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Summary: Fun and Satisfying!!!
Review: The Mayor of Casterbridge focuses mainly on Michael Henchard, but it's the little characters that make the novel fulfilling. Their personalities clash with one another at every twist, making Hardy's plot twists all the more enjoyable. Personally, my favorite character is the Furmity woman who does her best to make Henchard's life a living hell. The court room scene is a classic!!!
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Summary: A classic chronicle of sin and redemption
Review: If I were ever to be an English Literature teacher, The Mayor of Casterbridge is the first book I'd start with. Not just because it's filled with themes of major gravity or features extraordinary descriptions of England and its culture, but simply because it's a damn good read. One reads it at a breakneck pace, occasionally stopping only when plot twists have one's jaw dropping on the floor. This is one of the most truly amazing books I've ever read.
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Summary: Refreshing change in Hardy's writing style
Review: This is the easiest Thomas Hardy novel, but one of the most complex in terms of emotions. Being an English literature fan, I have to say that the story that goes on in this book is one of the most original and refreshing. If you found Tess of the DUrbervilles (another Hardy book) too difficult but loved the general storyline, read this, it's simpler for the simple minds out there.
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Summary: Man sells wife and daughter from drunkness
Review: The bittersweet rise, and fall, of an irresponsible man. A stranger who sold his daughter and wife to a fisherman, becoming a handsome aged bachelor mayor, by chance falls into the steps of his greed and not-forgotten wife and "daughter". A twist in the end, will have you believe this is Hardy's most purely tragic novel.
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Summary: TRUE ENGLISH CLASSICAL LITERATURE
Review: A simple written story, with a complex subject. The minds of the mayor of casterbridge and the wife he sold both have secret intentions of their own. Secure "their" daughter, and keep a high position in life. Hardy has written another beloved tragic novella, a true English classic
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Summary: The Mayor of Casterbridge--a masterpiece
Review: In this book, Thomas Hardy manages to cut deep into the human soul, and uncover to us a part of our makeup that though inacceptable in some cases, yet, very real. He talks of man's selfishness and desires. He presents his theory, which states that man's destiny is no more than the product of his character and fate. In the wake of the industrial and intellectual revolutions, he gives us an idea of what man's guidelines would become. It such a wondeful novel, that is full of insight and wisdom. (check the death scene, page 123; it might be as well, the most elegant description of a human being passing away!)
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but a touch too unrealistic
Review: The Mayor of Casterbridge is a book of fate and tragedy. The story revolves around Michael Henchard who, under the influence of alcohol, sold his wife and child. This is enough to demonstrate that one mistake can lead to a life of utter misery. Although Henchard thrives and becomes mayor, his past comes to haunt him when his wife returns. Hardy's description of Henchard's downfall is unrealistic. However, what I found most unconvincing was the manner in which Donald Farfrae completely replaced him. The ending is moving, especially his will, and the book is beautifully written; but I shall always find the parts I found unrealistic the most memorable.
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Summary: A literary miracle...and a very modern novel...
Review: I'm re-reading this book that thrilled me years ago and thrills me today. Now, however, I realize just how "modern" it is, even more so than the works of Dickens, whom I also revere, but whose writing had a quaint quality that actually makes him the lesser artist, in my opinion. Hardy's writing is spare but nothing is left out. You feel it, you taste it, you live it. It has the firm, sure quality of a minimalist work of art, and yet the twists and turns of its plot are dizzying. I detect its influence on novelist Toni Morrison, I might add. I'd be willing to bet she's a Hardy scholar. I read many passages, many scenes, that reminded me of her "folksy" conceits. And I was amazed at Hardy's contemporary understanding of addiction, in this case alcoholism. In fact, Henchard is a "dry drunk." He abstains from liquor for 21 years, but his character defects and lack of spiritual awareness catapault him right back into his disease when he begins drinking again. In fact, his life spirals out of control faster and faster with his first return to drink, showing that alcoholism, like all addictions, is a progressive disease. A reviewer here said the book was depressing, and that Hardy is dark. However, the "light" in Hardy comes with his wisdom, not unlike Faulkner's, of human nature. There are so many themes of the enduring truths that one is uplifted just by the reading. Sometimes I mourn for the writers I will never meet, the ones who have passed on. Their teaching is so important to my own spiritual and artistic growth, that I have experienced a great love from them and for them. Hardy is one of those for me. Wherever he dwells now, I send him my appreciation.
