Bathsheba has some problems with men, as I've mentioned. I at first blamed the slimeball men, but now I'm leaning the other way. In the end she finds her "true" love, when we have the two main characters living ideal lives as ideal lovers. But is it true love, or is this just another failed relationship ... which is the exact question that came to mind when I saw "Definitely Maybe" this weekend. Does Ryan Reynolds truly find love at the end despite his horrible record with the ladies? Ryan Reynolds is Bathsheba. And I question the endings and I question Hardy's definition of love I suppose.
Anyway, I did enjoy the book that apparently put Hardy on the literary map. I love the characrters with such names as Temperance and Soberness. I love his word choice -- he is a man I'm sure with a well-worn thesaurus at his writing desk, and a bit too intellectual at times with his diction. I love Sergeant Troy's formal exposition on the harm good looking women cause the world. I love how Hardy spends a paragraph describing the "utter imbecility" of the motion of a woman throwing an object. I love the dramatics of the phrase, "It weighs me to the earth." And I truly love how he likens knowing a person to high-water marks: "Nobody knew entirely; for though it was possible to form guesses concerning his wild capabilities from old floodmarks faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused them."