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Tess of the d'Urbervilles

by Thomas Hardy, Simon Gatrell (Editor), Juliet Grindle (Editor), Nancy Barrineau, Penny Boumelha (Introduction)

3.66 of 5 stars 3.66 · rating details · 83,041 ratings · 3,794 reviews

Young Tess Durbeyfield attempts to restore her family's fortunes by claiming their connection with the aristocratic d'Urbervilles. But Alec d'Urberville is a rich wastrel who seduces her and makes her life miserable. When Tess meets Angel Clare, she is offered true love and happiness, but her past catches up with her and she faces an agonizing moral choice.
Hardy's indictm...more

Paperback, 443 pages

Published October 15th 2008 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published 1891)

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Sep 07, 2012 Steve rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

HEADLINE: A bad guy who is fabulously talented in bed and a good guy who fumbles sex can complicate life for a girl.

I ought to have my head examined for undertaking a review of Tess of the d'Ubervilles, the next to the last of Thomas Hardy's novels. My purpose in considering the idea was that I might perhaps persuade one other person to read this novel who might not otherwise. I am all about service to my fellow man. However, there are strange aspects of this novel that when discussed in remove...more

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May 25, 2013 Nataliya rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013-reads

Tess of the d'Urbervilles is not a feel-good book, which sharply sets it apart from the other 19th century novels about young women (think Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre, for instance).

No, it's sad and depressing to the point where it almost makes me angry. Because poor Tess, prone to making choice that are invariably the worst for her, just cannot catch a break. Because it's like she has majorly pissed off some higher power(s) that be and they are taking revenge, giving her the most rotten...more

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KM This is one of my favorite Victorian novels I've read, just because I think it's such a fabulous social commentary. THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE is pretty...more
1 hour, 7 min ago

Nataliya Kitty wrote: "I know Alec is the villain, that is obvious, but i just feel that Angel Clare let her down more than anyone and that he didn't deserve t...more
10 minutes ago

Apr 08, 2013 notgettingenough rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pre20th-century

As Tess leaves the new Amazon site.....another, if small, sadness.

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Dec 30, 2011 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: littry-fiction

there will probably be spoilers here. i will possibly rant. if you don't know what happens in tess, it is better not to read this review, although, frankly, to my way of thinking, hardy has so many superior novels, stories, poems, that you would be better served just avoiding this one and going on to one of the great ones like jude or mayor of casterbridge instead. but there is something sneaking up in me - a bubblingly vague feeling of well-wishing for poor doomed tess, that makes me think i mi...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Kim rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

There are mild spoilers in this review and major spoilers in the comments which follow.

For the past 18 months I’ve been reacquainting myself with Thomas Hardy’s novels through the medium of audiobooks, starting with Alan Rickman’s excellent narration of The Return of the Native and moving on to listen to Under the Greenwood Tree, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude the Obscure. Overall, this has been a very positive experience and I’ve wanted to listen to Tess for a while, albeit with a degree...more
There are mild spoilers in this review and major spoilers in the comments which follow.

For the past 18 months I’ve been reacquainting myself with Thomas Hardy’s novels through the medium of audiobooks, starting with Alan Rickman’s excellent narration of The Return of the Native and moving on to listen to Under the Greenwood Tree, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Jude the Obscure. Overall, this has been a very positive experience and I’ve wanted to listen to Tess for a while, albeit with a degree of trepidation born of my past negative reaction to the novel.

I’ve spent the past thirty-five years disliking this novel intensely, with Tess Durbeyfield topping my list of literary characters I most want to slap. To me, Tess has always represented a male fantasy victim: beautiful, good and completely helpless, facilitating her victimisation and deserving her fate. When I read the novel in high school at age eighteen and again at university at age twenty, Tess’ passivity drove me nuts. My reaction this time around has been quite different. The novel hasn’t changed, but I obviously have. It may just be that I’ve aged from a young woman of Tess’ age to someone old enough to be her grandmother. I felt frustrated with Tess at times, but I wanted to hug her rather than slap her. Sisterly impatience seems to have been replaced by maternal compassion.

Now that my negative reaction to Tess as a character has mellowed, I can more fully appreciate the strengths of the novel. It is a powerful tragedy related in beautiful, descriptive language, full of symbolism. Tess’ fate is inevitable: she is a tragic heroine of Greek or Shakespearean proportions. As a character, she could be criticised for being too beautiful, too good, too perfect. However, Tess has flaws and she makes mistakes which contribute to her fate. Not only is she passive, she is also naïve and proud. At various times in the narrative Hardy points out that if Tess had made a different decision, the outcome would have been different for her. Other strengths of the novel include its devastating critique of the double standard which applied in matters of sexuality morality in Victorian England and its vivid description of the lives of agricultural labourers in a changing world.

