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  • The Return of the Native

  • By: Thomas Hardy
  • Narrated by: Alan Rickman
  • Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (78 ratings)

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The Return of the Native

By: Thomas Hardy
Narrated by: Alan Rickman
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Publisher's Summary

Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Exclusively from Audible 

Set on Egdon Heath, a fictional barren moor in Wessex, Eustacia Vye longs for the excitement of city life but is cut off from the world in her grandfather's lonely cottage. Clym Yeobright who has returned to the area to become a schoolmaster seems to offer everything she dreams of: passion, excitement and the opportunity to escape. However, Clym's ambitions are quite different from hers, and marriage only increases Eustacia's destructive restlessness, drawing others into a tangled web of deceit and unhappiness. 

Considered a truly modern story due to its sexual politics and hindered desires it still holds relevance to audiences today. There is a tension between the symbolic setting of the heath and the modernity of the characters that makes the listener question our freedom to shape our lives as we wish. Are we always able to live our dreams? 

Like George Eliot, Hardy was a Victorian realist whose novels and poetry were greatly influenced by Romanticism, especially the poet William Wordsworth. His critical thoughts on Victorian society can be seen throughout much of his work. 

Narrator Biography 

Multi-award winning actor and director Alan Rickman, famous for roles such as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films and the Sherriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), had a varied career that included performing on stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company in modern and classical theatre productions. In America, he gained recognition for his Broadway appearance in Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1985) and later his role in Die Hard (1988) made him internationally famous. Other notable performances included his 2001 return to the West End and Broadway in Noël Coward's Private Lives and Ibsen's John Gabriel Borkman in 2010. Rickman is most remembered for his roles in films such as Love Actually (2003) and Sweeney Todd (2007) as well as voicing Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and Absalom the Caterpillar in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland (2010). 

Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Critic Reviews

"Rickman's voice is masculine and seductive; yet by altering tempo, modulating tone, he becomes Hardy's women and children, utterly compelling as he projects all ranges of emotion. His individualizing dialogue of the human-sized characters, that country chorus who form the backdrop of normality for Hardy's titanic lovers, is brilliant." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about The Return of the Native

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Typical Hardy

I love Thomas Hardy and I love Alan Rickman (may they both rest in peace) so I couldn't go past this one. Alan Rickman's low almost sarcastic voice seems well suited to this rather depressing and ironic story of mismatched lovers on Egdon Heath.

It's typical Hardy in that there's lots of long, slow descriptions of landscape and a fetishistic adoration of the rural and working classes, and such ridiculously bad timings reminiscent of Shakespeare's tragedies. I love all that crazy stuff and the ridiculously complicated language he uses to describe the simplest of things!!! A refreshing intellectual change from modern literature (which I enjoy also, but it's good to go back and read these amazing classics from time to time).

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Alan Rickman's Character Performance and Singing

He is just wonderful. Plays the characters as he reads (even their accents he does perfectly!) and sings all the songs out (including flawless French!) - plus if you just tune the speed to 0.75x and you get Professor Snape :3
I miss him so much. Hope he is all well in heaven and can still see how much he is appreciated on earth and in heaven!!
Love forever and ALWAYS. * wand up (LUMOS) * <3

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3 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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What's not to love?

I like Thomas Hardy, but I bought this because of Alan Rickman. It was difficult to get into but I persisted for Alan Rickman. Hardy uses almost the whole first chapter describing scenery and climate. When human characters finally began to emerge out of the mist it took ages to work out who they were, and what their relationship was to each other. I had to listen to several of the early chapters two or three times before I sorted them out, and what was going on in their lives to make them behave the way they did. In fact some of the characters just weren't all that well-developed, but the events in their lives were very believable. It ended up being more about events, really, rather than characters. Someone thinks this, which isn't true, so does that, which has horrible consequences. I can totally believe stuff like that. Hardy was a great observer. And all those repeat listens were easy - because Alan Rickman. So sad he's not with us any more.

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Good but dragged on a bit to the inevitable

Nowhere near as good Far from the Madding Crowd but beautifully written, nonetheless. Sometimes it was overly and frustratingly contrived.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Great rambling story

The beginning is a little dense but soon swept me away. I’m hoping to find more books narrated by Alan Rickman as his voice is a delight

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

The voice of Alan Rickman

Is perfect for this, my favorite Thomas Hardy tale. His rustic characters live and the drama and tragedy enliven but never dominate the force majeur that is Egdon Heath. Simply brilliant!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Hardy at his less bodice ripping and more character driven best.

Alan Rickman breathes greening life into Hardy’s quiet turn of the century romantic novel. Really enjoyed revisiting this story.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A classic

Loved this story.
Needed to re listen in a few spots due to older language but that didn't detract from enjoying listening. A wonderful performance by Alan Rickman.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

A good performance, let down by sound quality

Rickman was good, though his characters sometimes lack versatility. The sound quality and tempo of his speech would sometimes suddenly change, as though different recording sessions were badly stitched together. Hardy's works are always heavy going and melodramatic, but this story is particularly grim. I'm kind of glad it was an included title, as I'm not sorry to have listened, but I would have been sorry to use up a credit for it.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A wonderful way to appreciate a classic

I loved listening to this story alongside reading the book. Alan's performance is beautiful and talented in the way he portrays the different characters.

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