Whether a function of calculation, inspiration or genuine sentiment, Thomas Hardy's secured himself a permanent place in critic's hearts by first writing with profound pessimism about Victorian England and then abandoning novels altogether in order to write poetry.  Even were he a total hack, this one-two punch of political correctness and literary pretense would have at least ensured that he was overrated.  But the fact that he was also a capable writer has ensured that he is one of the most overestimated novelists in the English language.

Mayor of Casterbridge, though not as dark as some of his final work, is a fairly representative novel.  The Mayor of the title is a respected grain merchant with a dark secret in his past.  When he was a young man and a bad drunk, he auctioned off his wife and daughter to a sailor at a county fair while in his cups.  Given a chance to redeem himself when his widowed ex-wife tracks him down, he remarries her and tries to be a good husband and father, figuring that no one need ever know of the scandal in their past.  Needless to say, things don't quite work out.  The wife dies. The sailor turns up alive. The daughter is revealed to be the sailor's and not the Mayor's.  And the Mayor loses his fortune and dies alone and broke.

To quote my wife; Whoopty Flippin damn doo!  Believe it or not, it's hard to work up any sympathy for the Mayor.  And what is the message of the novel supposed to be other than this seemingly obvious one about not selling your family?  Hardy is a facile enough writer and the book is fun in the same way as The Book of Job or the Zapruder film.  But it's hard to escape the suspicion that his lofty reputation rests mostly on his mere determination to write so pessimistically, going against the grain of a fundamentally optimistic age.

(Reviewed:20-Jan-00)

Grade: (B) Orrin C. Judd

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