Slow to get into. Author was very descriptive in scenes and characters. Vocabulary was difficult because of the time period so remote from current time.

This is great literature! Beautiful prose,, well developed characters and an interesting plot. About a strong, modern woman in the 19th century, whose passionate nature causes some disastrous choices ,
and a wise man with a beautiful soul!

This was very hard to get into in the beginning. Too much to dig through to get to the point. However, a sign of the times when it was written. Good story overall.

Figured I\\\'d read this in college, especially as an English major. Definitely saw the Julie Christie/Terrence Stamp/Alan Bates movie (three heavy-hitters for me). Our book club decided to (re)read FFMC, view the old film, and catch the new one for a Hardy mash up.

As a romantic and Anglophile I was certain I\'d be swooning over Hardy\\\'s descriptions of rural England and tribulations of the hearts. Instead I discovered I\'ve become an impatient reader (less time left, still too many books to read) and while there are definite charms to his depictions of small town and 19th century farm life, the story-line was no more sophisticated than 21st century soaps. A strong-willed, capable young woman; an honest, masculine hero; a sexy, bad boy rascal; and a sad, lonely man of means...throw them all together and bob\'s your uncle.

Hardy's first Wessex novel, FFMC establishes the setting and values that Hardy uses in his later novels. The countryside of southwest England with its ancient connection to England's primitive and medieval past (Stonehenge and Glastonbury) informs the values and actions of Hardy's characters. His tragic or near-tragic figures violate the traditional values and cause pain beyond themselves. In FFMC, Bathsheba's pride and vanity violate the natural order of Wessex and are revenged/purged in her tragic marriage with Sergeant Troy. In contrast, the resourceful and knowledgeable Gabriel Oak represents the Wordsworthian figure that Hardy uses to represent the correct norms toward which the flawed character must either move, as Bathsheba finally does, or suffer tragic consequences, as many of Hardy's other characters do.