It’s 12:37pm. I mean to be revising my novel today – this is the last week of school for the kids and who knows what will happen once summer is officially here. It’s possible, I suppose that I could have an entirely peaceful three months filled with long days to revise the manuscript while the children play sweetly in the backyard, but I doubt it. It’s not bad, just different. And I anticipate much less time to work on the novel. So today is one of the last days for awhile, but here it is already afternoon, and I haven’t started.
But I’m going to do a post on my latest book, darn it! I’m clinging to these Monday posts, because it seems to be about all I can do lately, no matter how great my intentions each week.
I finished reading The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. Mostly I listened to it on audio book while I painted the chicken coop. I give it three stars out of five. I liked Tess of the D’Urbervilles much better. The heroine, Thomasin, was the sweetest character, and she reminded me a lot of Tess, but I got irritated with Thomasin when she went ahead and married the big jerk Wildeve. I did appreciate that Wildeve and Eustacia got what they deserved in the end: each other, and death. They were both so selfish, had such a lack of empathy, and made such decisions to screw up their own lives and those of others. They were not tragic characters, in my opinion, but I think Hardy meant them to be. I saw them as so flawed by their selfishness that there was no way to really sympathize with them. Diggory was the best character; he knew what he wanted and was persistent, but he never let his own desires hurt those around him. He was patient, and wise, and clever – and in the end, he succeeded. Clym, the native who returns, is the tragic figure. He’s blind in his love for Eustacia, and then when he starts to actually go blind, his dreams for the future fall apart. He loses his mother and his wife and his self-respect. On a happier note, I loved the descriptions of the wild heath and the country people, although I never quite understood why the country people always did exactly what the gentry told them to, even when they were not under their employ.
OK, book review done – more of my thoughts instead of a true review, I guess – and now on to my own writing and revising.