Publisher : Chivers Audio Books
Publication Date : 1996 02 01
>> Perhaps Hardy s Fictional Height A Dark Masterpiece
Tess of the D Urbervilles may be Thomas Hardy s greatest novel and would certainly be almost anyone else s A dark sweepingly tragic vision it is a masterpiece in nearly every area characterization plot meaningful themes prose and more
Hardy is well known for being depressing and this may be his most depressing novel The structure of his dark novels is greatly influenced by Greek tragedy and this is probably his most purely tragic Many have thought of him as taking a near malevolent attitude toward characters like Tess who indeed seems born only to suffer The concatenation of dire circumstances engulfing her is truly stunning and perhaps even more notable is the ceaseless way in which they flow together to wreak the greatest possible devastation Hardy is famous or infamous depending on whom you ask for complex plotting and melodramatic coincidence and this has some of his most highly wrought examples Tragedy of this extent requires a very deft hand to pull off well it is all too easy to become hyperbolically implausible or even melodramatically corny However Tess is so well planned and finely executed that the events unfold not only with verisimilitude but almost with inevitability
This last is another distinct Hardy characteristic He had long been an agnostic by abandoning belief in a benevolent overseeing power nay in any force that took account of humanity at all Added to this was a profound awareness of human insignificance and a consequent absence of conventional meaning However he wrote nearly throughout his artistic career about a concept that he eventually came to find very plausible the Imminent Will a blind force controlling the fate of humanity and perhaps all else Hardy is also generally considered a naturalist a writer depicting environment as a crucial almost insurmountable force in shaping personality and destiny Like all of his greatest fiction Tess dramatizes this vividly portraying characters unable to escape wretched circumstances and even more wretched fates Such ideas held great sway with nineteenth century writers and thinkers but was almost entirely replaced by existentialism Few will now agree with the shadowy forces underpinning the book s tragedy but the dramatization is so well done and stunning that it will at the very least provoke thought about important philosophical and theological issues and of course bring admiration for Hardy s great artistry
As all this suggests the novel is incredibly moving One would be very hard pressed to find a more pathos drenched story and Hardy runs us through a dark emotional gamut Much of this has to do with the character of Tess generally considered Hardy s best and seemingly his favorite The subtitle calls her A Pure Woman and so she is in a sense an innocent na ve and ignorant country girl of the kind no longer possible in the developed world she is far closer in spirit and otherwise to people from civilization s first few thousand years than anyone from the last century or so Hardy plays up her symbolic worth making her a sort of Eve and giving her many pagan goddess elements He is well known for his heroines and generally for depictions of women far removed from Victorian stereotypes Though not current feminist ideals they stood out as strong individuals with real feelings and thoughts Hardy s gender and sexuality views were well ahead of his time greatly influencing his portrayals Tess is his most famous fully realized and complex example The most obvious sense in which she is pure is sexually and otherwise morally but she is not the virginal domestic queen of most Victorian fiction The pivotal scene in which she loses virginity is deliberately ambiguous leaving it unclear if she is raped or seduced Either way it is a sort of reverse Genesis story as the pure woman is made impure by Victorian standards by a worldly sensualistic man
Hardy uses this dramatic scene and its aftermath to boldly confront gender and sexuality issues that had always been central to his artistic concerns He pushed the proverbial envelope in these areas from the start often facing censorship and always struggling to get his point across in print A few years before Tess he wrote a famous letter saying his goal was to destroy the doll in English fiction in order for England to have a fiction at all and Tess was his bravest and most direct attempt She is in many ways a simple village girl but is not unaware of her beauty and Hardy was one of the very first modern writers to even acknowledge that women could experience sexuality We must remember this was several years before Freud revolutionized this area and also keep in mind that this was a time when statues were covered and it was not socially permissible to even mentions legs or ankles Women were idealized as non sexual beings meant only for domesticity and with no thoughts beyond it It is now near impossible to appreciate just how daring the character was or adequately convey her impact Hardy s depiction and the issues he uses her to discuss made him world famous the talk of high society and casual conversation as well as the literary world For example in his autobiography he recalls how a society hostess told him she seated guests according to whether or not they sympathized with Tess and then had them debate The novel received many glowing reviews but also about as many condemning it as perversely immoral Hard as it is to believe since it was positively pass even a few decades later many thought it nothing less than pornographic and a shockingly bad influence to boot Perhaps the greatest sign of how much things have changed is that Roman Polanski s faithful 1979 film version was rated PG in the UK
This was clear reactionary hyperbole from a society so repressive that it had become pathologically hypocritical Tess was a long overdue wake up call Victorians were essentially scandalized by the idea from a man that it might not be a woman s fault if she is raped or seduced This would be laughable if it were not so sad but their offense hardly ended here The novel vividly portrays the plight of many women at the time especially lower class ones Far too many women unfortunately identified strongly with Tess problems unsought attention from higher class men that may have been flattering but was above all confusing pregnancy resulting from rape or seduction without a father to raise or even acknowledge the child suffering at the hands of grossly unfair sexual double standards from prospective and actual husbands and perhaps worst of all consequent ostracism not only from society but often even from family and friends Hardy was astounded by how many women including quite a few high society ones wrote him saying they were in Tess position or a very similar one and how much the book meant to them All this shows how strikingly well the novel dramatized contemporary issues it is in many ways a novelistic equivalent of Henrik Ibsen s contemporaneous problem plays dealing with current social problems
