I found Hardy's stuff pretty much too depressing to continue reading. His poetry is better. At least, in my opinion. Mind you, I once got in trouble with my undergraduate advisor by remarking that Samuel Clemens was probably the greatest writer America has ever produced -- forgetting he'd done his dissertation on Walt Whitman*. *He was named for his father, but no one ever called him "the junior Whitman" or "Walter" (except perhaps his mother when he was in trouble), or "Junior" or "Junie" or even "Walter Whitman the Younger."
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