The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

This is yet another novel I had to read for class (I'm trying to get all the ones I don't like out of the way first) and I sincerely hope that this is the last Thomas Hardy novel I will read for the rest of my life. I tried to slightly ameliorate this traumatic experience by listening to the audiobook narrated by Alan Rickman, so that I at least had his swoon-worthy voice to enjoy, but it didn't help much. I've read two other Hardy novels before (Jude the Obscure and Far From the Madding Crowd) and he is probably my least favourite respected Victorian writer ever. I absolutely loathe him. The plots of all three novels that I read can broadly be described as the slow progress of a woman being forced to be more 'reasonable' and submissive. I feel like every Hardy novel is actually just a slow working out of corrective abuse; an otherwise perfect woman falls in love with the 'wrong' man, suffers psychological, mental or physical abuse, and is changed by it to understand the merits of the 'right' man, which she had not previously understood because she was too young, stupid (or probably just because she's a woman and that makes her a lower life form). Even though Hardy condemns men who treat women badly, on the level of plot, that is exactly what he is doing to his female characters; moulding them through abuse and neglect until they understand the error of their ways. He also has a liking for creating sexually active or bold female characters who are assertive and strong, and then ruthlessly destroying them. Because of course a woman should never have sexual agency, she'll just make the wrong choice. The character of Eustacia was definitely the best one: she's rebellious, independence, impulsive, moody, dresses up as a boy to go spy a man she's interested in, in general, she's just really great and the only character I actually could relate to. Of course, Hardy constantly condemns her and holds her up as the 'bad' opposite of Thomasin, who speaks about two words in the whole book, has no discernible personality at all, and is dull as ditchwater. I also just find Hardy a bad and depressing writer, his prose is ponderous and too carefully-crafted, it feels like he just tried way too hard and wound up making a huge, disgusting mess. Here's a terrible extract that I found particularly cringe-worthy: 'She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as it came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their oppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller than it usually is with English women.' What are pagan eyes? What is he even talking about? I swear this is an extract from a particularly foul fanfic. Also, he tries a more lighthearted tone for the end of the novel, and even attempts a few jokes, which are so awkward and dreadful that I am pretty sure that there has never been anyone on the face of the earth more devoid of a sense of humour than Thomas Hardy.