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Cortney's review

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy

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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32261.Tess_of_the_D_Urbervilles?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Tess of the D'Urbervilles" border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168379379m/32261.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32261.Tess_of_the_D_Urbervilles?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Tess of the D'Urbervilles</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15905.Thomas_Hardy">Thomas Hardy</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/13118647?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 5 of 5 stars So beautifully and dramatically tragic--I don't know the teenage girl who could resist it.
 
 Quote: For a moment--only for a moment--when they were in the turning of the drive, between the tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge became visible, he inclined his face towards her as if--but, no: he thought better of it, and let her go. 
 
 Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects--as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half forgotten. 
 
 In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say "See!" to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply "Here!" to a body's cry of "Where?" till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome, outworn game. We may wonder whether at the acme and summit of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a close interaction of the social machinery than that which now jolts us round and along; but such completeness is not to be prophesied, or even conceived as possible. Enough that in the present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing counterpart wandered independently about the earth waiting in crass obtuseness till the late time came. Out of which maladroit delay sprang anxieties,disappointments, shocks, catastrophes, and passing-strange destinies.
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/468539?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Cortney's review
rating:

So beautifully and dramatically tragic--I don't know the teenage girl who could resist it.

Quote: For a moment--only for a moment--when they were in the turning of the drive, between the tall rhododendrons and conifers, before the lodge became visible, he inclined his face towards her as if--but, no: he thought better of it, and let her go.

Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects--as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half forgotten.

In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say "See!" to her poor creature at a time when se...more

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message 1: by Abby

01/27/2008 06:55AM

Alright, Cortney, I'm comitting. I WILL revisit this one. I'll tell you the teenage girl that resisted: ME! I think I just didn't get it in high school. Pearls before swine. I'll try again.