stan a Hardy love triangle May up tostars, as being Hardy, this book is head and shoulders above most authors, but it's not anywhere near his best work for me.
The characters weren't defined enough for me to actually care what happened to any of them, and Paula's reticence was really annoying.
I think that when this was written, Hardy was very unwell and had to dictate the story in order for it to be published in a monthly magazine, so it feels very different to his other novels, more impersonal though the character of Somerset does reflect his own life to some extent, which is something of a paradox and drawn out unnecessarily.
It left me feeling rather Laodicean in fact, neither warm nor cold, I'm pleased to have read it though, as it was the only novel of Hardy's I hadn't up until now read.
And I'm really happy that Hardy recovered in order to write far superior works than this,
First of all, the audio narration for this book wasn't very good at all, and the audio editing quite terrible too I gave up counting instances of sentences being repeated after the first half dozen, so this may have has an impact on my enjoyment of this story.
But even bearing that in mind, I thought this not one of Hardy's better works, Though considerably less miserable than most of his books, I found this one very uneven, with a beginning I found extremely hard to get into, an excellent second quarter, a dull third quarter and a reasonably engaging end.
I also think this is probably the least 'Hardy' Hardy novel I've read,
Still, I enjoyed it overall, despite my initial impressions and the difficulty I had with the narrator's style very monotonous, every sentence is a separate statement.
I like my prose to flow, thank you, This isn't Hardy's fault, Hardy is pretty ok at that prose malarkey, . I have read Thomas Hardy before, so I wasn't afraid to read this verysmallprintandmanypages book that my book club chose for this month.
Sadly, The Laodicean took me far longer to get into than Tess and I never did find any love or real sympathy for the main characters.
The plot is thus: George Somerset is a young architect who stumbles into the life of the lovely Paula Powers.
Not only is Paula the heiress of her late father's railroad fortune, she is also the new owner of Stancy Castle, the ancestral home of the De Stancy Family.
Paula's desire to refurbish the castle often throw George and Paula into each other's company and a onesided romance ensues.
I won't share any more of the drama, in case you choose to read this, but let it be said that there is a plethora of drama, of the serialized, soap opera type.
People are wooing, people are illegitimate sons, people are forging telegrams misunderstandings and deceits abound,
An ongoing theme throughout the book is the contrast between historical and modern, forward and backward thinking, staunchly kept vows and lukewarm devotion.
Paula is the ultimate representative of all that is lukewarm her vagueness and indecision was incredibly frustrating, although she does reap the consequences, somewhat.
Her desire to be both avantgarde and yet a part of a grand old family makes her a bit of an enigma.
George is steadfast and honest, but far too simpering for me, They each have companions that help and hinder them, providing a good portion of all that aforementioned drama,
I like how Hardy set up the plot always omniscient narrator but giving us a vision of the same scene from different viewpoints and cluing us in to things the other character's don't yet know.
I enjoyed having architecture and design itself as a subplot to the book, He is a magnificent writer, I'll give him that, even though I thought this book as a whole was not really up to par.
For example:
I have thought of fifty things to say to you of the too far sort, not one of any other how unfortunate then is your prohibition, by which I am doomed to say things that do not rise spontaneously to my lips, but have to be made, shaped and fashioned.
Although I liked his style and found it, for the most part, fairly readable this book went on way too long.
Even if I hadn't known that it was a serialized publication, I could've guessed based on how certain scenes dragged on.
I won't say it's not worth reading I just don't think I'll be picking it up again, The least pronounceable of Thomass novels LAYohduSEEan is an overlong “romance” exploring one womans relationship between modernity and antiquity, the former an architect the latter a ramshackle Count.
Paula Powers POV is never explored in the novel, leaving her an arch and harried heroine, unbesotted with either suitor until the plot requires she chooses one of them.
Halfwritten and halfdictated on his sickbed, the novel is a curio in the canon and worth reading for fans of the lighter side of Hardy.
A curiously uneven novel, possibly because it was largely dictated by Hardy when very ill, but having to meet monthly magazine deadlines.
On solid ground when based in England but there is almost an overtortuous middle section when characters thunder through Europe, randomly meeting, or failing to meet, each other.
Illegitimacy, blackmail, personaton, theft, revealing tattoos, etc, abound, Enjoyable, partly profound and partly silly!
A review not mine!
'If you decide to read A Laodicean, youre in for an uneven experience expect irritating characters, an unsatisfying conclusion, and a tedious lovers correspondence which you could say, with some justification, finds a modern equivalent in the email drama of E.
L. Jamess Fifty Shades of Grey , But youll find here too an unusual premise, a heroine who defies stereotypes, some breathtaking prose, a rich display Hardys architectural knowledge, and insights into the very modern world of thes.