One thing which holds me back from giving the novel five stars is Hardy’s obsession with Tess’ physical appearance. She’s beautiful – okay - but the constant references to her mouth, her eyes and her hair are excessive. And maybe I can’t quite bring myself to jump from two stars to five stars in one go. Regardless, after all these years of Tess-hating, I have to cut myself a big slice of humble pie. While my youthful reaction to Tess was genuine and, I think, well-founded, it’s interesting to discover – yet again – how the passage of time can alter a response to a literary work. The fact that I listened to an audiobook edition wonderfully narrated by Davina Porter has also helped me to have a more positive reaction to the work.

Thank you to Simran, Tracey and Hayes for reading along. And to Jemidar, who was also prepared to hold my hand until her illness got in the way.
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Jun 10, 2011 Joel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Joel by: Donna

Shelves: 2010, 52-in-2010, dailylit, classics, kindle, read-while-in-a-foreign-land, 30-day-book-challenge

There's this Lars von Trier movie called Dancer in the Dark, starring Björk of all people. She plays a poor factory worker in rural America. She's going blind (which is not great when you work around heavy machinery), but she needs to save up enough money to pay for an eye operation for her son. To escape her misery, she imagines elaborate musical sequences in her mind. She's also kind of an idiot.

Now, what Lars is going for here could be called misogyny or satire or sociopathy, but in short: he...more There's this Lars von Trier movie called Dancer in the Dark, starring Björk of all people. She plays a poor factory worker in rural America. She's going blind (which is not great when you work around heavy machinery), but she needs to save up enough money to pay for an eye operation for her son. To escape her misery, she imagines elaborate musical sequences in her mind. She's also kind of an idiot.

Now, what Lars is going for here could be called misogyny or satire or sociopathy, but in short: he really loves torturing characters like poor Björk. So many awful things happen to her, and they are so awful, but also... they are frustratingly melodramatic and contrived. Björk's cop landlord finds out she has a lot of cash. He needs money, but when she refuses to let him borrow it, citing her beatific little son, he tries to steal it and somehow, the impossibilities of the scene continue to pile up and Björk winds up murdering him (oh, there are going to be spoilers here, by the way), not only shooting him several times, but also bashing his head in with a safety deposit box, and runs off and gives the cash to the blindness clinic before she is arrested.

So Björk is tried for murder and theft of the cash that was actually hers, and there are all these extenuating circumstances that she could use to prove her (general) innocence. But for any number of dumb reasons, she cannot. She cannot even explain where the money went (or for some reason, that she is almost blind) because that will result in the cash being seized, and her son will never get his vague operation. Oh also she promised the guy she killed that she wouldn't tell about his stealing, and she won't, even though he is dead and he screwed her over pretty bad in the process. Even when a friend figures everything out and brings in a lawyer to get her off, she refuses because of her son, resigned to her fate.

So anyway, she is convicted, and sentenced to death, and has one last fantasy song sequence as she is walking to the gallows, and just when it reaches its operatic climax (after some awful keening when they attempt to put the hood over her head), they pull the lever and her neck snaps. That's the end of the movie.

Everyone I know who has seen it has the same story: by the end, they were rolled into a ball on the couch, quivering and lowing quietly in grief. Though a really excellent movie in many ways, with a devastating lead performance, watching it is a brutal experience, simply because it is so relentlessly dogmatic in its bleakness, its melodrama, its dim view of humanity, and its commitment to punishing the leading lady.

I am pretty sure Lars von Trier read a lot of Thomas Hardy when he was growing up. He definitely read Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

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Sep 10, 2007 Cori rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: lovers of classic literature

From my blog:

This book was fantastic. It was bleak and heartbreaking, but fantastic. I'm not sure I've ever been so sad for a main character before. But wow, Hardy can write. I'm going to outline the plot, including the ending, so please note that there are SPOILERS AHEAD.

Tess Durbeyfield, a poor girl, finds out she's actually the descendant of the once-mighty D'Urbervilles. She goes in search of work at her relatives' home, and meets Alec D'Urberville (no actual relation -- he stole the name),...more From my blog:

This book was fantastic. It was bleak and heartbreaking, but fantastic. I'm not sure I've ever been so sad for a main character before. But wow, Hardy can write. I'm going to outline the plot, including the ending, so please note that there are SPOILERS AHEAD.

Tess Durbeyfield, a poor girl, finds out she's actually the descendant of the once-mighty D'Urbervilles. She goes in search of work at her relatives' home, and meets Alec D'Urberville (no actual relation -- he stole the name), who seduces her and rapes her in the forest. Bastard. Tess leaves the D'Urberville estate to be with her family again, and winds up pregnant. The baby is born but quickly succumbs to death.

Tess, who thinks her rape and death of her child are her own fault, moves away to work at a dairy. There, she meets Angel Clare (a kind man from a good family) and the two fall in love. Tess refuses his requests for an engagement, saying she's not worth him and her past would make him not love her. He pleads with her and tells her it's not the case. Finally, she agrees and the two are wed. That night, they tell each other their deepest, darkest secrets. Angel admits to two drunken nights of debauchery, which Tess forgives him for, and Tess tells him the story about Alec and the child. Angel decides Tess's sins are too great and leaves to Brazil to clear his head. Bastard.

