Beyond the Letters

"Far from the Madding Crowd" is one of the first novels by Hardy which makes it much more optimistic than his later works like "Tess of the D’Urbervilles" or "Jude the Obscure", still if you think that early work always means "imperfect" I can assure you that it is not the case. In fact already here the author reveals his outstanding talent and produces one of his most bright and multifaceted female characters - Bathsheba Everdene. Not quite Victorian character The name of the main character - Bathsheba - was taken from the Bible. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite, one of the soldiers of Kind David's army and she was "very beautiful to look upon". When King David saw her bathing he couldn't stand her beauty, though Bathsheba herself didn't know he was watching her and didn't want to seduce him, and he ordered to bring the woman to his palace so that she would share bed with him. Thus Bathsheba's beauty...

"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the Land of Nod, on the East of Eden" There is so much about this book that it is really hard to find appropriate words to speak about it. This is one of those books which make you live through a whole new life while you are reading it. Three generations of people, fifty five years and hundreds of events appear before your eyes, evil and good, virtue and vice, love and hatred, happiness and sadness - there is everything life can bring to you and having read the novel you feel that whatever it brings it is wonderful and worth living. Though the places and people described in the book are all very different, East of Eden deals mostly with the life of small town America. Steinbeck doesn't idealize this life, he shows both sides of it - religious meetings and brothels, poor farmers and rich businessmen, conservative people and those who are not afraid to look into the future. All this gives a very good and d...