Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Formal, Victorian
Thomas Hardy is a Victorian's Victorian. His tone is about as formal and as wordy as it gets, and it's (for lack of a better, more Victorian word) awesome. Our suggestion for the novice reader of Victorian novels is to love it for what it is.
Because it's not going to be what it ain't, folks. Thomas Hardy is not going to read like Ernest Hemingway or Alice Munro. He's not going to be clear and concise and crystalline. He's going to use formal language and there are going to be people weeping and exclaiming "O!"
So don't just deal with it and roll your eyes; get into it. If the clear writers of the world (like Hemingway) are like Saltine crackers (plain, efficient, crispy), Hardy is a like a freaking cronut (insane, super-decadent, leaves buttery residue all over your fingers).
When you're faced with stuff like this…
"One night, at the end of August, when Bathsheba's experiences as a married woman were still new, and when the weather was yet dry and sultry, a man stood motionless in the stockyard of Weatherbury Upper Farm, looking at the moon and sky. The night had a sinister aspect. A heated breeze from the south slowly fanned the summits of lofty objects, and in the sky dashes of buoyant cloud were sailing in a course at right angles to that of another stratum, neither of them in the direction of the breeze below." (36.1)
… enjoy it for its decadence. Is it wordy? Yes. Is it dated? Yes: it's from the 1870s for Pete's sake. But is it excellent (albeit nutso by today's standards)? Totally.