Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
January 21st, 2010 | Published in Arts & Culture, Book Reviews
By Justin Baker
To add some context, I prefer novels to provide a landscape to cultivate thought; in short, most of these tend the reader toward sensing utter depression and inescapable social situations from psychologically (perhaps) impossible types of characters, with drama that even soaps couldn’t develop throughout their lifespan on television. In short, I’ve been reading the Russians: Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy. So I thought I’d read an Englishman, Thomas Hardy, as a breather between bouts of aforesaid Russian craziness (brilliance).
Tess is rugged. The setting is the English countryside, poverty, and milkmaids. Though Tess doesn’t encounter the impossible kind of misfortune so reminiscent of Russian authors, especially Dostoevsky, her management of the encounters with disaster which she undergoes capitulates her into travesty nearly further than can be found in the Russians themselves.
Starkly in the middle of Tess, I found myself wondering if there would be an ounce of redemption, whether for Tess or for the reader, and I continued to wonder that thought until the last few chapters of the book, where I, as a reader, began to sense some relief. Yet, this relief should not be taken lightly; it in itself is a rough sort of complacence.
The problem is that books we read tend to have descriptions on the back—I guess to entice us into reading them. So, on the back of the book, I read the single word “murder,” which left me bewildered; I had merely glanced at the writing and hadn’t meant to read it, so I didn’t finish. That notion that murder was lurking somewhere in the book wasn’t surprising, but when the murder occurs is quite surprising, simply for the fact that it occurs so very late.
The read was enjoyable, and the ending attainable, but Tess is not for the weary. She is difficult for the modern reader to identify with, simply because she is so steadfast, unshakeable even, instead of changing constantly (like Americans) and believing she has every right to assert herself as does the modern woman. But, if you fancy any of the above, or you’re a romantic of sorts, Tess is a character you’ll feel for and a book you’ll regret not reading.
