He hated these literary detectives, who failed to grasp the nature of art: that it was a shaping of reality, not reality itself.
--Christopher Nicholson, Winter (Europa Editions 2014)
This novel takes place in the 1920's when Thomas Hardy was eighty-four. His part is in the third person, while his wife Florence and young actress Gertrude Bugler have sections in the first person. Novels about real people tend to be a dubious enterprise, though this one is better than most and is a rather satisfying guilty pleasure. Hardy has become mellow with age, his much-younger (second) wife is something of a complainer and valetudinarian. Gertrude is married to a butcher and has a young child, but has been promised a role as Tess in a London stage production which the jealous Florence convinces her to turn down. Nicholson throughout has a deep understanding of the west of England and the novels and poems of Hardy, though I would recommend Hardy's actual novels over this secondary endeavor.
No comments:
Post a Comment