Have you read the most erotic scene in Hardy?
Sally expands upon how a guide to some of these classics can help us catch things the censors didn't...
Earlier this year I listened to Far From the Madding Crowd with a friend who had never read any Hardy and we used the Audrey app so that I could learn more about a book I’d already read, and my trepidatious friend could listen with the helping hand of notes and recaps and character descriptions. I first read Thomas Hardy at school and studied him at university, but I’d never caught (or been made aware of!) the intensely erotic scene in chapter 28…
In her notes to chapter 28, ‘The Hollow Amid the Ferns’, our Audrey guide, Tracy Hayes, calls it “possibly the most notorious chapter in the novel.” I wondered why, having not realised there was anything that warranted this kind of notoriety in the book, but listening to Tracy’s voice note, the “erotic charge” became abundantly clear!
Tracy’s note:
I wondered if it was just me who had missed out on this interpretation on previous reads, but several other listeners who were taking part in the listen-along said they would’ve missed this without the guide too. Phew! 😅
As Hayes points out, “couching the sexual action in terms of a military display (Hardy calls the performance an "aurora militaris"), got it past Cornhill Magazine's editorial censors.
This is why we need a guide to the classics!
Listen to the full unabridged edition of Thomas Hardy’s novel read by Jamie Parker with Tracy Hayes’ enlightening chapter-by-chapter guide exclusively on Audrey for just £9.99 (or the equivalent in your currency). Available worldwide 🌎
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