Tess of the D’Urbervilles in Reading with Style

Feb 22, 2014 Mira rated it it was amazing

Shelves: unforgettable, favourites, british-literature, 19th-century

There's always this unique quality in Hardy's works: a deep understanding of the nature of tragedy combined with a steady belief in fate and its reoccurring signals. For me, this is exactly what it takes to create a story that, as it develops, ceases to be a mere creation of an author's imagination and slowly emerges as a reality distant only in time. "I have never been able to put on paper all that she [Tess] is, or was to me," Hardy simply states. Tess's journey is no rosy one, and as I read o There's always this unique quality in Hardy's works: a deep understanding of the nature of tragedy combined with a steady belief in fate and its reoccurring signals. For me, this is exactly what it takes to create a story that, as it develops, ceases to be a mere creation of an author's imagination and slowly emerges as a reality distant only in time. "I have never been able to put on paper all that she [Tess] is, or was to me," Hardy simply states. Tess's journey is no rosy one, and as I read on, I became aware of a growing attachment in my heart for this ill-fated heroine, akin to that expressed by Hardy. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" is written with so much compassion and love that it hit right into my heart. "Hardy watches over Tess like a stricken victim. He is as tender to Tess as Tess is to the world. Tender and helpless," Irving Howe writes and I couldn't agree more. Hardy's pastoral paintings, the bleakness of Tess's surroundings, the passion in her voice and the helplessness of her situation give Tragedy a new meaning: a flare of beauty and fragility, a combination of fate and personal decisions.

Set in the fictional rural Wessex, the novel tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of a peasant who comes to believe that he's the descendant of the grand d'Urbervilles. Through an attempt to make relations with the family, Tess is sent alone into the world only to be met by temptation, a love that comes too late, and eventual heartbreak. Watching Tess throughout the many fraught phases of her life is a bittersweet experience; it's full of many painful moments, as well as ones so beautiful and simple that I couldn't put the book down. Hardy's prose never fails to fascinate me, it is what I like to call "rural prose"; lush, full of descriptions that waver in the way weather changes according to few impalpable factors, at one moment dry and tired, at another tender and passionate. Tess's character also develops in a similar manner, and her growth comes as both pitiful and endearing, as she "almost at a leap changed from simple girl to complex woman,"(p.125).

Angel Clare is another interesting figment of Hardy's imagination. What do I think of him? It's very hard to say. Clare sees life in the same way one might see Italian art. He has -in modern terms- a touch of perfectionism (to which I'm no stranger) and a capacity for only the purest of feelings."In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was." Angel's complexity stems from his tight religious upbringing that brought out the opposite of its intended results, and his 'sophistication' which proved deficient in the matters of the heart. By the end of the novel, Clare loses much of his sophisticated aura, and together with Tess, makes a sad picture of a star-crossed, however unwise and guilty, lover.

"Tess of the d'Urbervilles" can be read for the mere enjoyment of a literary gem, but its many layers give it a certain depth that bores into the very soul of each character. The best way to describe this novel, is as expressed by Hardy himself at some point in the novel: "And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity."

Highly recommended. ...more

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Jul 30, 2013 Rosemary rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, ultimate-teen-guide

I first read this as a teenager, and it was an easier re-read than I expected: painful but not unbearable. I wanted to yell at Tess and Angel for being such wimps in their different ways but I didn't want to throw the book across the room. It's the kind of book you re-read hoping it might turn out differently this time, though of course you know it can't. It's set in open fields and valleys rather than the woodlands of many of Hardy's books but it's no country idyll. Life is insecure and work is ...more

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