Far from the Madding Crowd (1967 film) and rural life to be "splendid". His strongest criticism is that the film missed the point of the small society of rural life: Thomas Hardy's novel told of a 19th century rural England in which class distinctions and unyielding social codes surrounded his characters. They were far from the madding crowd whether they liked it or not, and got tangled in each other's problems because there was nowhere else to turn. It's not simply that Bathsheba (Julie Christie) was courted by the three men in her life, but that she was courted by ALL three men in her life. The
In the Name of the Father (novel) alleviated throughout by humor and poignancy."-Jerre Mangione of The Philadelphia Bulletin "A novel about coming of age in working-class Chicago during the 1950s and early 1960s, In the Name of the Father chronicles the childhood and adolescence of Tonto Schwartz, son of an Italian mother and a Jewish father who dies when Tonto is an infant, leaving as his only legacy his son's apparently jokey name. Tony Ardizzone's first novel (the author is 29) is dense with particular details of Tonto's world—the texture of his Catholic education, the character and qualities of his young cronies, the sociology of his tough