Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Rating:
Summary: Mum's the word, says Victorian novelist.
Review: A question that often appears in agony aunt columns relates to the age old dilemma of telling, or not telling, your spouse about an affair with another. Hardy comes down firmly on the side of keeping it quiet. Tess, with excellent intentions, but misguidedly, spills the beans and comes to a sticky end. As her mother says, she is a 'little fool', though a very disingenuous one, to be sure. But there is much more to this book than that.

I first read this book about 40 years ago and have revisited it a few times. It is an immensely powerful, brilliantly written, witty, devastating critique of Victorian morality, religion, and sexual hypocrisy that even today is immensely moving.

If Hardy has a weakness, it is in the plotting of his novels, and you have to admit that perhaps there are one too many coincidences, but this is a small quibble.

This is one of the greatest of all novels. To me it is right up there with Anna Karenina, so I have to give it five stars.

Rating:
Summary: One of the Most Extraordinary Novels Ever
Review: Despite its seemingly needless tragedy, its persistently downbeat tone, and its relentlessly persecuted heroine, Thomas Hardy's 1891 novel, "Tess of the D'Urbervilles," is without doubt one of the greatest novels I have ever read. And I have read a few. Tess is the only truly well-developed character in the novel, which, coupled with the fact that Hardy renders the landscape of Wessex as to make it a character itself, gives one the sense of a real struggle between humanity and nature. This, for me, is one of the great themes of the novel - the tension between nature and the artifices with which we fill our relations with other people. The beauty of Hardy's pastoral setting is never idyllic - Hardy keeps us always aware that human society, with its false moral standards and technological advancements, is ever encroaching upon the already vanished past.

As the novel begins, Tess Durbeyfield's irresponsible wastrel of a father is casually and jokingly informed by the local minister that he is a descendant of a long-degenerated and disenfranchised noble family, the D'Urbervilles, whose influence stretches back to the Norman invasion. This simple, careless act, nothing more than a name, wreaks such havoc upon everyone in the novel, that I'm actually having a hard time right now even looking at the title - the name itself, now having read the novel, is such a powerful condemnation of status, of privilege, of reputation, of all the injustices of English society from the eighteenth century through the time of this novel, almost the dawn of the twentieth. Sent by her nearly indigent parents, whose heads have swelled with the possibilities of lineage, Tess leaves her home in Marlott, going to claim kinship with the last apparently wealthy D'Urberville, in the village of Trantridge. There she meets Alec D'Urberville, who seduces her. The rest of this powerful novel shows Tess Durbeyfield attempting to piece together a reputable life out of a situation and a condition in which respectability is fundamentally denied her.

"Tess" is a novel steeped, perhaps even choked, with tradition - history, literature, theology, philosphy, economics - Hardy's frame of reference calls all of these to account through the course of the novel. Tess, ostensibly a simple country girl, is forced to reckon with the accumulated weight of human knowledge and thought, no small burden for a girl with only the kind of basic education available in a small rural town. As readers, we are asked to measure the applicability, the efficacy, of the Bible next to Shakespeare, next to Greek mythology next to art - to determine if any of these are capable of fathoming what it means to be human, to endure the myriad experiences of human life, both good and ill.

In her dealings with the changeable Alec D'Urberville, the almost-modern Angel Clare, the farm-hands Izz Huett and Marian, her poor, practically minded mother, Joan, Tess experiences so much of life, mostly of the harshest kind. For me, this is the key facet of the novel. Tess endures. Despite all of her hardships, which are hard indeed, and in the face of the worst kinds of scrutiny and deprecation, both from others and from herself, Tess exhibits a kind of composure, threshold for pain, and strength that are all quite amazing. Daniel Defoe's eighteenth-century "Moll Flanders" is the first character that immediately comes to mind, just in terms of comparable pluck in the face of such overweaning odds.

Though many may disagree with me, I think that Tess, more than simply being the protagonist of the novel, is a real heroine. She is so insistently admirable, so determined to live despite all the forces and pressures arrayed against her from the very outset of the novel, when as a 15 year old girl, she is asked to restore the family's fortunes - it is really just astounding. I regret that I had never read "Tess" before, but I am supremely glad that I have had the chance to do so now. A novel cannot get a higher recommendation from me.

Rating:
Summary: Best fatalistic Victorian novel I ever read in bed
Review: I did not lose any weight, however. I recommend "The South Beach Diet."

Rating:
Summary: Awful...just plain awful!!
Review: I have to be honest. Though a great lover of all of Hardy's fiction, I wasn't a big fan of Eleanor Bron's. (Perhaps I remember too vidily her sneering character in Ken Russell's 'Women in Love'.)

But Bron's sensitive reading of this tragedy is a revelation which had me totally enveloped. Tess comes across as a pitiful, humbly righteous creature whose destiny seems inevitably gloomy almost from the first minute. The male parts (mainly D'Urbeville and Angel Clare) are equally well read and clearly differentiated.

Tess's silent suffering is the antithesis of today's modern, assertive woman, but is no less noble.

