Of Hardy and harshness

Nice novels don't always have nice endings. I always seek for a story which has a happy ending - because that's how I'd like my life to end - on a happy note. Either way, I'm glad that nice novels have been picked for our AS and A2 (with the exception of the last one, Mrs Da-wha-wha-wha... something-or-others).

I somehow wonder how Thomas Hardy manages to describe every single place with so much detail. And I wonder why the detail is there in the first place. Perhaps the very fact that he was an architect might be the answer to all that wondering. But come on, most literary masters don't even pay that much attention to detail, to every single nook and cranny, to every detail on even the most minuscule vase of flowers on a table in an unnoticed part of a corridor. It's understandable, though, that his characters are neither entirely good nor entirely bad. But if in The Mayor of Casterbridge alone do we see characters becoming victims of their own fate, victims of their own traits, then if that situation were to apply to all of us now, there'd be practically no hope left in this world. To every character, a bleak ending.

Take the main character - Michael Henchard for instance. I can hate him at times, but for the most part, I sympathise with him. For starters, goodness knows how his marriage with Susan, a ghastly-looking character, got on the rocks. Then some furmity-woman comes in and sells him a refreshing drink, but just to get more money, she laces the furmity with liqueur and, even with his efforts to bring himself up, everything goes downhill from there, I'd say - in his drunkenness he auctions his wife and child, and another complicating twist of events follows. And imagine, the poor soul dies in his forties.

"Character is fate," so says Hardy.

Truly, I am made to appreciate life through the way Hardy portrays his characters. But when we talk about fate, it's already a complicating sequence. And it definitely contrasts with the way I look at things. I search for hope in a world filled with despair, and I believe I can find that hope. In The Mayor of Casterbridge alone, the despair of the surrounding world seems to choke Hardy's characters, one by one, until all of them succumb to the pressure and die, or receive utter shock and humiliation from the people around them.

Couldn't our A2 works be a little more cheerful and optimistic ?