[.ca] Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life (ISBN 0330481878)

'It's time to take him at his word - and to doubt his every word':
Ralph Pite has written a thoughtful account of the influences, life and times of Thomas Hardy. Thomas Hardy is an author whom many of us have studied as part of English literature either formally, or as we read through the classics. He died less than 100 years ago, and yet we know very little about the man behind the author. What we do know creates a sense of a series of slightly out of focus images which are, sometimes, contradictory. Seeking to make sense of this is difficult and it can detract from enjoying Hardy's prose and poetry. Ralph Pite does not have all of the answers. What he does is to present, in sharper focus, the relationships that were important either in Hardy's life or as potential influences on his writing. Pite does this in elegant prose: as accessible to the more casual interested reader as it will be to the more academically inclined student of Hardy. Knowing Hardy will never be easy: he always is present in the shadows. But some of the insights in Pite's book sometimes let the sun shine through more brightly. And, quickly, before the shadows shift again I could sense the man who might have been behind the author. Highly recommended to those who seek to better understand Thomas Hardy. Jennifer Cameron-Smith