'The subtitle of Thomas Hardys lesserknownnovel, A Laodicean, is A Story of Today, This nods to one of the main points of difference between this novel and much of Hardys canon nostalgic, and so often a swansong for a dying rural way of life.
A Laodicean is a novel whose plot relies on modern technology on an exchange between lovers carried out via telegraph and as fraught with misunderstandings as many text conversations today, on an altered photograph possible even in the arts early years, prePhotoshop, and on the ability for its characters to race around Europe, almost colliding with each other in a series of missed connections.
The heroine at its centre, however, Paula Power, is, like Hardy, not so sure whether her loyalties lie with the past or the future.
The daughter of a selfmade railway magnate, she nevertheless lives in the decayed splendour of Castle de Stancy, a mediaeval pile fallen into dilapidation, and finds herself increasingly attracted to the hereditary grandeur it represents.
What is Paula Low church or high, practical or romantic, a representative of a new ruling class or a newmoneyed misfit lacking the necessary refinement for her role as mistress here These questions are at the heart of Hardys story, and are played out most obviously in Paulas choice of husband.
There is young George Somerset, an architect with youth and ambition to recommend him, but then again there is handsome army captain William de Stancy, older, morally questionable, and surrounded by the reflected glory of his familys antiquated past.
This is a good, but not great, Hardy novel, which means it is not HIS best, but still far surpasses the best work of many lesser novelists.
While reading it, I recognized why some reviewers liked it less than Hardys best novels, but I also saw in it every now and then the sparkle and gleam of Hardys precious literary jewels.
On the whole, it was nowhere close to my favorite Hardy work, but it was still an enjoyable novel worth reading.
It has seemingly unrequited romance, conspiracy, forgery, deception, misunderstandings, and characters with various motives most of the time working at opposing ends that should end in disaster and disappointment for someone, or several someones.
That said, this novel doesnt execute these triedandtrue Hardy recipes for sublime storytelling quite as effectively as his best works, but effectively enough for plenty of enjoyment anyway.
In a biography I read, it said Hardy was very ill when he wrote this novel and dictated it in pieces to his wife.
There are parts of it where it is clear Hardy was not in his healthiest and most sharply witty mind, with sections that seem to meander a bit before refocusing on the characters and plot, but again, even Hardysnd tier writing is hidden treasure worth examining.
It will help your appreciation and understanding of the story and its main character, Paula Power, to be familiar with the term Laodicean before diving into the story.
It is a New Testament church mentioned in Revelations, with members who could be described in modern terms as “fencesitters” or other analogies for people who cant or wont make up their minds between two equally intriguing choices or possible directions, and thus go nowhere and can never be happy.
In Revelations they are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold in their devotion toward any one cause or person, Knowing the context of this novels title will help you look for these indecisive or lukewarm traits in the various characters portrayed.
One wonders in the end if any one them end up truly happy in life, and that is Hardys point about Laodiceans, with Paula as the prime example.
Great Hardy novels have numerous welldeveloped characters the reader comes to feel connected to by the end, loathing some and loving others.
Hardysnd tier novels like this one have a small number welldeveloped characters, and in this one, all are sympathetic in some way, including the “villain” of the story, Mr.
Dare. For much of the novel, he is the smoothtalking Iago on the shoulder of two suitors for Paula, stirring them up to destroy the possibility of Paula and another suitor, Mr.
Sommerset, courting and marrying. With all of his intrigues and criminal acts to keep Paula and Sommerset apart in favor of a different suitor conspiracies with others, theft of architectural designs, fake messages, falsified photos, and other fraudulent maneuvers, Mr.
Dare has ingredients to be one of the great Hardy villains, However, just as this point is nearly reached, Hardy suddenly reveals a secret about Mr, Dare that changes the readers perspective of his treachery and its motives, and he becomes a little more pitiable than loathed.
I enjoyed him more when he was sheer villainy incarnate, but alas, he was made all too human,
The less one knows about the ending the final sentence even the better, Paulas final words can have more than one interpretation depending on what you want from this novel, It could be a “happy” ending, It could be a tragic one for her and others, I chose to give it the most deliciously tragic interpretation because that is what I like most in Hardy novels.
Either way, the ending is perfectly suited to the Laodicean theme of being neither hot nor cold,
because Im too biased toward Hardy to rate anything he wrote less thanstars, However, compared to few other Hardy novels I have ratedstars, I would put this one lowest of thestar novels.
It bears repeating though, that this is a rating scale in which Hardy is compared only to Hardy, and he set an incredibly high bar with his greatest novels.
A Laodicean is quite unlike any of his other novels, but it has many of the same ingredients that made the others great.
Those ingredients are not stirred together to produce Hardys finest brew here, but I think most Hardy fans will find characters and prose to enjoy in this novel.
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