Thomas Hardy: The Guarded Life
*Starred Review* Pite bases this revisionist biography of Hardy on his reinterpretation of the novelist's autobiographicalLife. Widely regarded as a work of candor, Hardy'sLifeturns out be an artful fiction. As deftly as he created Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Clym Yeobright, and other characters, Hardy turned his autobiographical self into a dignified stoic, born to be a great poet, so denying his readers access to the tempestuous realities of his formative years. Through careful research and close readings of Hardy's work, Pite recovers the psychological confusion that Hardy sought--with astonishing success--to keep out of the public eye. Pite reveals, for instance, that the youthful rejection of Christianity that Hardy depicts in hisLifeas the foregone conclusion of a tough-minded intellect was actually an emotionally wrenching process. Similarly, whereas the Hardy of theLiferesponds to hostile criticism with philosophical detachment, the real Hardy recoiled into self-doubt. The maturing writer whom Pite exposes looks quite unlike the godlike sage of theLife, yet Hardy's own novels and poetry foster compassion for the painfully fractured personality Hardy tried to mask. A valuable complement to Tomalin's 2006 life of Hardy: Tomalin illuminating the hard-won authorial poise of Hardy's late verse, Pite plumbing the long-hidden tempests of the younger soul.Bryce ChristensenCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved