Arts An Open Letter to Thomas Hardy
posted by December 4 at 17:31 PM
onDear Thomas Hardy,
On behalf of dim book critics everywhere, sorry.
best,
christopher
PS—It’s pretty cool that your heart is buried in one place and the ashes of the rest of your body are buried somewhere else.
PPS—Nice moustache.
Comments
If memory serves, he originally gave up poetry writing for ficition also because of criticism. I never read his poems, but I do like the fiction.
I can't help but feel somewhat responsible.
My favorite thos hardy poem:
This lighthearted little number is my favorite:
Neutral Tones
We stood by a pond that winter day,
And the sun was white, as though chidden of God,
And a few leaves lay on the starving sod,
--They had fallen from an ash, and were gray.
Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove
Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
And some words played between us to and fro--
On which lost the more by our love.
The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing
Alive enough to have strength to die;
And a grin of bitterness swept thereby
Like an ominous bird a-wing....
Since then, keen lessons that love deceives,
And wrings with wrong, have shaped to me
Your face, and the God-curst sun, and a tree,
And a pond edged with grayish leaves.
oh man: Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove / Over tedious riddles solved years ago;
That's really tasty.
Wow - editions of his poems all say that he gave up fiction when he´d made enough money to devote himself to his real love, of poetry. And while the poetry is pretty sweet, (one of the few expensive English books I´ve bought in Mexico) it is an acquired and difficult taste, while the novels are just about the truest things ever. Just thinking about Jude the Obscure ten years on still knocks me out.
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