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'Preposterous Plot'

Patricia LesleyPatricia Lesley
edited May 2015 in Writing
Someone on tonight's broadcast of Saturday Review ( Radio 4 ) referring to 'Far from the Madding Crowd' claimed that the plot was preposterous.

Comments

  • CarolCarol
    It's the 'looking at the past with modern views' syndrome. You have to put yourself in the attitude and thoughts of the time, and when you do that with the scenario given, it's no preposterous at all.
  • JenJen
    I didn't think it was preposterous when I read the book.
  • Patricia LesleyPatricia Lesley
    Roland agrees with Carol. I think the plot is gripping.
  • Phots MollPhots Moll
    edited May 2015
    It didn't seem preposterous to me. Well no more so than many other novels.
  • Patricia LesleyPatricia Lesley
    edited May 2015
    Absolutely. The first and second, in a series of disasters, in the book, doesn't harm humans, is an effective way of eliciting reader's concern. Then Bathsheba's spectacular misjudgments, Fanny's end, Boldwood's tragedy all seem believable to me.
    You could say, that 'Jude the Obscure' is, preposterously, grim.
  • ClaudiaClaudia
    I "studied" this book for my Eng Lit O Level and I didn't like it - to the point that I have absolutely no recollection of the story line!
  • CarolCarol
    Thomas Hardy is one of those writers you like or dislike.
    :-B
  • LizLiz
    Well... actually, I like some and not others. *Miss contrary* I lived in Hardy land. It was part of my upbringing. My grandad met him on a bridge. The thing is - life is preposterous.
  • Patricia LesleyPatricia Lesley
    edited May 2015
    Preposterous is the wrong word. I think that Far from the Madding Crowd was first published in serial form. If so the succession of climaxes, and anticlimaxes would have been a very appropriate form.
  • JenJen
    Thomas Hardy is one of those writers you like or dislike.
    :-B
    I've noticed that from this other forum I'm on, a few hate him and others like me love him. It's not as proposterous as a soap, they don't complain about them

  • Patricia LesleyPatricia Lesley
    edited May 2015
    Agree with you Jen. I thought that 'The Mayor of Casterbridge' deserved a better end though, after all that he endured, and survived.
  • JenJen
    I can't remember what happened in the end. My brain is tired I've read it twice though. Could have a long debate about what he deserved or not, he's a tragic character. But human in his flaws
  • Mrs BearMrs Bear
    I wrote my first thesis on Hardy. Something like 'Illusion and Reality in the works of TH', which I suspect was a lot of tosh. (My second one, on Joseph Heller, was much better: 'The Individual, the Soldier in White, the Freak and the Idiot: A Quest for Freedom in the Works of JH'. I got a first for that.)
    Living in Devon at the time, my entire family was carted up and down visiting the Hardy sites in Dorset. A few years later I went to live in Dorchester. Never did like Max Gate.
  • Tiny NellTiny Nell
    *bows in homage to Mrs Bear and kisses her wellington boots*

    Very impressed, Mrs Bear.
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