An Unhappy Marriage Is Like A Wooden Leg

Odd Bits About Books

I read a lot of Thomas Hardy’s novel when I was a teenager and while I did take them seriously, I also enjoyed playing Guess The Death. You’ll pick it up pretty quickly if you ever read any Hardy – a main character nearly always dies towards the end of a novel and you can usually work out pretty early on who it’s going to be. No spoilers but it’s pretty easy once it’s been pointed out to you.

And fun, I’d say, but maybe that’s just me.

You can usually tell when it’s going to happen too as there’s often some usual weather preceding the death, a particularly wet summer for example, or a very harsh winter.

But Hardy writes good books anyway and playing Guess The Death shouldn’t distract you from that. I reread Jude the Obscure recently and, while it’s not a very happy book, it is…

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