The Mayor of Casterbridge

By: Thomas Hardy

Narrated by: Pamela Garelick

From its spectacular opening, the astonishing scene in which drunken Michael Henchard sells his wife and daughter to a passing sailor at a country fair, to the breathtaking series of discoveries at its conclusion, The Mayor of Casterbridge claims a unique place among Thomas Hardy's finest and most powerful novels.

Rooted in an actual case of wife-selling in early nineteenth-century England, the story builds into an awesome Sophoclean drama of guilt and revenge, in which the strong, willful Henchard rises to a position of wealth and power, only to achieve a most bitter downfall. Proud, obsessed, ultimately committed to his own destruction, Henchard is, as Albert Guerard has said, "Hardy's Lord Jim...his only tragic hero and one of the greatest tragic heroes in all fiction."

(P)2001 Blackstone Audiobooks. Originally published in Great Britain in 1886.

Another astonishing novel beautifully read

How inventive Hardy is, creating unforgettable characters, bold men and equally bold women. This book begins with a drunken misogynist selling his wife to a sailor, and the tragic and pleasant consequences. It is a plot invention worthy of Kafka. The reader is perfect

Casterbridge keeps you wanting to read more

Very well narrated. The woman narrating soes a very good job of bringing out the emotions for male and female characters

complex

this was such a lovely story. It was nothing that I expected. The characters were complex and the storyline was very rich.

Another Excellent Hardy Novel

This is my second Hardy novel and again I am impressed. Multi-dimensional upredictable characters, a plot with unexpected twists and turns, great use of the English language and lessons to learn about human nature. What more can you ask for from an audiobook novel? Well, you can ask for an excellent narrator who handles various accents well and puts emotion into the story - and you get that too!

The opening three chapters are very enticing - you won't have to listen for 3 disks to be drawn into the story. After having read "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" and loving it, I can say that Hardy ranks up there with the best of the classic novelists. Well worth the listen - great content, great delivery!

I would also highly recommend "Tess . . ". I became literally angry with the characters in the book for what they did. When you get angry with characters, you know the author has done a great job!

Take a chance on this - you'll like it!

Henchard, Henchard, Henchard - poor Henchard. Is he the villain or a victim of circumstances? Should you feel empathy for him, or does he deserve everything that happens to him? That's the beauty of this book, I think. I read the synopsis and assumed that the book would build up to the sale of the wife, and so when that happened much earlier than I expected, I wondered what else could be left. Boy - was I wrong. This book had so many twists and turns - every time I thought it was going in one direction, it veered off again. Several times I found myself saying, "No, he didn't!" or "No, she didn't!" My feelings about the characters changed time and time again - sometimes I liked them, and sometimes I didn't, or thought they were stupid - there wasn't one "winner" throughout the entire book - but that worked really well!

***I'm spilling some of the beans here, so don't read on if you plan to read the book.*** I was ambivalent about Elizabeth and Donald ending up together. I wanted something nice to happen to Elizabeth, but after the way Donald "dumped" her for Lucetta, I wasn't sure that I wanted him to be the something nice. But I guess Hardy thought he had to write it that way to throw yet another curve ball at Henchard.

I think you should give this a try - it's an interesting foray into the ups and downs of human nature. I definitely liked it and am interested in picking up some more of Hardy's fiction.

This was my first audiobook with Pamela Garelick as the narrator, and I thought she did a great job.