The Mayor of Casterbridge

 

Cor blimey. I just watched a television adaptation of this  - one of Thomas Hardy's Wessex stories - and MAN O MAN was it super tragic. And it involved wife selling (!) which, apparently, was an almost-traditional English custom for the mostly working classes. I find this fascinating in a historical-anthropological kind of a way, which is exactly the same kind of fascination I have about baby farming.

So, anyway, Thomas Hardy. I read Wessex Tales at a bach I was staying at one summer. It wasn't especially light and fluffy holiday reading, and I can't remember anything about it really with the exception of the name of one of the stories - "The Withered Arm". In fact, the whole reason I read the book was because I wanted to know what a withered arm was, and now I cannot for the life of me remember. WHAT IS A WITHERED ARM? It sounds creepy. Also, I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles in my last year of high school, and while I can remember a little more, it didn't really stick much either - the bits I remember are: the silver spoon that's supposed to be the record of her birthright and the fact that she kills herself at the end. Actually, Dude dies at the end of "The Mayor of Casterbridge" and leaves a suicide note after starving himself to death! That's two Hardy books ending with suicide. It's a little bit like writing "And then I woke up" at the end of your stories at school, don't you think?