A Laodicean: Or the Castle of the De Stancys (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

Thomas Hardy's 1881 novel, "A Laodicean" is often overlooked among his more noted works, like "Tess" or "Jude". While "A Laodicean" is not the most subtly developing Victorian novel in terms of romance, it is sophisticated and worth reading in other aspects. Subtitled "A Story of To-day," Hardy's novel effectively explores the relationship between the coming age of technology and the death of the aristocracy in pre-20th century Britain.

The novel begins with George Somerset, a flighty and intelligent young man who has tinkered with several pursuits, but is finally settling into architecture. Wandering about the vicinity of Markton village, he comes upon a rustic baptism. Paula Power, a young heiress whose late father was a railroad tycoon, refuses to be baptized, raising Pastor Woodwell's charge against her that she is a "Laodicean," a lukewarm believer. George is engaged to work on the restoration of Paula's new residence, Castle De Stancy. Somerset's fascination with Power is born and the action of the novel begins in earnest.

Some of the themes of interest include technological advance - the telegraph's intrusion into the most ancient spaces - the gothic castle and photography. With the image of the crumbling gothic Castle De Stancy, Hardy questions the relevance of hereditary aristocracy and religious fervor to the cosmopolitan modern age. With Paula, Hardy's lifelong interest in the independent heroine is complicated and subtly nuanced. With the fascinating Mr. Dare, Hardy plays with his gothic and colonial subtexts, prefiguring Bram Stoker's late 1890's "Dracula."

"A Laodicean" is worth reading because it is itself lukewarm - unsure whether progress is always positive and uncomfortable with the flippancy of both the aristocracy and new wealth. It is a book whose very instabilities and insecurities make it engaging.

One of the interesting aspects of writing a thesis on imagery in Hardy's novels was getting to read some of the lesser known of his writings, this one included. While there is good reason for many of them to be little considered, "A Laodicean" is still worth a read if you are a Hardy fan. It was largely written while he was bedridden after a mystery illness in 1880-1881. In the novel. Hardy tries to capture the changing world in the England of his day. Aristocracy and family names had dominated, but new wealth in the form of industry and technology were beginning to assert themselves. Thus, his heroine Paula Powers can't make up her mind which of her two suitors, an aristocrat and an architect, she really wants. Even when she makes her choice, there is still doubt in her mind right to the end of the novel, hence the description of her as a `Laodicean', (from Revelation 3:14-22) someone who is neither hot nor cold. Many of the images and themes which we associate with Hardy's better known novels are here, but it never quite hits the heights. Still, it is interesting to see this take on the changes on England's society near the end of the 19th century.

Webster's Dictionary defines a "Laodicean" as a `lukewarm, unenthusiastic Christian." By extension, people have used the term to mean anyone who is hestitant to make significant commitments. It was probably a more familiar adjective to the still Latin-conscious reading public of Victorian England than it is to anyone today except the most "enthusiastic" millennarian Christians who comb the Book of Revelations for news. That's where the pejorative sense of "Laodicean" comes from. In the 3rd chapter of Revelations, in red letters, a rebuke is addressed to the congregation of the Phrygian city of Laodicea: "I know thy works, that thou are neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art luewarm...I will spue thee out of my mouth..."

Mr. Woodwell, an enthusiatic `dissenting' minister, rebukes the heroine of this fascinating novel, Paula Power, with precisely that passage of scripture. The occasion is the young woman's refusal to undergo baptism by immersion, even though her father's dying wish was that she should. Most of the commentaries on the novel have assumed that Ms. Power is the "Laodicean" of the title, and focused on her ambiguous attitude toward `love and marriage' and her reluctance to be wooed. I think this is a seriously short-sighted interpretation of author Thomas Hardy's intentions. Except Mr. Woodwell, all the principal characters of the novel are Laodiceans to some degree, unsettled in their religious commitments, fond of the old trappings and the old moralities but unenthusiastic about doctrines. The very church buildings - and there are lovely descriptions of many - are Laodicean, once again with the exception of the ugly squat brick chapel of Mr. Woodwell's Baptist sect. The glories of Gothic architecture are appreciated, but on aesthetic rather than spiritual principles. These churches are halfway to becoming museums for tourists rather than centers of living worship.

On the whole, except for her hesitance about romantic involvement, Ms. Power is less obviously `lukewarm' and uncommitted than her male co-star, George Somerset, a young man threatened with the cutting of support from his father because of his inability to settle into a career. Somerset, to put it bluntly, is a dilettante, once a poet, once a theologian, now proposing to launch an architectural practice `next year.' He is "so totally" a revelation from Hardy: a perfect prophetic depiction of the twenty-something college grad of 2009, jobless and taking up residence in the family garage! His future as a dilettante, never fear, is quite rosy once the novel concludes; he will never need to be entirely serious about any one thing except Love.

Metaphorically, the book itself is a "Laodicean," structurally a novel-of-marriage-and-manners, with significant complications of social class, in the tradition of Jane Austen and Anthony Trollope, but affectively a post-Victorian novel of `ideas,' an existential novel of psychological insecurity. On one hand, it has all the improbable coincidences and chance meetings of the former, even including a shady vampire-like Gothic villain named Will Dare. Notice also the Dickensesque `appropriateness' of each charcater's name: Power, Woodwell, Dare, etc. On the other, it's permeated with modernity; the plot depends on the presence of the telegraph intruding into bucolic, archaic settings. The story proceeds at two paces, the antique pace of a walker or a horse-drawn carriage, and the modernist pace of railroad travel. The timeless beauties of the old life - the castle, the florid stonework of the churches, the stable social forms - are clearly being ousted by the freedoms and convenience of the modern, but the emotional tension of the story centers on the "Laodicean" attitudes of the characters toward modernization.

Possibly the biggest Laodicean of all was Thomas Hardy himself, a reluctant prophet of a future he couldn't love half as much as he loved the dying past. This novel is said to be his most autobiographical, especially the portions concerning architecture since Hardy was trained as an architect. (By the way, the many allusions to architectural matters in the book might possibly be "off-putting" for some readers. Don't let that happen! Don't bother with the footnotes! You don't need to understand columns and pediments any more than you understand the chatter about ship rigging in a Patrick O'Brian novel.) My guess is that Hardy consciously intended the stylistic double-nature of this book. He meant the reader to be comfortably swept along by the familiar convetions of the Victorian novel, and then to be jarred by the highly unconventional implications of the events. It is not accidental that the book ends `happily' yet with a scene of awful destruction. I don't want to spoil the suspense, but I'll tell you that the very last sentence of the book is the most Laodicean sentiment of all.

I picked this novel up expecting it to be `interesting' to someone like me, with a bent for social history. I'm pleased to say that it is better than merely interesting. It's fun! It has humor, suspense, picturesque descriptions, a heroine worth peeking at through the peephole of her exercise studio. It's masterfully constructed, once you get the drift of Hardy's purpose. It's a book you can read heedlessly for diversion, but once you finish it, you'll want to stop and discover just what a complex and foresightful vision of modern life it offers.