Friday, June 12, 2009

Ten of the best fake deaths

At the Guardian, John Mullan named ten of the best fake deaths in fiction.

One title on the list:
Far from the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy

Even devotees of Hardy's fiction will find it hard to think of Sergeant Troy's supposed death from drowning without recalling the film version, with Terence Stamp leaving his clothes and his troubles behind him on a Dorset beach. Years later, as Bathsheba teeters on the brink of marriage to Boldwood, Troy, her "dead husband", returns to reclaim her. Boldwood shoots him.
Read about all ten fake deaths on Mullan's list.

The Page 99 Test: Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders.

--Marshal Zeringue