Tess then embarks upon a long journey of trying to pay penance for her sins by doing difficult manual labor. Her letters to Angel go unanswered, but she still blames herself. When she finally hits rock bottom, she goes to appeal to Angel's family for money, although her pride never lets her go through with her plan. On her way home, she meets a street preacher, who is none other than a reformed Alec D'Urberville, although it's pretty apparent that his faith is transparent. Bastard.

Tess tells him that she had had a child and it died, and Alec proceeds to follow her around and asks her to marry him repeatedly, saying he's her true husband because he raped her they had consumated their love. Finally, she gives in because she hasn't heard from Angel (bastard) and her family is in dire straits and is living in a graveyard. Alec supports her and her family.

Angel finally realizes that Tess was not responsible for her sins and decides to come back for her, only to learn she's living with Alec. Tess is so distraught knowing that Angel finally came back for her (she never stopped loving him and blaming herself), that she kills Alec (go Tess!) and she and Angel go on the lam. Tess is finally apprehended at Stonehenge, and is soon put to death.

Yeah. Seriously. That's one depressing story. As a woman who lives in 2007, I had a hard time feeling for Tess when I just wanted to scream, "it's not your fault he raped you! Men (at least in this book) are bastards! You're worth more than them!" But of course this didn't occur to Tess in 1891. It was all her fault and she was paying for her sins. The book was so bleak when it was bleak, and so lovely the few times it was lovely. Hardy's writing was very evocative, and the subject matter was apparently scandalous in his day. His descriptions of England were amazing, too. I listened to the audio book, read by Davina Porter, and it was wonderful. She's a phenomenal reader -- one of the best so far.

My Rating: 9 out of 10 for being so tragically bleak yet so fantastically written. Also, the mini-series starring Justine Waddell is uh-ma-zing, so if you don't feel like reading the book (although I highly recommend it) you can watch the movie instead. (less)

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Feb 27, 2007 Melissa added it · review of another edition

This is mostly just a note for me-- I wrote it as I finished the book, and it definitely gives away the ending, but I wanted to post it here because I decided this would be a good place for me to keep track of my thoughts.
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I just finished reading Tess of the D'urbervilles, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Maybe disappointed is not the right word... but it's more than just bummed about the sad parts of the plot. Of course, I am sad about the way the story en...more This is mostly just a note for me-- I wrote it as I finished the book, and it definitely gives away the ending, but I wanted to post it here because I decided this would be a good place for me to keep track of my thoughts.
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I just finished reading Tess of the D'urbervilles, and I have to say I'm a little disappointed. Maybe disappointed is not the right word... but it's more than just bummed about the sad parts of the plot. Of course, I am sad about the way the story ended, with Tess killing Alec (her rapist/sugardaddy/pseudo husband) and then her getting executed. It's a pretty depressing end...
But there was such a shift, and maybe that was the point. The beauty and love and excitement and novelty of the young lovers Tess and Angel at the dairy is so palpable, so real, but then the utter extinguishing of any hope, joy, optimism at the end... It's shocking, that much more troubling.

The story throughout has certain themes of fatalism and transcendentalism (I think-- with the talk of Tess at times experiencing things not as flesh but as a spirit), but what troubled me was the approach to God. So pessimistic. I think I should have seen where the story was going when Tess and Angel started to discuss the inexistance of God. To me, that moment seems as much a foreshadowing of the despair to come as the poor horse Prince getting run through. I'm trying to make sense of this haunting story in terms of my religious beliefs. I can see now, I can start to reconcile my adoration of this book with its resistance to the faith I hold so dear. I can learn from this book that when God is forgotten or ignored or denied, there is despair. I often have wondered how people without hope in divinity face trouble, and I think Tess and Angel illustrate it well. There is little hope for the two on a grand scale, only in each other do they find grounds for optimism.

What a troubling, haunting tale. I hate that Tess ended up a murderer and died, but I really hate her deterioration. I hate how the beautiful young woman, fresh and full of love and hope becomes so... cold and hard to like. Certainly she is pitiable at the end of the novel, but hardly likable. The passion between her and Angel is real, and I like that, but ... I don't know. It's been marred, wasted. I hate the portrayal of Alec as the "reformed" born-again Christian who then turned back to his old ways.... Interesting though, how religion is respected, not in the sense that it is true, but in the ways that it can promote good morals or behavior. It bothers me.

I know that I always want a happy ending, and I guess part of the reason that I'm disappointed is because this book seemed to promise one. Usually dark books are dark throughout. This one was so cheery and full of the hope of youth and then slowly was drained of life, sot hat by the time I finished the book, I felt like I was burying it. I will say that I like it. It may even be one of my most favorite recent reads. But I am disappointed. It's much like romeo and juliet. Tragedy is so much more tragic when the potential for happiness was close and then missed.

