In This Excerpt From Thomas Hardys The Mayor Of Castlegate, Writing Is A Matter Of Fact, Straight To The Point

In This Excerpt From Thomas Hardy's The Mayor Of Castlegate, Writing Is A Matter Of Fact, Straight To The PointIn this excerpt from Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Castlegate, writing is a matter of fact, straight to the point. And for anyone who knows Thomas Hardy and his works well, there's no surprise about what he has to say.The Mayor of Castlegate is the most moving of all Hardy's novels, though perhaps his finest. It is a small book, but the consequences it deals with are very large indeed. It's a hard read, but it's an essential one for any serious student of Thomas Hardy's literature.Like his previous work, The Dying Animal, The Mayor of Castlegate makes great use of the short story, but there are even fewer stories here than there were in his earlier books. This is a deliberate choice that brings the novel down to a more manageable length, yet it also shows that Hardy was willing to experiment.The first story in this collection, The Old Ear, is a curious tale about the unusual c haracter Ouellette. Ouellette lives in the plague-ravaged city of Castlegate, and he has a gift for receiving messages. He can tell what someone is thinking and feeling about a particular topic, but he is not always able to relay his thoughts to others. In this short story, Ouellette is driven to madness by the constant criticism that he receives from his neighbors, and that he doesn't have the ability to act in a responsible manner.Another story, The Ugly Maid, concerns a maid who was raped and left to die in a sewer in London. She's found, but she doesn't speak a word and her memory of the event is vague at best. She holds the key to the man who murdered her, and it's up to Hardy to get it.While he and Ouellette work together, one of the other stories in this collection concerns Sally 's bathroom and some of the events that happened while she was a guest at Hardy's house. It's a strange, though not particularly noteworthy, tale, but it's fun and charming.After reading this collect ion, it will be interesting to see where Hardy takes us next, because he's already ventured into previously unexplored territory in King's Lounge. It would appear that Hardy is poised to make a long, successful career as a popular author. He's written short stories, a novel, and a series of poems.Still, the question remains: Can he write another novel? His earlier efforts all are critically acclaimed and are always good reads. It's very likely that if he were to take the time to write another novel, it would be something quite different, but if he does write a novel, he'd better hope it's as good as his last two.