclined to disregard their opinions, or understand their enjoyment in the context of the prose style and storytelling they enjoy. For me, this is a necessary read for any serious student of 19th century literature or any Hardy lover, but really in the context of understanding what doesn't work now (although it may have at the time. The word on the street was that you published (serialised) The Trumpet-Major after you received poor reviews on my very favorite of your novels The Return of the Native. The explanation makes sense, because in almost every way, this is the anti-Native, and I think you thought so too, because not only is the prose stiff, but you return to your earlier style in later books Jude, Tess, Casterbridge. To paraphrase Frost, this didn't begin as a writing experiment, but turned into one when it because unsuccessful.
The two things most striking about The Trumpet Major are the stiffness of the writing and the blandness of your heroine. It feels a bit like you were pretending to be Austen, but couldn't bring yourself to go through with it. I hope you learned your lesson with this and stuck with your guts in later novels (as I know you did from reading Jude and Tess), because regardless of reviews, Thomas Hardy, you have an amazing mind and I want to hear more of what you have to say, not what you think you should say.
A bientot. See you mid-July.
Courts
Read June 2014
We were doing so well, you and I. I was thinking of reading your poetry and planning Far from the Madding Crowd as my next big read. And then came along The Trumpet-Major. It started well, although a bit mellow for you, but then turned into what felt like (but was not actually) a long, long, long read. Your love quandrangle between boring Anne and her three suitors is a bit, well, dull. The plot and choices are very Austen, but without her sparkle. Your characters are a bit Elliot, only without her themes, prose, or depth, and I am left wondering why you would ever serialize anything. I think there are bits you actually stuck in between serialization and publication.
Anne, our heroine, such as she is, is a painter's daughter brought low(ish) by her Father's death. She lives in a partioned mill with her mother, despite their obviously superior class. They initially do not deign to socialize with the Miller Loveday, but finally Mom is just in the mood for fun. She throws a ribbon in her hair and ends up married to Mr. Loveday. Anne, on the other hand, is very much above the Lovedays, initially bad-mouthed by her Mom, her now-step songs Bob (the boring sailor) and John (the dreamy Trumpet major) both think Anne is the greatest. She's not. Early in this book I was struck by the potential for star-crossed love between John and Anne, something you do so well, Thomas. But no. Not to be. Booo!!!!!!!!
In addition to the man Anne should have married but instead sent to war with Napolean and his brother Bob, the one she actually married for reasons best known to no one, Anne is also hounded (perhaps literally at one point) by Festus Derryman, who is such a ridiculously awesome character, he should have had more air time. If Charles had written The Trumpet-Major instead of you, Derryman would have been the star and it would have been a different book. As it is, you relegate him to a funny side line.
As a result, the characters don't move the plot. While two of them want something, they are stymied by Anne's indifference, and we wait for you to tell us the direction, instead of feeling the book move from the urgency of the characters. So it plods.
At the same time, this is your only historical novel, set against the backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. And while this could have been an interesting way to move the story, or set the story, or drive the story, it ends up being like a studio movie back drop. All scenery and no movement. When John leaves for the war, your reader SHOULD feel bereft, he's going to fight in some of the scariest wars of the 19th century. Instead, it's like by brother-in-law/step-brother. I'm going to hang at the mill. Drop me a line.
Oh Thomas.
To be fair, Thomas, this book has its lovers, but I think they might all be Conrad fans or stark realists, so I'm a bit inclined to disregard their opinions, or understand their enjoyment in the context of the prose style and storytelling they enjoy. For me, this is a necessary read for any serious student of 19th century literature or any Hardy lover, but really in the context of understanding what doesn't work now (although it may have at the time. The word on the street was that you published (serialised) The Trumpet-Major after you received poor reviews on my very favorite of your novels The Return of the Native. The explanation makes sense, because in almost every way, this is the anti-Native, and I think you thought so too, because not only is the prose stiff, but you return to your earlier style in later books Jude, Tess, Casterbridge. To paraphrase Frost, this didn't begin as a writing experiment, but turned into one when it because unsuccessful.