Overall, a good book. A good read. Compelling, thought-provoking, tender. It makes me thankful for my faith. It makes me acknowledge the blessing that hope is. (less)

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Jun 25, 2008 J rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I could have been perfectly happy with Alec. Then Angel broke my heart. I had trouble making out the words through my white-hot indignant anger. Then I cried and cried and the type ran and all those painful words pooled down at the bottom of the page before running out onto my lap. I've never told anyone these things. Should I have? Does anyone care?

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Oct 19, 2009 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club, classics, 2008

Tess Durbeyfield is the eldest daughter of well-meaning but irresponsible working-class parents. Innocent, poor but hard-working, she lets her mother persuade her to go to the home of a d'Urbeville - thought to be a relative, with Tess's father the last of the ancient knightly house of d'Urbeville, now long extinct. Her father is convinced that others should call him Sir John and give him money; her mother, Joan, thinks that putting Tess in the way of gentle folk will win her a gentleman who'll...more

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Jun 10, 2009 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Barbara recommended Tess to me this summer.

This is truly a book for celebrating the beauty of our language. As I read, I rejoiced that English is my native language! Do try to read Tess as leisurely as possible.

Hardy is masterful at weaving an intricate plot. Tess is a resplendent character; she jumps from the pages of the book and emerges as a life force before our very eyes. Her beauty is palpable. The language caresses and jars. We are plunged into the life of small hamlets in the English cou...more
Barbara recommended Tess to me this summer.

This is truly a book for celebrating the beauty of our language. As I read, I rejoiced that English is my native language! Do try to read Tess as leisurely as possible.

Hardy is masterful at weaving an intricate plot. Tess is a resplendent character; she jumps from the pages of the book and emerges as a life force before our very eyes. Her beauty is palpable. The language caresses and jars. We are plunged into the life of small hamlets in the English countryside. In particular, Hardy invites us into the landscape. Nature dominates:

The dull sky soon began to tell its meaning by sending down herald-drops of rain, and the stagnant air of the day changed into a fitful breeze which played about their faces. The quick-silvery glaze on the rivers and pools vanished; from broad mirrors of light they changed to lusterless sheets of lead, with a surface like a rasp. But that spectacle did not affect her preoccupation. Her countenance, a natural carnation slightly embrowned by the season, had deepened its tinge with the beating of the rain-drops; and her hair, which the pressure of the cows’ flanks had, as usual, caused to tumble down from its fastenings and stray beyond the curtain of her calico bonnet, was made clammy by the moisture, till it hardly was better than seaweed. (p. 156)

In the background section of this edition (Norton Critical Edition edited by Scott Elledge and published in 1965), there is a powerful quote from Hardy’s Notebooks which helped frame (for me) Hardy’s attitude toward religion. I read this prior to reading the novel and it clarified Clare’s agnosticism (in Tess):

Poetry. Perhaps I can express more fully in verse ideas and emotions which run counter to the inert crystallized opinion – hard as a rock – which the vast body of men have vested interests in supporting. To cry out in a passionate poem that (for instance) the Supreme Mover or Movers, the Prime Force or Forces, must be either limited in power, unknowing, or cruel – which is obvious enough, and has been for centuries – will cause them merely a shake of the head; but to put it in argumentative prose will make them sneer, or foam, and set all the literary contortionists jumping upon me, a harmless agnostic, as if I were a clamorous atheist, which in their crass illiteracy they seem to think is the same thing. . . .If Galileo had said in verse that the world moved, the Inquisition might have let him alone. (p. 332 from The Later Years pp. 57-58)

I just LOVE that last sentence!

I remember that in high school we read The Mayor of Casterbridge. I can only imagine how tedious this was for us back then. The language was wasted - utterly and completely wasted on me. It's taken a long time for me to reach this point: I'm able to luxuriate in and appreciate the richness of Hardy's language. The question in my mind is: when WAS the turning point, anyway? I suspect it was not any discrete point in time, but rather many microsteps towards this point. Anyhow, I am so thankful that I'm here!

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Nov 24, 2008 Laura rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, english-lit

When I first read this at 18, I hated it with the heat of a thousand suns. Tess was weak, gullible, and apparently doomed to plunge herself from one bad situation into another, while Hardy was clearly a fatalistic atheist. Why on earth would anyone read him? I’m still wondering what possessed me to read other novels of his — perhaps a perverse desire to see if they were just as bad. Whatever the reason, I did continue reading him and surprisingly enough became a fan...but never of Tess! That rem...more When I first read this at 18, I hated it with the heat of a thousand suns. Tess was weak, gullible, and apparently doomed to plunge herself from one bad situation into another, while Hardy was clearly a fatalistic atheist. Why on earth would anyone read him? I’m still wondering what possessed me to read other novels of his — perhaps a perverse desire to see if they were just as bad. Whatever the reason, I did continue reading him and surprisingly enough became a fan...but never of Tess! That remained a blot on the face of English literature. Imagine my horror when it surfaced on a course syllabus last year and I was forced to reread it, then, almost as horrifically, forced to admit that it actually wasn’t the worst novel ever written (that remains a toss-up between A Lantern in Her Hand and that sequel to Gone With the Wind — which I don’t admit to having read).

