It's that hardy again

Still at it despite the post of 5th July, having taken a copy of 'Two on a Tower' out of the library, completely overlooking the fact that I already had a copy on the Kindle, which perhaps confirms that I am not a proper convert to the Kindle world. Perhaps a little too old for such a big change, a thought which leads to my wondering how many older converts the Christians got during the mega growth period of the second and third centuries. Or was it all younger misfits of one sort or another?

In any event, this is a nicely produced Penguin Classic in traditional black clothes and complete with map, chronology, introduction, notes and glossary, a glossary which, inter alia, tells me what probate is. All in all, it would be an excellent edition to use for a school set book and, jumping ahead, I think the novel would be quite good for that purpose too.

A novel from roughly the middle of Hardy's novel writing career. A marriage between persons of different classes & stations. A marriage between persons of different ages. A big part for a young man of mixed birth trying to better himself. A walk on part for a young lady trying to do the same. Plenty of comic yokels to provide relief, not altogether light relief, in much the same way as Shakespeare's yokels do. Plenty of melodramatic ups and downs - a word which my Kindle tells me is derived from France where it meant musical drama, from the Greek melos, meaning music or some such. The last such up and down being the appearance of what appears to be a love child of the almost second husband, passed off on the actual second husband (deceased). Plenty of gentle humour about all kinds of odds and ends.

But some new things, for example the interest in matters astronomical. One get the feeling that Hardy did his homework here. A very phallic tower. Also the first mention in a novel that I have come across which discusses the way in which people of a scientific bent are often not too clever at some aspects of interpersonal relations.

According to the late preface included at the end of the book, Hardy got a lot of stick for getting a bishop mixed up in all this. Lack of reverence for the cloth. Which goes to show how much things have gone on since then, with a former (French if you please) oil man with a paltry 20 years ordination under his belt as Arch Bish..

As noted above, maybe good for a set book. Lots of accessible issues which are still issues today, issues which one might reasonably discuss in a class. I must try and find a teacher of English who might know about such things: is my take on what might be suitable meat for a bunch of adolescents the right take?