Adam Bede

Adam Bede 

By George Eliot 

★★★★☆ 

Our title character is a good man and a simple one. He sees the world in black and white. Work hard, take care of your family, and you will lead a good life. He falls in love with an impetuous young woman named Hetty. Unfortunately, Hetty has fallen for the wealthy Captain Arthur Donnithorne, a man above her station, but one who is still susceptible to the young woman’s charms. 

I loved the character of Dinah. She could be perceived as a killjoy or prude, but she never cane across to me like that. She is Hetty’s cousin and is a Methodist preacher who travels the countryside serving in local communities. Keep in mind, this was at a time when it was unusual for a woman to travel about on her own, much less to serve as a leader in the church. She has a fierce strength and independence and doesn’t give into the pleas from her family to give up her calling. 

When she is asked about being a woman preacher, this is what she says… 

“When God makes His presence felt through us, we are like the burning bush: Moses never took any heed what sort of bush it was—he only saw the brightness of the Lord.” 

****SPOILERS*****

Dinah: When she does finally fall for Adam, she still doesn’t agree to marry until he declares that he will never stand in the way of her duties as a preacher and he fully supports her. I was a bit heartbroken from Adam’s brother Seth, since he’s the one who originally pursued Dinah. 

Hetty’s story is so heartbreaking. I can’t imagine feeling so hopeless and abandoned. In the midst of her panic about her pregnancy she didn’t trust anyone with her secret and so she was unwilling to look for other options. Even though her life was spared, her future was still going to be full of grief and guilt no matter what. 

SPOILERS OVER 

BOTTOM LINE: I loved it. It reminded me so much of Tess of the d’Urbervilles and The Return of the Native (both of which were published decades after this one). It’s an intense look at the desperation of one woman and the man who loved her. I appreciated the rich depth of characters like Dinah and Adam. I also liked that Arthur wasn't a one-note cad. He easily could have been, but instead we see the situation from his point of view as well. 

“What destroys us most effectively is not a malign fate but our own capacity for self-deception and for degrading our own best self.” 

“What greater thing is there for two human souls, than to feel that they are joined for life--to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of the last parting?” 

“Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds.”

The Return of the Native

The Return of the Native
by Thomas Hardy
★★★★★

Damn this man can write tragedy! In this novel Hardy creates a love triangle (quadrangle?) that is both beautiful and disastrous. Using his incredible gift for lyrical prose he takes us into the wild land of Egdon Health.

Diggory Venn, a local reddleman, is in love with Thomasin Yeobright. She in turn is in love with Wildeve, a restless self-centered man. He is torn between his feelings for her and his love for Eustacia Vye. Add Thomasin’s cousin Clym Yeobright, the man who catches Eustacia’s eye, to the mix and you’ve got quite the quandary.

Each of the characters is wonderfully developed. We feel Eustacia’s restlessness and Thomasin’s earnest devotion. We long for Venn to find love and Clym to find happiness. We watch their lives unfold with a mix of apprehension and excitement, wondering all the while if the characters are falling in love purely for the escape they offer each other or if their feelings are true. Do they want something because someone else wants it or because it’s truly their heart’s desire?

“The sentiment which lurks more or less in all animate nature – that of not desiring the undesired of other – was lively as a passion in the supsersublte epicurean heart of Eustacia.”

I loved how the health is one of the main characters in the book and all of the characters are shaped by their reaction to it. Eustacia desperately wants to leave it and will do anything to get away. Clym returns from Paris aching for the wild health he loved so much in his childhood. Thomasin feels that she is a country girl and is comfortable living in the health. Only Hardy could make the background setting of a drama such a definitive character in the action. He even describes the effect the health has on the women who live there…
 
“An environment which would have made a contented woman a poet, a suffering woman a devotee, a pious woman a psalmist, even a giddy woman thoughtful, made a rebellious woman saturnine.”
 
SPOILERS

All of the characters desperately want what they can’t have. Another person, money, success, peace, travel, etc. Even Clym’s mother Mrs. Yeobright longs for different partners for her son and niece. She wants their happiness, but when they’ve chosen their lot in life she has such a hard time accepting it that she perpetuates unhappiness in their lives. Each character is destroyed by their own longing except for Venn. Early in the book he comes to terms with the fact that he’ll never have the woman he truly wants. He accepts that and decides that he’ll do everything he can to make her happy from a distance. Then, in the end he’s the only one who ends up getting what he wanted. It’s a beautiful picture of selfless love.

SPOILERS OVER

BOTTOM LINE: This book is so beautiful and poignant I just can’t get over it. It’s definitely a new favorite of mine. I’d recommend it if you enjoy Victorian literature, tragic love stories or just gorgeous prose.
 
 “Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.”

“Humanity appears upon the scene, hand-in-hand with trouble.”

“What a strange sort of love to be entirely free from that quality of selfishness which is frequently the chief constituent of the passion and sometimes its only one.”

I read this as part of the Victorian Celebration hosted by Allie at A Literary Odyssey.

p.s. Amanda's recommendation is one of the main reasons I made this books a priority. She was so right!

 

Your Audiobook Year

Hello, my name is Melissa and I’m an audiobook addict. I’ve loved audiobooks ever since my Dad encouraged me to try them when I was in high school. I didn’t listen to them regularly until my first summer home from college. I took a job running an exterior house painting crew (I know, odd). One of my main duties was to canvas local neighborhoods and give estimates. I hated the job, but I loved being able to listen to audiobooks all day as I drove around.

As far as places I listen, I feel like they’re endless! Obviously the car is a major one, but my commute is incredibly short. I listen while taking a shower and getting ready in the morning. Also while doing dishes and cleaning the house. I love listening while I walk my dog or play fetch with him. The options are infinite!

I get almost all of my audiobooks at book sales or by borrowing them from the library. I keep one in my car and another in my house. I may be one of the last people in the world still listening to audio cassettes. I can find them so cheaply at library book sales and I still have a few audio cassette players.

I would also like to add that some people claim listening to audiobooks isn’t actually reading them. To them I say this; the great tradition of story telling was around long before written books were available. Odysseus’ travels and Arthurian legends were shared in front of fireplaces before anyone took the time to record them on paper. I can’t imagine anyone claiming those people didn’t know the stories they heard.

Sometimes listening to an audio version of a book makes me appreciate the writing more because you have to listen to every word instead of skimming a paragraph. It also gives me a deeper appreciation for favorite books that I’ve already read in print version.

I’m currently listening to Alan Rickman reading The Return of the Native and Wil Wheaton reading Ready Player One. Both are absolutely excellent and I would highly recommend them.

This post is part of Audiobook Week hosted by Devourer of Books

Image from here.