In fact, this time around I really liked Tess. Not only is the pivotal scene intentionally ambiguous, but the character of Tess herself is portrayed with enough complexity to provide endless debate. To what degree did Alec force himself on Tess? Where does naivety leave off and willful naivety begin? Are there mitigating circumstances for murder? Deception? Stupidity??

Hardy does give the novel fatalistic overtones, but the central questions of personal responsibility versus outside forces are irresolvable. More importantly, Tess’s odd combination of passion and passivity makes her a compelling character to watch. As readers, we dissect and evaluate characters to figure out what innate qualities they have and what their real motives are (which is what makes literary analysis a highbrow cousin of gossip). But some characters remain immune to consensus because there are too many competing or unknown factors, kind of (Uncomfortable Life Lesson)like the way we cannot decisively judge real life people. What a powerful reminder! And a grim one.

I suppose the take-home message for me was that if I can muster up compassion for the deeply flawed Tess, certainly I can muster sympathy for the deeply flawed nutcases in my extended family. Or at least that’s the hope. It is a bit easier when you can just open a different book.
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Aug 13, 2007 S.A. Parham rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic

A few people noted that Hardy is a bit of a hard read, and that turned out to be true. His style is jagged and choppy, bouncing around quite a bit, and never giving you a true glimpse of some scenes important to know how to interpret (such as the question of Tess' seduction or rape by Alec d'Urberville). However, overall, it is an interesting story at least and I enjoyed the book. But considering the ending seemed to be rather ill-fitting to the rest of the tale, I'll have to pass on giving it a...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Rowena rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, banned-book-challenges, favorites, favourite-authors, bookclub-reads

If I'd only known how much I would enjoy this book, I wouldn't have let it sit on my shelf for 5 long years!

I adore classics but it is hard for me to read a lot of them without feeling some indignation of the injustices dealt to women. Hardy presents us with Tess, a young woman who really doesn't have much control over her life. She is forced to sacrifice herself time and again for her family, including her child-like parents. Poor Tess. My heart really ached for her. Having to go through all s...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Sheila rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 100-must-read, classic, owned, boxalls-1001, reviewed, favorites

Because I'm a woman, I'm sympathetic to the sufferings of Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I'm also a little angry, but no one can accuse me of directing my ire at the novel's author, a man who wrote about a pure woman, Thomas Hardy.

For him, I have only admiration and respect for his imagination and realism.

In his critical novel, every evil imaginable has happened to the eponymous heroine, Tess, whose sins (and I say this with sarcasm) are that she was born poor, uneducated, and unprotected even by...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Brandon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, 2012

Note: There will be spoilers in this review; one cannot talk about Tess of the D'Urbervilles without discussing its tragic plot.

Tess has been a breath of fresh air in my literary choices lately. Before reading this novel by Thomas Hardy, I thought I had read all of the most depressing novels in literary history; boy was I wrong. Hardy constructed his literary anti-heroine out of depression and affliction; he placed her in a time of misogyny and hypocrisy. If Tragedy and Melancholy were to procre...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Alex rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, reading-through-history

I am currently sitting in a gorgeous B&B in the very county where Thomas Hardy was born, a few miles from a hill Tess herself climbed. Sydling, in case you were wondering. Dorset. It's beautiful, and this book is really location-specific - Hardy spends an inordinate amount of time describing the countryside in minute detail, and you look out the window and yep, that's what it's like.

The advice I give to people who aren't feeling Tess, which never helps because if you ain't feelin' it it ain'...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Amber Tucker rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Heather Tucker, Social/religious skeptics, romantics

Recommended to Amber by: Dr. Stewart - class reading

Shelves: as-a-matter-of-courses, audiobooks, when-feeling-too-cheerful, des-classiques

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. shortly after finishing: One more classic down. No less tragic than expected. I have to admit, however - by the last pages I thought more of this book than I sometimes did in the middle of it.

My annoyance and even hatred of the characters was, at times, my strongest feeling for them - Tess because she is so inconsistent, strong one moment and self-effacing the next; Angel because he's the worst damn hypocrite ... I mean, he's just too realistic for comfort; is that a legitimate criticism here?...more shortly after finishing: One more classic down. No less tragic than expected. I have to admit, however - by the last pages I thought more of this book than I sometimes did in the middle of it.

