Thomas Hardy appreciation

1st Announcer (Eric Idle): And now it's time for 'Novel Writing', which today comes from the West Country from Dorset.

2nd Announcer (Michael Palin): (we hear the sound of a crowd in the background) Hello and welcome to Dorchester, where a very good crowd has turned out to watch local boy Thomas Hardy write his new novel 'The Return of the Native' on this very pleasant July morning. This will be his eleventh novel and the fifth of the very popular Wessex novels. And here he comes! Here comes Hardy walking out towards his desk. He looks confident, he looks relaxed... very much the man in form as he acknowledges this very good-natured Bank Holiday crowd. And the crowd goes quiet now as Hardy settles himself down at the desk, body straight, shoulders relaxed, pen held lightly but firmly in the right hand. He dips the pen in the ink (the announcer becomes excited) and he's off! Its the first word, but it is not a word ... Oh no! It's a doodle way up on top of the left-hand margin. It is a piece of meaningless scribble, and he's signed his name underneath it. Oh dear what a disappointing start, but he is off again and here he goes: the first word of Thomas Hardy's new novel, at 10:35 on this very lovely morning, it's three letters, it's the definite article and it's THE, Dennis!

Dennis (Graham Chapman): Well, this is true to form, no surprises there. He started five of his eleven novels to date with a definite article. We've had two of them with 'IT', there has been one 'BUT', two 'ATs, one 'ON' and a Delores. Oh, that of course was never published.

2nd Announcer: I am sorry to interrupt you there, Dennis, but he's crossed it out. Thomas Hardy here on the first day of his new novel has crossed out the only word he has written so far and he is gazing off into space. Oh! Oh dear! He's signed his name again.

Dennis: It looks like Tess of the D'Urbervilles all over again.

2nd Announcer: But he's ... No ... he's down again and writing, Dennis. He's written THE again, he's crossed it out again and he has written A and there is a second word coming up straight away, it is SAT, a sat, doesn't make sense, a sat, a Saturday, it is a SATURDAY and the crowd are loving it. They're really enjoying this novel and it's AFTERNOON, a Saturday afternoon, is a confident beginning and he is straight on to the next word and it is IN, a Saturday afternoon, IN, in, in, no, NOVEMBER, November's spelt wrong, he has left out the second E, but he's not going back it looks as though he is going for the sentence and it is the first verb coming up, the first verb of the novel and it is WAS ... the crowd are going wild. A Saturday afternoon in November was, a long word here, appro, is it approval?  Ah no, it's APPROACHING, a Saturday afternoon in November was approaching and he has done the definite article THE again and he is writing fluently, easily with flowing strokes of the pen as he comes up to the middle of this first sentence and with this eleventh novel well underway and the prospect of a good day's writing ahead, back to the studio.

He was very good in Locke and somewhat underrated as Bane in an average Dark Night Rises.

I much preferred Stan Laurel

The overall effect of reading a Hardy novel, I think, is to make the reader, at least temporarily, a better person.

You must feel that you're too good for this place now.
You'll have to adjust.

Was Chit Chat the inspiration of 'the madding crowd'

Hardy was a miserable old sod.

decent actor though

remember reading "far from the madding crowd" as part of my school exams, its well worth a read imo..

Always found him uplifting in a strange sort of way ,yes a master writer and worthy of the praise ...

Yes, he builds an effect that gradually ovetakes the reader.

Thomas Hardy has lasted a bit better than Monty Python imo.

Had to read The Mayor of Casterbridge at school and found it an interminable stream of implausible coincidences. Might work as a long-running weekly soap opera, but shallow and unsatisfying as a novel.

I think Python got him right by portraying a hack churning out a long series of cliches.

He was good as Alfie Solomons in Peaky Blinders.

Too much liquor is bad, and leads us to that horned man in the smoky house

Is one of the few lines I remember from Far from the etc etc, in what seems like half a lifetime ago now.

He also wrote some great poetry.

Had to read The Mayor of Casterbridge at school and found it an interminable stream of implausible coincidences. Might work as a long-running weekly soap opera, but shallow and unsatisfying as a novel.

I think Python got him right by portraying a hack churning out a long series of cliches.

I don't think Hardy wrote in cliches; big themes faithfully presented by his lights, stories with momentum rather than surprises, he often told the reader the ending near the beginning, the opposite of soap-opera in those respects. There is a dash of Victorian melodrama but his novels aren't shallow. As for co-incidences, there's a saying on the Continent, "you meet everybody twice." Unfortunately, in real life that's not true but if you're going to create your own world in a novel, it could serve a purpose.

I haven't read The Mayor Of Casterbridge, screamer, but imagine it has the Hardy stamp, so I probably would like it, as most likely you would not like Tess.

Dempsey - Agreed!    The Darkling Thrush

Very fair points, unitedb. Perhaps I should try The Return of the Native, as that's the one Hardy's starting in the Python tribute, although wikipedia states that the novel was originally written in monthly instalments for a "sensationalist" magazine, which sounds suspiciously like C19th soap opera to me. Mind you, Dostoevsky wrote Crime and Punishment that way, and the depth of insight in that story more than makes up for all the coincidences and melodrama.

And The Return of the Native seems to feature a dairy farmer called Venn, which is also the name of the farmer whose cows graze the orchard next door to me, so I can't fault it for West Country authenticity.

Two thirds of the way through The Return Of The Native. It's wonderful, after you get past the first scene.
Don't be deterred by the magazine commission format; you wouldn't overlook Keats poetry because it is shaped in fourteen-lines or a Rembrandt because of the frame.