The two things most striking about The Trumpet Major are the stiffness of the writing and the blandness of your heroine. It feels a bit like you were pretending to be Austen, but couldn't bring yourself to go through with it. I hope you learned your lesson with this and stuck with your guts in later novels (as I know you did from reading Jude and Tess), because regardless of reviews, Thomas Hardy, you have an amazing mind and I want to hear more of what you have to say, not what you think you should say.
A bientot. See you mid-July.
Courts
May 19, 2022
Miller Loveday has 2 sons - John is a trumpet Major in the army; Bob a sailor. The mill is also home to the widow Mrs Garland and her daughter, Anne. Anne is being pursued by Festus, the son of the local land owner, John and Bob..The threat of invasion by Napoleon’s army hovers over the village as soldiers arrive and set up camp..Anne struggles to reconcile her head and her heart, balancing romantic and economic considerations..
This book was an absolute delight. It shared many elements with other Hardy novels - a young woman with multiple romantic suitors, Hardy’s ubiquitous letters and/or documents that go missing, someone unknowingly sitting on top of a hidden object, a strongly developed setting…the hand of a fickle fate. However, in this novel our heroine is less fickle/coquetish and more considered. Although I strongly questioned her choice of suitor, her choice was in part made because some information was withheld from her. The novel is firmly placed in a historical context with Napoleon hovering and cameo appearances by Hardy and the Victory and the drama switches delightfully between national and domestic ..
‘…all the while on tenterhooks, not lest Buonaparte should appear in the midst, but lest Bob should come whilst he was not there to receive him..
I loved this book, in particular for its comedy. Although Hardy is most often noted for the bleakness of his novels, he is an absolute master of comedy. As one of the readalong pointed out the scenes with the local ‘home guard’ frequently felt like Dad’s Army -
‘Please, sir, ‘is Anthony Cripplestraw, wanting to know how he’s to bite off his katridge, when he haven’t a tooth left in ’s head?”
Once again Hardy reminds me of Shakespeare and his blending of the comic and the tragic. Trumpet Major, I think more than any Hardy I have read so far, is a novel which more fully encompasses both and resolves itself into an ending which doesn’t entirely feel like one or the other. The character of Festus for example is at times comical - falling into the pond and often amusingly being outwitted by Anne.. but later appears far more dangerous and predatory.
I feel a huge curiousity about Hardy himself and his world view as he wrote these novels and how the swinging between the two in this novel reflected anything of his own journey.
This book was an absolute delight. It shared many elements with other Hardy novels - a young woman with multiple romantic suitors, Hardy’s ubiquitous letters and/or documents that go missing, someone unknowingly sitting on top of a hidden object, a strongly developed setting…the hand of a fickle fate. However, in this novel our heroine is less fickle/coquetish and more considered. Although I strongly questioned her choice of suitor, her choice was in part made because some information was withheld from her. The novel is firmly placed in a historical context with Napoleon hovering and cameo appearances by Hardy and the Victory and the drama switches delightfully between national and domestic ..
‘…all the while on tenterhooks, not lest Buonaparte should appear in the midst, but lest Bob should come whilst he was not there to receive him..
I loved this book, in particular for its comedy. Although Hardy is most often noted for the bleakness of his novels, he is an absolute master of comedy. As one of the readalong pointed out the scenes with the local ‘home guard’ frequently felt like Dad’s Army -
‘Please, sir, ‘is Anthony Cripplestraw, wanting to know how he’s to bite off his katridge, when he haven’t a tooth left in ’s head?”
Once again Hardy reminds me of Shakespeare and his blending of the comic and the tragic. Trumpet Major, I think more than any Hardy I have read so far, is a novel which more fully encompasses both and resolves itself into an ending which doesn’t entirely feel like one or the other. The character of Festus for example is at times comical - falling into the pond and often amusingly being outwitted by Anne.. but later appears far more dangerous and predatory.