My annoyance and even hatred of the characters was, at times, my strongest feeling for them - Tess because she is so inconsistent, strong one moment and self-effacing the next; Angel because he's the worst damn hypocrite ... I mean, he's just too realistic for comfort; is that a legitimate criticism here?! - and Alec, well, because he's Alec. But, to shorten this, my roller-coastering opinions ended up on a level of greater sympathy for our two protagonists than I had projected. I had to wrap my head around the sense that they are essentially allegorical, while at the same time being very true to life in their inconsistency and late realization of serious mistakes. Ah, me.

Something that bothered me in the end is the seeming disintegration of what I was finally beginning to feel were appreciably lifelike characters. I felt such distance from Tess & Angel, as though they were different characters than we had seen so far, or at least as if the author had taken a few major steps backward and viewed them through binoculars. Perhaps that's the only way to tell a story that nosedives like this one. As soon as Angel returned, the resolution was simply crammed into a very low number of pages. Almost like Hardy resented what he had to write. Didn't want to linger on the destination as he did over the journey.

Still not sure how I feel about Tess's final actions. "I killed him! Love me now!" Wow, like what?! Sorrow does interesting things to the mind. Why didn't they psychoanalyze Tess instead of killing her? *I RESERVE ALL RIGHTS to that plot for the modern film version* Oh yeah, and what happened to Tess, anyway? Must admit, I am not well versed in British turn-of-nineteenth-century death penalties. Still, while I have a gruesome curiosity for detailz, I approve of the way Hardy skipped over the whole episode. He had said what he needed to say. In the end, it is his silence - his disgust and disdain to comment any further on what 'had to' follow – that hits us hardest.

I tended to skip over a lot of his descriptive paragraphs. I know I could/should have appreciated them more. No fear, I'll review (when actually studying it, in a few weeks' time). At which time I'll perhaps reorganize and add to my review. It's just notesy for now. But yowza, Hardy. I hope we'll get the option to write essays on this one.
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Mar 15, 2009 Werner rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of 19th century fiction

Shelves: classics, books-i-own

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. My rating for this novel is based on Hardy's technical artistry, and on the power of the emotional reaction that the story evokes. I'd have given it only 3 stars if I were basing the rating strictly on my own personal enjoyment of the book, but that's only because I don't really enjoy heart-tearing tragedy, which this is (happy endings don't abound in Hardy's Wessex). Tess is the sort of heroine I can readily like and respect, but that makes her ultimate fate all the more gut-wrenching.

Like Jude...more My rating for this novel is based on Hardy's technical artistry, and on the power of the emotional reaction that the story evokes. I'd have given it only 3 stars if I were basing the rating strictly on my own personal enjoyment of the book, but that's only because I don't really enjoy heart-tearing tragedy, which this is (happy endings don't abound in Hardy's Wessex). Tess is the sort of heroine I can readily like and respect, but that makes her ultimate fate all the more gut-wrenching.

Like Jude the Obscure, this novel offended Victorian "propriety," in this case by its obvious criticism of the conventional gender-based double standard for sexual sins (Angel's reaction to Tess' following of his example in sharing a wedding-night confession made me want to reach into the pages and shake some sense into him!), and by its contention that, as the subtitle "The Story of a Pure Woman" says, a woman who's borne an out-of-wedlock child --in Tess' case, as a result of what we'd call "acquaintance rape"-- can nonetheless be a pure and decent person. For me (and I think for most readers), these points aren't problematic. Neither am I, and probably most other readers, inclined to shed any tears over Alec's stabbing; while I recognize that he's a human being, my sympathies aren't very engaged on behalf of a rapist and total jerk. (I've never been a major fan of the insanity defense in criminal law, since I think it's often abused; but I think a claim of temporary insanity on Tess' part would have been completely justified.) The subjective problematic elements of the story for me, on the other hand, are theological.

Most of Hardy's work actually portrays tragic situations as the result of lousy attitudes and behavior on the part of his characters, which have consequences both for them and for others. (This is entirely consistent with the classical literary tradition of which Hardy was a contributing part.) Modern critics don't find this congenial, and usually ascribe the cause instead to impersonal Fate; the problem with that is that there's little in Hardy's work itself that suggests such an interpretation. The bulk of this novel follows his usual pattern in that respect; but at the end, he ascribes Tess' sufferings to the callous whims of God. Not taking that view of God myself, I naturally find this off-putting. (In fairness to Hardy, though, that's a view of the cause of suffering that would arise naturally from Calvinist theology, with its denial of free will and its assertion that God wills everything that happens. That view was a strong strand in the British evangelical tradition in which he was raised, though he rejected it as an adult; the Rev. Mr. Clare's reference to "election" in this novel suggests a Calvinistic theology.) Likewise, Hardy's mirroring of his own religious skepticism in Tess and Angel, and his portrayal of Christian conversion as completely ineffectual to bring about any genuine moral transformation in Alec, is obviously uncongenial. But those caveats don't diminish the human interest of the story, the force of its moral messages, or the vividness of the characters.

