The first ten chapters contain some really good humour. Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite 19th century writers. (However after the grim and sobering ending of another great novel Jude the Obsure by Hardy in 1895 and his last novel, he resigned himself to poetry till his death in 1928.) Hardy was a critic of Victorian hypocritical social norms and like Dickens,Gissing, Gaskell, et al concerned with reform to increase the wages and quality of life of the working class and poor. However Hardy had health problems in London and moved to rural south west England. Hence most of his novels deal with rural England and the relationships and problems and beauty of the country side towns and fields and woods. Today, in the 21st century Tess of the d'Urbervilles is probably the novel Hardy is mostly known of by. Most of the rest of the far from the madding crowd is in the Hardy realist style. Spoiler Alert!!! As in most of Hardy's novels there are a few sobering tragedies and emotional and mental suffering. Spoiler Alert!! unlike most of Hardy's novels there is a happy ending, imho. With Hardy you get out of the Victorian parlor and out into rural England where the classes mix. You can stream listen or download the whole or chapters of the book in various audio formats, at Librivox.org or Internet Archive where this section comes from, all read by fine volunteer readers imho. There are two versions one a male solo. I like this collaborative better because there are both male and female readers of whole chapters. Not a dramatization where readers take different parts, although there are dramatizations(making a novel like a play) created at librivox and there may be for this one. personally i like novels that are read rather than dramatized. but that is just me. many people like it. archive.org/details/madding_crowd_0807_librivox apologies for the ramble. i have been going through a trying time for two and half years due to malpractice and the effects of it. and no i did not file a law suit. it is just not my way or i am just foolish....sigh. jd male usa
I can't tolerate the reader's voice. His accent is pleasant enough but his diction is too slurred. Also, he is reading in a sing song voice which is at odds with the meaning of the prose.
Actual audio book starts at 5:15
The first ten chapters contain some really good humour. Thomas Hardy is one of my favorite 19th century writers. (However after the grim and sobering ending of another great novel Jude the Obsure by Hardy in 1895 and his last novel, he resigned himself to poetry till his death in 1928.) Hardy was a critic of Victorian hypocritical social norms and like Dickens,Gissing, Gaskell, et al concerned with reform to increase the wages and quality of life of the working class and poor. However Hardy had health problems in London and moved to rural south west England. Hence most of his novels deal with rural England and the relationships and problems and beauty of the country side towns and fields and woods.
Today, in the 21st century Tess of the d'Urbervilles is probably the novel Hardy is mostly known of by.
Most of the rest of the far from the madding crowd is in the Hardy realist style. Spoiler Alert!!! As in most of Hardy's novels there are a few sobering tragedies and emotional and mental suffering. Spoiler Alert!! unlike most of Hardy's novels there is a happy ending, imho. With Hardy you get out of the Victorian parlor and out into rural England where the classes mix.
You can stream listen or download the whole or chapters of the book in various audio formats, at Librivox.org or Internet Archive where this section comes from, all read by fine volunteer readers imho. There are two versions one a male solo. I like this collaborative better because there are both male and female readers of whole chapters. Not a dramatization where readers take different parts, although there are dramatizations(making a novel like a play) created at librivox and there may be for this one. personally i like novels that are read rather than dramatized. but that is just me. many people like it.
archive.org/details/madding_crowd_0807_librivox
apologies for the ramble. i have been going through a trying time for two and half years due to malpractice and the effects of it. and no i did not file a law suit. it is just not my way or i am just foolish....sigh.
jd
male
usa
The book is one of my favorites but the narrator is challenging to understand.
I can't tolerate the reader's voice. His accent is pleasant enough but his diction is too slurred. Also, he is reading in a sing song voice which is at odds with the meaning of the prose.