The Mayor of Casterbridge (Penguin Classics)

出版者:Penguin Classics; Reissue edition

作者:Thomas Hardy

页数:448

出版时间:2018-11-13

价格:USD 12.95

装帧:Hardcover

isbn号码:9780141439785

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.

读后感

主人公亨察德是一个性格不太好的人，按现代人的说法他的情商不太高。他脾气暴躁、刚愎自用，而且还很孤傲，不能也不愿与人进行沟通，此外，他的思想还有些狭隘，也不能做到与时俱进，这些都导致了他一步接着一步的犯错，最后把自己弄到了很悲惨的境地。哈代的故事设计的很巧妙...  

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...  

finally finished. it was a good—read in general. I could hardly repress my tears reading the final part. It seems to me to be a story of humanity. Henchard is the complex humanity incarnated. He is impulsive, a bit too self-esteemed but good-hearted. ...  

主人公亨察德是一个性格不太好的人，按现代人的说法他的情商不太高。他脾气暴躁、刚愎自用，而且还很孤傲，不能也不愿与人进行沟通，此外，他的思想还有些狭隘，也不能做到与时俱进，这些都导致了他一步接着一步的犯错，最后把自己弄到了很悲惨的境地。哈代的故事设计的很巧妙...  

结识这本书不是因为它的作者、也不是因为它的名声、更不是因为与它有美好的过往，周末去区图书馆为儿子借书，一时好奇自己也办理了一个图书证，明知道里面的书很少且旧，但是它改换门庭以后，地方变大了环境更优雅、更惬意了，另外图书管理员虽然不是很热情但还是很友善的...  

用户评价

I cried

听这本的时候正好又在读Saul和David的事，巧合地发现了两个故事惊人的相似。在哈代笔下，悲剧是注定了的。"happiness is just an occasional episode in the general drama of pain"

at-hand/once

I cried

文笔极美，但纷至沓来的写景真的打乱了我的阅读节奏……大概还是英文水平不够吧。。