Naive young Tess is content to be a Derbyfield; unfortunately for her, if she got to live out her life as an innocent country bumpkin there wouldn't be a story to tell. When Tess's grasping, self-aggrandizing father finds out he's descended from the noble d'Urbervilles, he sends her on a mission to ingratiate herself with the current occupants of the d'Urberville estate. She comes back in disgrace, having been knocked up by the odious d'Urberville scion. Her life is ruined. Or is it? Maybe the dreamy Angel Clare—nope, she's ruined. But what if—nope, never mind, she's doomed. Damn close-minded Victorian society.
My thoughts
The universe did its best to warn me not to read this book. Multiple people tried to steer me toward Hardy's other works, and the library's copy of Tess was missing the first 38 pages when I went to check it out. Too bad I was too stubborn to take those omens more seriously.
Hardy's habit of writing in circles irritated me. He'd introduce a plan and I'd think the plot was moving forward ... and then 20 pages later something would happen to move the plot right back where it had been. To give one non-spoilery example, at one point Tess writes a letter confessing all her "sins." She delivers the letter and then ... nothing happens. And then nothing happens some more. And then she discovers that the letter got stuck under a rug and was never read. It might have been okay if this had happened once, but Hardy did it repeatedly and that made the book excruciating. In general, the plot is long and meandering and too full of contrivances and coincidences.
Tess was too naive and helpless and Angel was too much of a hypocrite for me to like, but I absolutely despised Alec d'Urbeville. I know he's meant to be the villain, but I hated him for reasons I don't think Hardy intended. He started out as an irredeemable character and then when he tried to redeem himself he somehow managed to make himself into an even bigger creep. (And why the fixation on Tess? If he was such a cad in the beginning, weren't there some other ruined women from his past that he could
I guess I'm grateful to Hardy for exposing the faults and hypocrisy in the Victorian attitudes toward sex. I'm certainly grateful that times have changed.
Bottom line
Read it if you're a 19th-century social reformer. Otherwise, skip it.
Fine print
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy
Genre: Classic fiction
Photo from Goodreads
I downloaded this on my iPad (gotta love books that predate copyright laws)
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