So, this is a very real story about very human characters, and well worth a read --and not just for historical interest in Victorian fiction. But it's probably best read with a tissue box handy, especially if you're inclined to be emotional!(less)

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Jan 27, 2009 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow. I really enjoyed this book. I was just really impressed with Thomas Hardy. It seemed that he was somehow able to communicate his story on a whole level beyond just reading words on a page. Not being a writer myself I have trouble trying to describe what I mean, but it was very obvious to me that he is a cut above many who call themselves authors.

The story itself seems to me to be the definition of bitter irony. Tess is such a deep and interesting character to study. I was glad that Hardy wa...more

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Bob Great story. Put your heart and thinking into this book and you will discover things about yourself, your culture and beliefs. They are contrasted by...more
Jan 24, 2009 10:54am

Jill Bob, Thanks for your insight. I do feel there is really a lot in this book...so much so that I am sure I will need to reread it many times to enjoy it...more
updated Feb 10, 2009 02:34pm

Polly Great to get your review on Hardy. I relate with your feeling of his writing being a cut above the usual. When I read some of the classics I think, TH...more
Feb 10, 2009 08:29am

Dec 03, 2008 Blair rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, classics

I simply adored this book - so much so, in fact, that I didn't immediately want to write about it; I don't think I'm going to be able to properly articulate the effect it had on me. I loved so many things about it: Tess herself, who I fell in love with almost straight away and empathised with throughout; the painfully realistic depiction of emotions and reactions; the glorious, romantic descriptions of the landscapes the characters inhabited (which made me yearn for country life even more than I...more

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Nov 05, 2008 Nathan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I love reading Thomas Hardy just to see what kind of terrible things he's going to put his characters through; Tess of D'Urbervilles is no different.

I also love when authors build ambiguity into their works. Was Tess raped, or was she willingly seduced? The second half of the novel is a completely different read depending on which you believe.

Having read the book for a senior seminar course in college, I got the opportunity to take a nice deep look into it, and I still feel like I barely scratc...more

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Aug 12, 2007 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone, unless you're prone to depression

Recommended to Rachel by: High School Class

Shelves: 1-favorites

Wow...I don't even know where to begin. Has a more sympathetic character ever been created? Has a more heart-breaking book ever been written? I first read Tess of the D'Urbervilles in my A.P. English class, and immediately fell so, so deeply in love. The story, the heroine, the villain, the even-worse villain, the sadness of it all - plotted flawlessly and written masterfully, Tess of the D'Urbervilles will leave any reader weeping both in despair and awe. Thomas Hardy, wherever you are, thank y...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Zoe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, I know that I’m might be in minority because I think that Hardy's writing style is not all that depressing and maybe this is because ,I don’t enjoy too much reading about perfect characters ,or only stories with good ending , I like to read things that mirror and tells us what life really is /was for some people and certain times and places , to know the disturbing facts but realistic ones and try to not compare them with the modern time we all leave on , I just want to feel the story whil...more Well, I know that I’m might be in minority because I think that Hardy's writing style is not all that depressing and maybe this is because ,I don’t enjoy too much reading about perfect characters ,or only stories with good ending , I like to read things that mirror and tells us what life really is /was for some people and certain times and places , to know the disturbing facts but realistic ones and try to not compare them with the modern time we all leave on , I just want to feel the story while I read it .
I have read on the Explanatory Note of The First Edition of Tess of the D’Uberville , a well known sentence of St Jerome’s “ If an offence come out of the truth , better is it that the offence come than that the truth be concealed” and this what exactly Hardy is trying to tell on his novel
In my opinion Hardy through character of Tess represent the truth about woman of that time.
For me Tess is one of the most tragic heroines in English literature and Hardy masterfully shows her as a victim of circumstances caught up in a moral dilemma and conflict between culture which present hypocrisies and judgment of the society of the 19 century and nature itself ,which is love.
Tess’s character is impossible not to love, at least for me , tragically selfless, humble, beautiful and innocent . The themes of the novel made me feel an anger towards not only some of the characters, but towards what they represent and the society which they live in. Every character on the book has a statement to make about the world that Hardy places them in. And with Tess's wrong doings , one can't help but think of how applicable it’s even in today's time.
I confess , that book isn’t uplifting but I think that even tragic or depressing novels can bring power, Importance and beauty..
Hardy has done an amazing job, and through Tess' s story, he has addressed serious problems with society that every one can identify in today's life.
I admit , it's not an easy read, nor is it meant to be, it might not be enjoyable but it’s interesting to go on from start to end,and feel angry of course with that miserable ending ,but what it's most important learn something ,I did. (less)

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Dec 12, 2012 Lori rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I don't think I will ever know how to write a proper book review, so you're getting a short and sweet comment on this as I just finished this book and I'm tired. To put it very simply, I loved it. I have a weakness for classic novels and this was, in my opinion, one of the best I've ever read...in that it was like no other that I have read so far. The characters are endearing...Tess is a doll and it has been so long since I've felt sympathy, or any other feeling for that matter, for a character....more

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Jan 11, 2012 Vishy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of my favourite friends during my college days told me about ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ first. I never got around to reading it at that time. My friend told me a little bit about the plot and it looked sad. So, when I got the chance to read the book recently, I decided to take it. I did a readathon a couple of days back and finished reading it. Here is what I think.

