Hardy The Trumpet Major

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I’d not heard of this Hardy novel but found it in a charity shop for 50p so thought it’d be worth getting. I have to say when I think of Hardy I rarely think of him as a laugh out loud author but this time I really was! There were parts that were simply hilarious, such as in the very beginning, “It should be stated that at this time there were two arch-enemies of mankind – satan as usual, and Buonaparte, who had sprung up and eclipsed his elder rival altogether. Mrs Garland alluded, of course, to the junior gentleman.” (6). There was just something so lovely about the writing style of this book. It was a nice melodramatic comedic love story set against the Napoleonic wars, but without being too over the top. I enjoyed the characters a great deal and was quite surprised by the ending. I think I will definitely continue to read more Thomas Hardy.