Magnificent ... A masterful storyteller and meticulous researcher, Byrne shows us how the women in Hardy’s work are based on the women in his life. But she does so with the delicacy of a hummingbird, darting from point to point, suggesting but never concluding ... Byrne is at her best when she digs into the Hardys’ unhappy marriage.
Hefty ... Engagingly written, if unbridled ... Byrne runs into trouble in the chapters concerning Hardy’s prolific literary output. Her synopses of the novels are confusing even to someone familiar with them, and her analyses are frequently redundant ... It takes a hardy Hardy reader to make it through this overly long biography from cover to cover.
Unconventional ... Byrne, through diligent and masterful detective work, uncovers the obscure parts of his lifelong fascination (invariably erotic) with women ... Hardy himself occasionally gets lost in the sheer stream of people with which Byrne populates her narrative ... Byrne’s book is indispensable reading.
I admired Byrne’s last book, a life of the writer Barbara Pym, and hoped to feel even more enthusiastic about this one ... While Hardy Women is deeply researched and often well-written, it is, unfortunately, one of those books that struggles to rise above its tricksy, completist concept ... The effect, in narrative terms, is frustratingly stop-start, and (unintentionally, I think) repetitive. Occasionally, we lose sight of Hardy altogether, and when this happens, the book, in need of a thread, takes on a desultory air ... The biggest problem, however, stems from the fact that the most fascinating period by far of Hardy’s life in terms of his relationships with women is the one with which I began this review: those months and years when he was in a complicated and deceitful menage with Emma and Florence ... Is it worth the wait? I’m not sure. If I’ve read about it before, I was nevertheless intensely absorbed by it here, the details still so strange.
HHow Thomas Hardy would have hated this book ... This is an unashamedly biographical raid on Hardy, an attempt to chip out the real passions that may or may not have given rise to his profound, unforgettable, still strangely modern work. It’s definitely too personal, certainly in bad taste, and yet it illuminates the harsh, complex lives of working-class Victorian women, the milkmaids, servants and teachers that Hardy was so radical in placing at the centre of his world ... Byrne’s persistent attempts to find direct correlation between the two realms is sometimes strained, a type of confirmation bias in which what’s sought is always found, without being necessarily illuminating ... ’d still rather read the novels than ponder their original sources. The best of Hardy, the most original, lies in the women he made up.
Fat and absorbing ... From deep research Byrne adds plenty of detail (perhaps she might have pared it back a little — it’s over 500 pages) and colour from his endless romantic entanglements.
Byrne reveals an insecure man who feared physical contact and whose romantic involvements fell into a recurring pattern: obsession, rejection, and fuel for his imagination. An acutely sensitive portrait.
