具体描述
A haunting study of guilt and lost love
In a fit of drunken anger, Michael Henchard sells his wife and baby daughter for five guineas at a country fair. Over the course of the following years, he manages to establish himself as a respected and prosperous pillar of the community of Casterbridge, but behind his success there always lurk the shameful secret of his past and a personality prone to self-destructive pride and temper. Subtitled "A Story of a Man of Character," Hardy's powerful and sympathetic study of the heroic but deeply flawed Henchard is also an intensely dramatic work, tragically played out against the vivid backdrop of a close-knit Dorsetshire town.
This edition includes an introduction, chronology of Hardy's life and works, the illustrations for the original serial issue, place names, maps, glossary, full explanatory notes as well as Hardy's prefaces to the 1895 and 1912 editions.
作者简介
Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 - 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, especially William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens was another important influence. Like Dickens, he was highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.
While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, therefore, he gained fame as the author of novels, including Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). Hardy's poetry, though prolific, was not as well received during his lifetime. It was rediscovered in the 1950s, when Hardy's poetry had a significant influence on the Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s, including Philip Larkin.
Most of his fictional works - initially published as serials in magazines - were set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex. They explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances. Hardy's Wessex is based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom and eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England.
Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Bain News Service, publisher [Public domain, Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
目录信息
读后感
用一天的时间读完32万字的《卡斯特桥市长》。 是读的第五本哈代，熟悉他的风格和套路，所以读得很流畅很投入。哈代的书里常有极端可怖的死亡，比如裘德和苏吊死的孩子们，骑着狗赶路的奄奄一息的芬妮。但是还是被《卡斯特桥市长》的离奇所震惊，故事是一幕一幕环环相扣的悲剧...
"...But her strong sense that neither she nor any human being deserved less than was given, did not blind her to the fact that there were others receiving less who had deserved much more."
“幸福不过是一场痛苦的大戏剧里不时发生的插曲而已。”——同样系错了人生中的前几颗扣子，亨查德既不像冉阿让自带基督光环，也不如聂赫留朵夫的政治正确，更没有拉斯科尼科夫“超人”般的吸引力，但丝毫不影响我对他的喜爱、同情与怜悯。我觉得他比前三者更像一个我们身边的...
穆齐尔说男人对女人的深情，就像一只花豹对着新鲜刚死的猎物在温柔的咕咕，如果那猎物敢对他的方式说三道四他是要见怪的。 伐尓伏雷发现伊丽莎白没有在她的主人家里好好等他时受了小小的刺激，而且是在他们没有任何约定的情况下。哈代说男人就是这样想入非非自以为是的东西。 ...
用户评价
雅 柔 静。
雅 柔 静。
I cried
Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain. 果然如伍尔夫所说，哈代是最伟大的悲剧作家之一。虽然故事有点恶俗，但是语言的精妙和情节的几度转换确实体现了人生的无常。
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