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H. R. Keller. The Reader’s Digest of Books. | | | | The Return of the Native | | Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) |
| | | Return of the Native, The, by Thomas Hardy, was published in 1878, being his sixth novel. The scene is laid in Southern England, in the author’s “Wessex country,” the district of which he has made an ideal map for the latest edition of his works. The hero of the book, the “Native,” is Clym Yeobright, formerly a jeweler in Paris, but now returned to the village of his birth, on Egdon Heath. The giving up of his trade is due to his desire to lead a broader, more unselfish life. He plans to open a school in the village, and to educate and uplift the rustics about him. His Quixotic schemes of helpfulness are upset, however, by his falling in love with Eustacia Vye, a beautiful, passionate, discontented woman, “the raw material of a divinity.” His marriage with her is the beginning of a troubled life, severed far enough from his ideals. Her self-sought death by drowning leaves him free to begin again his cherished career of usefulness. As an open-air preacher he seeks an outlet for his philanthropic spirit. The story of Yeobright and Eustacia is not the exclusive interest of the book. Many rustic characters, drawn as only Hardy can draw them, lend to it a delightful rural flavor which relieves the gloom of its tragic incidents. | 1 | | |
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