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Summary: Possibly the Perfect Tragic Character
Review: When Thomas Hardy penned The Mayor of Casterbridge, he brought to life a very authentic character in Michael Henchard. He is possibly the perfect tragic character. The only other character I can think of to compare him to as I struggle to describe him and the story - for he is so much the story - is King Lear. But where Lear was a King who was foolish, Michael is the common man, a simple hay trusser, with several character flaws ... most notably shortsightedness and a desire to "be on top". He at no point feels something that most people don't but where we restrain our first rash and selfish actions (most of the time), he goes full out until he has cost himself everything and too late finds redemption. His flaw is insidious and all too common, so we relate easily even through his most outrageous misadventures. In a fit of drunken despondency, feeling that he is being pulled down by the responsibility of being a twenty-one year old husband and father, he jests that he would gladly part with his wife and daughter for the sum of five pounds. After having sworn this so vehemently for the entire evening, he has little recourse when someone takes him up on it and his wife, in shame and anger, agrees to go with the purchaser, taking their daughter with her. When sobriety brings full realization, it also brings a vow of temperance from Michael who in the following fifteen years builds himself up to a position respectability and public admiration in the nearby town of Casterbridge. Though he seems to have learned his lesson, we are only on chapter two and his story is just beginning as his wife and child return and his friendship with a trusted friend and critical advisor becomes a bitter rivalry. Time and again he demands allegiance when he need only ask it and return it in kind. Hardy's writing style is direct and straight-forward with no flourishes like you might find with Dickens or Twain. He has a story to tell and he tells it - no swashbuckling adventures like DeFoe or Dumas. However you feel about that, the character of Michael Henchard continues to skulk around in my head. He represents to me a very real possibility of personal failure and haunts my mind now just as Scrooge's deceased partner haunted him in A Christmas Carol. I would have given this book a fun factor of three stars when I first read it. Now I give it five stars because I have had the time to realize what a masterful job Hardy did when he created Michael Henchard.
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Summary: Buyer Beware....
Review: My second reading of a Thomas Hardy novel was every bit enjoyable as the first, if not more. Having a very limited background with this gifted author, it has taken years to appreciate his talents.
The Mayor of Casterbridge starts with a very dubious event...concerning a drunken 'sale' of two persons by one Michael Henchard...bidding them a not-so-fond farewell; once Michael sobers up, he realizes his mistake, and searches, in vain, to retrieve his family.
Flash forward 19 years, when a weary woman and her now-grown daughter appear near Casterbridge, searching for the woman's first husband, who has now become the mayor, and succeeded in keeping his 21 year pledge to abstain from drink following his grievous error years before.
Susan Henchard, now the widow of a missing sailor, comes looking for Michael, and is surprised at what she finds. A sober, well-to-do, respected member of the community, and a leader. A far cry from the man who bartered her away years before. Also new in town is Donald Farfrae, who, once apprenticed to hay and corn merchant Michael, becomes more than Michael bargained for.
To tell any more of the plot would be to deprive a reader of numerous twists and turns that occur along the way to the conclusion of this wonderful novel. Perhaps its due to a limited amount of experience with Hardy, but I found several jaw-dropping revelations along the way, and more twists than a television reality series.
The story is never dull, nor is it mired in too much unnecessary detail or character introduction. Each of the 'dramatis personae' are well-realized, as is the notion that the past can always change the course of the future.
For newcomers to Hardy's works, indulge in this page-turner, which is fraught with enjoyment. As this is a less 'dreary' tale than Jude the Obscure, I would recommend it as an introduction to Hardy's style...and a chance to meet a masterful storyteller.
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