I feel a huge curiousity about Hardy himself and his world view as he wrote these novels and how the swinging between the two in this novel reflected anything of his own journey.
May 9, 2013
Sad - It started out great, but I was angry at the turn it took.
I would agree with the fact that Anne, the heroine of the book is the least likeable of Hardy's. I couldn't sympathize with her actions and her course left me angry and frustrated.
Because of this, I don't know that I would ever re-read this book.
However, The Trumpet Major has some of the most lively and interesting characters of Hardy's creation as well. I absolutely loved Uncle Benji who almost seemed to have stepped out of a Dickens' novel into this work, being such an eccentric and fun fellow. Festus was unlikeable in the sort of way he should have been, and so was fun to read about. The Trumpet Major himself, well, I for one was in love with him even though Anne was so stupid.
This book did have a lot of humor in the beginning that I quite enjoyed. I had hoped that it wasn't going to be a downer of a Hardy book, but, sadly, it is. Oh well.
Also, I enjoyed reading a work of Hardy's that is set back in time (ealy 1800's) as most of his works seem set thirty to 90 years later than the time frame of the Trumpet Major. The atmosphere of the military camps from the "Bonepartie" era really came to life for me.
I still love Hardy's narrative style and the details and what humor there was is excellent. I am glad for having read it at least this once.
I would agree with the fact that Anne, the heroine of the book is the least likeable of Hardy's. I couldn't sympathize with her actions and her course left me angry and frustrated.
Because of this, I don't know that I would ever re-read this book.
However, The Trumpet Major has some of the most lively and interesting characters of Hardy's creation as well. I absolutely loved Uncle Benji who almost seemed to have stepped out of a Dickens' novel into this work, being such an eccentric and fun fellow. Festus was unlikeable in the sort of way he should have been, and so was fun to read about. The Trumpet Major himself, well, I for one was in love with him even though Anne was so stupid.
This book did have a lot of humor in the beginning that I quite enjoyed. I had hoped that it wasn't going to be a downer of a Hardy book, but, sadly, it is. Oh well.
Also, I enjoyed reading a work of Hardy's that is set back in time (ealy 1800's) as most of his works seem set thirty to 90 years later than the time frame of the Trumpet Major. The atmosphere of the military camps from the "Bonepartie" era really came to life for me.
I still love Hardy's narrative style and the details and what humor there was is excellent. I am glad for having read it at least this once.
April 23, 2012
I stayed with it to the end, but The Trumpet-Major didn’t hold my attention very well. The various characters were each believable in their own right, but I didn’t like the heroine very much; she was wishy-washy, self-centered, and uninteresting. The one major character I did like did not receive due rewards for his good character. There just wasn’t much to the story other than wondering who the heroine would end up with. It was intriguing to get a glimpse into the life of the English in a time of preparation for war, and to see how village life was affected when the royal family came to town for its annual retreat. A minor subplot involving an elderly uncle and his subterfuge to keep his bully nephew from gaining his property was fun.
June 18, 2019
Admittedly, this is not one of Hardy's better novels. Looking at this through the lens of 2019, I can't help but frown upon Hardy's portrayal of women and how he depicts a typical heteronormative courtship between men and women. Hardy's women are usually strong headed and opinionated, which I appreciate, and somehow still a magnet to the male gaze.
Anne Garland here however, has none of such characteristics which made me question Hardy's intentions for writing her this way. She matures as a character at the end but at the expense of a broken heart, nevertheless caused by a man.
All that said, nothing much has changed in how novels explore courtship between heteronormative men and women since the 19th century, which is an interesting point to note.
Anne Garland here however, has none of such characteristics which made me question Hardy's intentions for writing her this way. She matures as a character at the end but at the expense of a broken heart, nevertheless caused by a man.
All that said, nothing much has changed in how novels explore courtship between heteronormative men and women since the 19th century, which is an interesting point to note.
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