The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy (1887)

 This is an interesting one. It's my third major Hardy, after The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I've also read some of the poetry, and a few short pieces. And there is a difference to report, and I wonder if it's the reason why this novel doesn't have quite the same cachet as those two mentioned. It was important to the author, mind. He apparently stated, while preparing the Wessex edition not long before the First World War, that it was the one of which he was most fond, though he qualified that with "as a story". Not sure what he meant - the plot? Or this novel seen through the simple lens of entertainment? Or a sense of completeness in the structure? Anyway...... The thing I feel the need to report is a sense of by-numbers-ness. It feels like a deeply pre-determined plot, ticking away, with little chimes at key points numbering off the staging posts. And perspective can be gained by imagining the process of adaptation for film as you read. Having the screen in mind as a big conversation or event comes up, and considering what impact each one would have as written. Too often this droops a little: talk is somewhat stilted, psychology a bit too unfounded, plot a shade too convenient. The ultimate feeling is of a work which hasn't the blazing passion of those others. Now, there are of course significant compensations - times when his writing takes flight and has the signature of complete statement, in the way that is familiar and typifying. The locale, always so important in Hardy, is a delight, resplendent with green-shaded lanes, paths through dense woods, clearings where the forest-economy is practised, from bark-stripping to cider-making, valleys pelted with orchard trees, and two local tiny villages tucked into the milieu. The identifying trope of all this aspect is an unusual one - the drip-zone under and around trees, mentioned many times, where rain or condensation makes its way to the lowest leaves, its final precipitation forming a delineated tract. So, the journey is an alloyed pleasure through these means. The destination is, without giving anything away, a bit neither here nor there, but has a lovely sting with a subsidiary character's lonely vigil in a graveyard. This highlights the slightly hidden tragedy inherent here, and it's a powerful one for all its camouflage under flashier plotlines. The story of unfulfilled lives, which then coils back as you look across what you've read, and see that it applies across the board amongst the major characters. That's not nothing, and proves the worth of this flawed book.