thomas hardy

ok, so.....my side bar does not mention thomas hardy as an influence, good or bad......and that is...ok...but after watching the Masterpiece Theatre production of Under the Greenwood Tree i must change this position...Thomas Hardy has been an influence of my reading these 30+ years.......i dutifully read The Return of the Native as a senior in high school.....and to this day the spector of Eustacia Vye comes to me as the iconoclastic vision of beauty and danger combined.......and then there was Tess, of the D'Ubervilles.....and Bathsheba Everdene of Far from the Madding Crowd ......i also read the Mayor of Casterbridge...but I recall little from that volume......