The Return of the Native by Alan Rickman, Thomas Hardy (2007, Unabridged, Compact Disc)

Beautiful but jaded Eustacia Vye hates rural life on Egdon Heath, despite her capacity to attract all of its male inhabitants. She longs for someone who will take her from there to a cultured urban environment where she is sure she can find happiness. Hearing that Clym Yeobright is returning home after studying art in Paris, she sets her cap for him, sight unseen, and weds him quickly, setting off a chain of unanticipated tragedies.

Thomas Hardy’s classic novel is an extended love triangle filled with the hallmarks of his fiction: lyrical description; deft plotting; precision foreshadowing; and unusual rustic details, local customs, and people. Few who read this novel can forget the preternatural presence of Diggory Venn, the reddleman, for example, whose solid red countenance – an occupational hazard – causes most to fear him as if he were the very devil himself instead of the moral center of the book. Alan Rickman’s elegant, subtle but fully-articulated performance brings him and all of the other provincials and gentry fully and fondly to life. A splendid reading.