For anyone who has followed the last few entries in this ‘blog, you may have noticed me gradually discovering that Victorian fiction isn’t all bad. I noticed that in books like Wuthering Heights, gothic romance can actually be fairly gripping, even if there are too many commas. I noticed that even a long novel like Great Expectations can be pithy and unsentimental. I didn’t like Jekyll and Hyde, but at least it was short. Then along came Hardy and A Pair of Blue Eyes, which lived up exactly to all of my preconceived ideas of what a shitty novel from that time period could be. In fact, if I had never read any of these books, and you asked me to write a parody of a Victorian novel, I would probably write something like A Pair of Blue Eyes. Where to start? The language: sentimental, flowery, verbose, descriptive, and so, so weak. At this point I can work around the odd passive sentence in the name of the style of the day, but Hardy takes loquaciousness to new heights.
You may recall my main problem with Jekyll and Hyde was that there can be no suspense when the audience knows the outcome before they open the book—and therefore my objection was that the action of the narrative was insufficient to bear a retelling. There is a similar cultural gap at work in Hardy’s novel for a modern reader: the scandals that unfold all have to do with engagements and social propriety and have no bearing on even the strictest relationships of our century. I won’t bore anyone by condensing the story, but it has to do with an engagement broken off for reasons of social station, a secret yet aborted elopement, and a love triangle that ensues. It’s just that there is nothing to sink your teeth into. How exciting is a stolen kiss on the cheek, really? I know that they wouldn’t be having sex, nor could Hardy portray it if they did, but all of the romantic interludes and “lovemaking” scenes in the story are painstakingly dull because nothing happens, and the scandal is really just a kind of misunderstanding—sort of. It’s not a comedy of errors; it’s a drama of indecisiveness. It’s about a stupid young girl who falls in love with every man that takes her for a walk. It’s also about two men, of whom I can’t decide which is duller. There is no Heathcliff here, just an architect and an art critic.
Of course there is a bright side to this literary adventure: I have been assigned this book for my essay topic and there are actually some great things to write about from a formal perspective. The narrator, for example, is very interesting. He is constantly moralizing and passing judgment. He tends to have incredible insight into the ways of men and women—especially women, and hence I plan to call my essay “What women want: dating tips from Thomas Hardy.” Here’s an example: “A young girl who is scarcely ill at all can hardly help becoming so when regarded as such by all eyes turning upon her at the table in obedience to some remark.” Really, narrator! Is that so? Tell us more: “When women are secret they are secret indeed; and more often than not they only begin to be secret with the advent of a second lover.”
I refuse to believe that this could be read seriously even in the nineteenth century. I mean, the narrator seems so sure that these blatant generalizations are correct, and he keeps them coming throughout the book. This omniscient third-person narrator speaks his mind so often that he becomes like another character in the book—although he is not literally a character. There is a very slight chance that these statements are ironic, which means that Hardy believes none of it, which also means he is actually a genius. I doubt it, but I have my back against the wall, and that may just be my only reasonable position. So I will go a write and try to be generous, because my current professor does not appreciate my cynicism. Next up, the book with the most boring title of all time: George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss. Wish me luck.
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