Rating: 
Summary: I Can't Believe he actually sold his baby!!!
Review: I had never been so against reading a book in my life. Everything about it seemed boring; the cover, the title, and even the way the pages smelled. It was only the fact that Henchard sells his wife and baby in an auction; that kept my interest alive.
Even with a premise as weird as this one, the book's beginning was painful. It wasn't until later on that I discovered the book wouldn't be as painful as I feared. The Mayor of Casterbridge is based entirely on irony and coincidences. Never have I rolled my eyes so many times in disbelief.
Hardy created a soap opera-like world in the town of Casterbridge. This actually gave a humorous appeal to the book. After every major section of the book you can't help but mumble, "Sure..."
Some people deem this book, "Depressing," however The Mayor of Casterbridge didn't once give me a similar feeling. This book is presented in such a way that it helps you laugh at other people's misfortune.
I wouldn't recommend this book as a "free-read;" But if you must choose between a bunch of boring books, and this one happens to be on the list, then I highly recommend you choose it. It may seem boring at first, but give it a chance; Hardy's humorous look at tragedy will give you a good laugh. I mean how bad can a book be, that starts out with its central character actually selling his wife and baby girl at a fair?
Rating: 
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.
Rating:
Summary: Casting a long shadow
Review: I was nearly put off reading this by friends who termed it "depressing". This trivialises it, for it is, to my mind, truly tragic. In a shockingly irresponsible drunken act, protagonist Michael Henchard sells his wife at a local fair. The consequences, stretching over a couple of decades, sweep away both him and other characters. The plot teems with journeys, coincidences, long-lost people showing up, and a strong vein of morality. In typical Hardyesque style, Henchard moves from the height of civic success to bankruptcy and alienation. A quasi-Greek-tragedy air of fate prevails, but Hardy manages to keep suspense alive. Protagonist and antagonist (Farfrae) are pitted against each other on civic and domestic fronts. There is not one Mayor of Casterbridge, but two, and success, failure and rivalry play a large part. There is also competition among the males as lovers, husbands and fathers. This novel gives an insight into civic life, the worthy burgesses of Casterbridge networking in their council-rooms and taverns. But the animal instincts of the wife-sale, the gutter-press viciousness of the locals' "skimmity-ride", and the proximity of the countryside, where so many Victorian characters wander to survive and to lay bare their feelings, reveal the fragility of civilisation and our urban constructs. Great stuff.
Rating: 
Summary: Truly Talented Writing
Review: I greatly enjoyed The Mayor of Casterbridge, not only for its clear and concise explanations, dialogue and emotional energy, but also for its themes. The loss of a wife, mother, daughter, love, husband, father and mentor are all carried off extremely well. I chose to read this book for a project I'm doing in my English class and although it was not my first choice, I do recommend it to anyone who loves English literature. I'm a big fan of Dickens and Hardy and truly loved this magnificent piece of work.
Rating:
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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