The Return of the Native

By: Thomas Hardy

Narrated by: Nadia May

Set in Egdon Heath, a wild tract of country in the southwest of England, this is a masterpiece of dramatic tension. Clym Yeobright, a diamond merchant in Paris, returns to his home in Egdon, where he falls passionately in love with the sensuous, free-spirited Eustacia Vye. She, while in a brief state of infatuation, marries him, hoping he will take her away to a more exciting life in Paris. But Eustacia's dreams of escape are not to be realized. Clym Yeobright, the returning native, can not bring her salvation.

In The Return of the Native there is a strong conflict between nature or fate, represented by Egdon Heath, and human nature, represented by Hardy's true-to-life characters. This is a novel that perfectly epitomizes Thomas Hardy's unique and melancholy genius.

©1995 Blackstone Audio Inc. (P)1995 Blackstone Audio Inc.

Why do we love such sad stories?

Hardy is unmatched at making the inevitable, unalterable disposition of our lives richer and more tolerable. Again, as in most of his other novels, we immediately meet a heroine/hero so flawed we know exactly where she will go and Hardy makes us want to go with her. Eustacia Vye may be Hardy's most transparent tortured soul, as passionate as she is headstrong, and he builds another Wessex community-this time the bleak Egden Heath-to frame her spellbinding, sad life.

Men love Eustacia and Eustacia loves what men can give her: excitement, escape, and embodiment of her dreams. She, of course, is of another world, a world definately not Egden Heath, and those who love her are, for a time, lost. Hardy makes her story and the story of Egden Heath rich in character, locale and reflection on how we get where we are meant to go...R3W

Are we all natives?

An "old fashioned"book, full of many superfluous descriptions common to people who never watched tv, this book took patience and sometimes concentration, but the resultant benefit is that you come to understand fairly well the minds of the characters. You are hoping for the best for them, even as they oftimes are hiding their true emotions and we are screaming at them to just speak up. The native, who I think was Clem, who did return, and was yanked around a lot by circumstances but mostly by this lack of being honest with oneself and speaking the feelings of the heart, did not hold my focus as the hero of the story. to me the heroes were Love, Loyalty, Belonging, Tradition, Honesty and Integrity (although frequently hiding). I liked this book a lot. I've wanted to read something by Thomas Hardy for quite a while, I think this one was great and will stay with me for a while.

Great Narration

Great Narration. Not my favorite Hardy work but still worth a listen. Story a bit too contrived.

Wonderful in words and voice. True pleasure!

I love this reader. this particular Hardy novel has its own special charms but vibrates with his amazing ability to describe and philosophize in the same sentence. One of the greatest novelists ever.

One of Hardy's finest novels

I studied this book 40 years ago in school. I remembered the basic story and the characters, but there was still great deal of detail and marvelous writing that I could enjoy as if for the first time. It's a great novel. The narrator is very good, but I do have one slight criticism: she makes the rustics sound more like working class Northerners than West Country folk. But this didn't bother me unduly.