What I think

‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ is about a young woman called Tess who is from a poor family. Tess’ father is a haggler...more

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Apr 19, 2011 Care rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Care by: Gail

Shelves: hs-book-club, classics, on-list-1001-bks-b4-dying

My first Thomas Hardy! Found this edition at the library to accompany my free eBook/iBook version. For bookclub.

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Sep 12, 2007 Maria rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: it-burns-it-freezes, classics, fiction

I hated this passionately, which is perhaps unfair, as the book is really quite admirable for tackling the subject of double standards applied to male and female sexual behaviour. But this is one of the most depressing, pointless novels I’ve ever read in my life. I have loathed this book for ten years and I will not stop.

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Nov 29, 2011 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult-fiction, british

Is it sadistic of me to complain that Tess of the D’Urbervilles doesn’t end tragically enough? Up until the last couple of chapters, I was bound and determined to add this book to my list of All Time Favorites. Tears streaming, tissues gracing the floor all around me (husband checking in on me to make sure I was all right – but leaving fairly sure that I wasn’t), I gathered up my wits just after that particular moment (which shall not be named) and waited for the more tragic moment I knew was ne...more Is it sadistic of me to complain that Tess of the D’Urbervilles doesn’t end tragically enough? Up until the last couple of chapters, I was bound and determined to add this book to my list of All Time Favorites. Tears streaming, tissues gracing the floor all around me (husband checking in on me to make sure I was all right – but leaving fairly sure that I wasn’t), I gathered up my wits just after that particular moment (which shall not be named) and waited for the more tragic moment I knew was nearing… but never came. I left utterly disappointed with the ho-hum ending. (Ask me, if you want to know how I think it should have ended.)

However. The majority of this book is Amazing. Beautiful. Poignant. Ironic. Tess is simultaneously ethereal and earthy. Hardy masterfully discusses Fate, Morality, Forgiveness and Social Incongruities while interweaving symbolism and motifs throughout the novel (I especially loved the ones involving birds).

Of all the ill omens and foreshadowing (the story of Jack Dollop’s wife, the cock crowing at aberrant hours, the sighting of the the D’Urberville coach), the two that quickened my compassion were 1.) The moment Tess discovers her unread letter under the rug, and 2.) When the Clare brothers find her walking shoes hiding in the bush and take them away. Oh, Tess! I'm so sorry!

Akin to The Scarlet Letter, I also found many comparisons to my beloved Pride and Prejudice. “Blasphemy!” you say? What would have happened had the Bennett family been in greater financial need and Mrs. Bennett, who is as inane as Joan Durbeyfield, sent Elizabeth off to plead with her cousin, Mr. Collins, for succor? And what if, had Mr. Collins been less lout and more lothario, her cousin had debased Elizabeth and returned her to the Bennett household much like Wickham would have liked to do with Lydia? And what if Mr. Darcy had discovered this and found one more reason to distance himself from the Bennett clan? Tess is a shadow of Elizabeth I say.

(less)

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Mar 31, 2009 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: i-own

Tess is one of the more depressive novels I've read lately. My wife will attest to the fact that I have a strange affinity to depressing stories. With that in mind, let me say that I really enjoyed this book.

The writing was at times a bit too much for me for the reason that I get annoyed at many 18th and 19th century novels...namely, that Hardy focuses far too much on minute descriptions and in-depth analysis of setting and location. Don't get me wrong, I love a vivid and lush environment and I...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Who do you think is most responsible for the fate of Tess?	80	306	May 22, 2013 10:55am
What is Angel's intention for not answering Tess's critical question?	10	54	Apr 21, 2013 07:02am
The reason why Tess lost Angel second time...	16	28	Apr 21, 2013 05:58am
Did you finish reading the book?	69	285	Apr 17, 2013 12:44pm
Selflessness and virtue, not rewarded after all.	7	57	Apr 10, 2013 10:49pm
amazon wouldn't let me post my review until I removed the word "nigger"	19	107	Mar 20, 2013 06:40am
Was Tess raped or was she seduced?	50	379	Mar 19, 2013 11:41am

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About Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM, was an English author of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his facination with the supernatural. Though he regarded himself primarily as a poet and composed novels mainly for financial gain. The bulk of his work, set mainly in the semi-fictional land of Wessex, delineat...more

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Quotes from Tess of the D'Urbervilles

“A strong woman who recklessly throws away her strength, she is worse than a weak woman who has never had any strength to throw away.” — 360 people liked it

“Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?"
"Yes."
"All like ours?"
"I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted."
"Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?"
"A blighted one.” — 140 people liked it

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