This reading lasts six full CDs, but I wished it were even longer. (I have previously bought a two-CD version, but that necessarily eliminates much of the subtlety of the book.)

If you're studying this novel for an exam, this is the ideal version to get well acquainted with the story.

Rating:
Summary: a book to get lost in
Review: it truly is an amazing story of love, strength, passion and second chances. I loved it and got into it quite quickly. The characters were developed flawlessly, and the plot is one to remember. Though at times the descriptions of the setting did tend to drag, it didnt take much away from this great piece of literature.

Rating:
Summary: WARNING - Don't read the Introduction first!
Review: My 1 star rating is due to the fact that Oxford University Press gives away the plot twists and even the shocker ending in the second paragraph of their Introduction. Most of the fun of reading any novel is trying to find out what will happen next. Oxford spoils this by giving it away at the start (what were they thinking?!!!). If you pick up this edition, just skip the Intro, or read it AFTER the book. Otherwise, Hardy's novel is a great story with insight into noble character. Hardy gets 5 stars, Oxford U Press gets 1.

Rating:
Summary: Tragically Beautiful
Review: Tess's father, Mr. Durbeyfield, is told by a minister that his family is the direct lineage of an old, noble family that was once thought to be completely gone. There's nothing left of the family's land and fortune, except the family name (d'Urberville).

However, Mr. Durbeyfield and his wife see this as a chance to move up on the social ladder. They devise a plan to send their daughter to become acquainted with a rich woman who's last name is d'Urberville. From then on, Tess is left to try to maintain her dignity and honor and to pick up the pieces of her broken life that resulted from her parents' need to be important.

This is my first time reading anything by Thomas Hardy. I was warned that he was cynical man, and I'll agree that Hardy's prose is cynical, yet heartrending. I couldn't help feeling bad for Tess through all her troubles. This is not a happy novel. For a moment, you think that things will get better for Tess, but the fates seem to be against her.

The landscape of the novel changes with the mood of what's happening. The land itself almost seems to be a living person that he described.He uses vivid, beautifully described imagery to describe people and places in his novels. There are themes of theology (Hardy had internal conflicts with believing in God), virtue, the boundaries of love. He employs everything from Greek mythology to modern (or what was modern in his day) poetry.

There are no illusions of a happily-ever-after in this story. This was simply a beautiful novel, a novel that portrays its female heroine as the strong woman she was. She could put more modern women heroines to shame.

Rating:
Summary: This book stays with you.
Review: This book is tragic and wonderfully written. Hardy uses words to create a scene for you that creates the visual for you completely. I think that the sadest thing for me was to realize people did live like this, life really was that hard. As a 21st century woman I was outraged at the way that Tess was treated by men and by society. Who is the true bad guy, Alec or Angel? When we read it with our societies mores we perceive it one way, but if we were ken to the morals of that society how would we see it? Are they really dastards, or are they all just victims. I am not a scholar, I liked the story for being a good story.

After reading the book I rented the A&E movie. As I watched it, I realized how well the book translated into video, because I had already seen the exact same scenery in my mind. The only thing that surprised me was the bleakness of the trunip farm and Tesses horrible conditions. I couldn't imagine anything that awful.

There are a lot of words, similar to DH Lawrence, but I wouldn't get rid of a one of them. If you come to this book as a great story and not as a classic novel, you will hold Tess to your heart and never forget her tragedies.

Rating:
Summary: Grim, but beautiful
Review: This is possibly the saddest novel I have ever read. I have been thinking about it ever since I finished it. Few novels have evoked so much emotion in me. Tess makes me feel sad, frustrated, and angry.
Tess of the Durbervilles is the story of Tess Durbeyfield, the daughter of poor, alcoholic parents who learn that they are of a noble bloodline and send Tess off to work for her noble "cousin" Alec Durberville. While there, Alec rapes Tess and she has his illegitimate baby. This event ruins Tess's life. She is no longer pure, and virginal, and therefore brings shame upon her true love Angel Clare when her past is revealed.
It is hard to believe, in this day and age, that Tess is shamed and ostracized because she was the victim of a horrible crime. Hardy's novel is a powerful statement on the questionable morality of Victorian society. Tess, who is a heroic, brave, caring, selfless woman, is not worthy of Angel because she is somehow impure due to the rape. Angel, who has lived with a woman out of wedlock and is clearly not a virgin himself, feels justified in punishing Tess when he learns of her past.
The writing is beautiful, but the story tragic. It will stay with you a long time.

Rating:
Summary: Early feminist work - wonderful!
Review: What a wonderful piece of literature, and quite a liberal (read: feminist) story for the time period it comes from! Not only are the characters well-drawn and utterly flawed (just like real humans) but the main plot reads as timeless.

The heroine (Tess) takes most of her life as it is thrown at her. When she finally decides to take some small measure of control of her fate, it is her very womanhood - and the lack of choice accompanying it - that is slapped back in her face.

A great love story in many respects, in the end the true love here is Tess' love of herself (and the reader's love for her), and her unwillingness to be a victim her entire life.

Thankfully, you'll find no happy endings in this book. What you will find is a story written by an early feminist, and characters that will stay with you forever.