Return of the Native, a Page a Day

[Olivivi]

Ditto,

[Ditto]

Oh yes OV, this is better. I can see updates immediately as y'know I have trouble knowing what's happening and what's going on!

I did like the idea of our own Facebook group, but I think this is more convenient.

I doubt anyone looks way down here and because there's a knitting club, I'm going to assume a reading of Hardy is at least as acceptable as a knitting club.

[Olivivi]

Okay.

[Ditto]

You could be fit as a flea at 82 especially if you have the good genes which is mostly what it is down to, that and good living ie Atkins.

Devon/Dorset really are Heaven on Earth imho. There and the Lakes. Beautiful.

My addictive nature is kicking in already and my head is buzzing with Hardy.

[Olivivi]

And your

[Olivivi]

Second Page of My Text: p. 5

Every night its Titanic form seemed to await something; but it had waited thus, unmoved, during so many centuries, through the crises of so many things, that it could only be imagined to await one last crisis--the final overthrow (5).

If that description of the heath doesn't turn it into a tragic figure in the Greek sense, I don't know what would. And knowing the story, I like the sense of Hardy's setting the stage for the tragic events in the book, beyond the scope of the heath, yet still very much a part of the heath. It's almost as if the setting was predetermining the tragic events. And beyond the novel, it is a statement on the eventual destruction of all things natural when the universe will ultimately collapse. Not sure whether Hardy meant this, but that's how it sounds to me. In this regard, Hardy is a thoroughly modern writer--and in other regards, too.

Two pages into the story: The heath is alive and well.

Jan, I hope you'll feel free to comment and pick out anything at all from the text that catches your interest. I've never seen a heath. How I long to do so. Happy reading, if happy reading is possible in Hardy. Oh, but it is for who could use language better.

[Olivivi]

Ditto, I'll wait to hear from you here before proceeding to the next page, so this might end up being instead of a page a day, a page every day or so.

That said, here's something interesting about the Vale of Tempe Hardy mentions on p. 5--all you wanted know from Wiki:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vale_of_Tempe

[Olivivi]

Interesting, Hardy's unity of thought: He thinks of the 'Titanic form' of the heath--mythological references--and then moves to the Vale of Tempe, again a mythological reference.

And he looks forward to the time of the heath's eventual destruction, far in the future. He looks backward and forward on the same page and encompasses the present. It is as though he's taking this easily forgotten rural area, one that doesn't play a role in current events, and he elevates it to a high, universal, poetic, mythological, spiritual level. In just these opening pages, Hardy lets us know he's not fooling around with this heath; this heath is important; we need to take a long, hard, close look at it.

And because he is a writer of the common man (and common woman)...the writer of ordinary people whose lives touch us directly...he shows us the mythological implications in their existences and in the places where they live.

This is rich reading.

Still on p. 5 and will not proceed till you give me the nod, Jan.

[Olivivi]

...and some images in reference to the Vale of Tempe:

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[Olivivi]

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If you click on those squares, photographs of various locations in the Vale of Tempe will come up. In the sketch, you can clearly see Olympus in its cloud crown.