It is human nature that, inevitably, we seem to tire of something once we have obtained it. Longing seems to be preferable to us to having, and once we have finally got what we wanted, we often begin our pursuit of our heart’s next desire. Such is our vacillating nature, such is our curse. But can this fickle tendency apply to the affairs of the heart as well?
For one Jocelyn Pierston, native of an idyllic English seaside village, the search for a soul mate, for his perfect female companion, for the ideal of womanhood and beauty, falls into just such a pattern. That’s because Pierston is as fickle as they come, a man to whom the grass always seems greener on the other side.
And hence his “pursuit of the Well-Beloved”. And just what is the Well-beloved? To Jocelyn, the Well-Beloved is the idealistic embodiment of his much sought-for lover. And since his roaming eye can’t stay in one place for very long, so the “spirit” of the well-beloved moves from body to body, migrating from one female form to the next. And so Jocelyn justifies his indecisive nature.
But when Jocelyn is reunited with his childhood companion Avice, now a woman in her own right, he thinks the Well-Beloved may have finally found a permanent home-until Avice is unable to meet him for a prearranged rendezvous one night, and he runs off with another incarnation of the well-beloved.
When that affair turns sour, however, Jocelyn finds it’s too late to patch things up with Avice-she’s married another, and the one who may just have been the true “Well-Beloved” is out of his reach. And he is forced to live with this for the next twenty years of his life.
That is, until he meets Avice’s Daughter Anne, whom he christens Avice the second. Seeing in her the qualities that so appealed to him in the first Avice, some real, some imagined, Pierston soon pronounces her the Well-Beloved born anew. But Avice the second has other ideas, and although the two become friends, their relation can never be more than platonic.
And so Jocelyn goes into retreat fro another twenty years-just long enough to return home for a go at Avice the Third, perhaps a closer copy of the original Avice than her mother was. And though Avice the second encourages the match-telling her daughter that Jocelyn’s kind nature and, more importantly, vast wealth more than makeup for his advanced age-Avice the Third is more inclined to follow her own heart’s desire.
Thomas Hardy may not be among the best know authors of classic literature, but The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved (aka The Well Beloved) is no less a masterpiece for that. Published serially at first (as were many of Charles Dickens novels), the single edition novel first appeared with some modification in 1897.
And it is a telling commentary on human nature. Pierston’s “Well-Beloved” embodies the fickle nature of the human heart, and our tendency to take for granted what we have in favor of something new and exciting. And so it is with Pierston, who has everything in his grasp with Avice, throws it all away, and spends the rest of his life trying to recapture it.
But this nature is not unique to the male of the species, or so Hardy tries to tell us, as Avice the Second, much to Jocelyn’s astonishment , seems to be in the pursuit of a “Well-Beloved” of her own. Indeed, Hardy seems to find that love itself is a poor foundation for a relationship, and those characters in his book that marry for it end up faring badly (hence Avice the Second, unhappy with the path her relationship took, urges Avice the Third to marry Jocelyn for more materialistic reasons).
Hardy has a distinct talent here for fleshing out his characters and the scenic locales in which they dwell. His extremely elegant prose flows across the pages with all the grace of a Beethoven symphony put to words. And his characters and concepts keep the reader engaged all the way through.
Truly, that’s the icing on the cake. In sum, times may change, but human nature does not. And that makes The Pursuit of the Well-Beloved as entertaining and relevant now as it was over a century ago.
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