This was a large part of the reason for Tess impact and success but the book would not still be so widely read and appreciated if it were the only feature As Hardy envisioned time has proven him right and the reactionaries wrong the violent outbursts are now seen as perversely fascinating and mildly amusing historical curiosities but the book s themes shine at least as brightly as ever Feminists have unsurprisingly long had great interest in Hardy and this novel particularly which has many themes of note to them and numerous others Sexuality and morality aside Tess strikes a somewhat subtle but ringing chord for women s rights via its bleak depiction of their woefully low Victorian status Hardy movingly and accurately shows how barren life was for women especially intelligent ones there was not only a dearth of intellectual stimulation but hardly any stimulation at all Sexual politics are still hotly debated and may never be resolved but hard as it may now be to believe rural women at the time of the novel s setting were actually kept in such ignorance that it was possible for them to not be aware of seduction even as a concept The novel shows the tragic consequences that could so easily result from this and associated complications Perhaps more importantly and even more movingly the novel also shows the grinding poverty that many rural English women faced Worse still it starkly portrays the consequent necessity of earning money without training help or encouragement Hardy sometimes goes into considerable detail to describe the farm labor that girls like Tess had to turn to putting particular emphasis on then new machinery Some may find this somewhat boring but the point is well taken especially as the infernal imagery used to describe the machines is particularly emphatic and highly symbolic
This leads in to some of Tess other themes giving the novel relevance to many with no particular interest in women s issues Rural poverty in general a perennial Hardy theme is on grim display letting readers see just how much life has improved for farmers and other laborers in the last century plus Hardy s work is also notable for showing what one critic calls the ache of modernity and Tess possibly depicts it most painstakingly and memorably It is important to remember that Hardy grew up in a world without automobiles electricity railroads and many other modern conveniences that were beginning to appear when the novel was written Tess shows how such innovations were slowly filtering into rural England profoundly changing a society that had altered little since the Early Middle Ages It is thus of significant historical and sociological interest
Relatedly and as always with Hardy place is of great importance Perhaps no one equals him in depicting settings with such close detail and vividness that they become an integral part of the story setting is never mere backdrop in Hardy Tess is one of his Wessex novels depicting the part real part dream country based on his native Southwest England that he made world famous We get a good idea of what Hardy country looked like and how its people lived The landscape is not as important as in some Hardy novels but we still get an unforgettable depiction of a bygone era
But the novel is great over and above all this one can indeed love and appreciate it without knowing any of these factors The engrossing and profoundly moving story is a large part of this but Tess herself is at least as important One of literature s most sympathetic characters readers have found her irresistible from the start It is often said that Hardy s depiction is so idealized that he almost seems to be in love with her and there are indeed some interesting biographical stories behind the claim but beauty is only one of the factors making her memorable Hardy describes her so minutely and reveals her inner thoughts with such breathtaking force that she seems truly alive in a way very few characters do Labeling her Pure caused more controversy than any other element and perhaps all will still not agree but it would be very hard to find another character so much more sinned against than sinning Some of her thoughts and actions may seem extreme or in our greatly changed society perhaps absurdly na ve but only the few who have suffered comparable sorrows can say what they would do in her situation It would take a very hard heart indeed not to feel for Tess and the strength of her characterization along with gut wrenching depiction of her downward spiral continues to fascinate and move readers and indeed viewers as the novel has been filmed no less than seven times and also been adapted into numerous plays operas etc more than a century after she first became a sensation
Nor is she the only worthwhile character Tess has perhaps Hardy s largest most varied and most interesting cast Though set almost entirely in Wessex we get a good cross section of humanity Angel Clare who is intelligent and sensitive but selfish his father who is a Christian in the truest sense and a rare example of Hardy depicting a minister positively Alec D Urberville the kind of hedonistically and hypocritically evil man who habitually preyed on girls like Tess Tess father an alcoholic and possibly insane deadbeat of the kind who may first seem harmless and even comical but who inadvertently lead many rural families to ruin and Tess mother who though well meaning has a combination of harsh practicality and ignorance leading to near Machiavellian scheming that often has unforeseen negative consequences Characterization is not Hardy s acknowledged strength but this proves that he was on par with the greatest writers here as well as elsewhere
Another of the book s biggest and most easily recognizable assets is incredible prose Hardy was a poet at heart and it shows An autodidact he has a distinct style with a strong self taught air that can be hard for current readers to immediately grasp his eccentric vocabulary full of archaisms and dictionary words and his heavy use of dialect can easily make his work seem stilted and older than it is However this is the apex of his prose as prose its beauty and power are simply undeniable Though a very dark novel the writing often reaches heights of sublime beauty and philosophical asides about humanity s insignificance the absence of providence fate s apparent malice and social stigmas drastic effects are immaculately phrased and stunningly forceful The narration during Tess lonely ride the short segment with her son and the final chapter is almost unmatched in literature and the writing throughout is incredibly strong so much so indeed that the book would be worth reading for it alone
In reality of course there are many other reasons Elevated prose and other complexities may mean it is not the best Hardy introduction and new readers would probably be better off with more accessible masterpieces like The Return of the Native or The Mayor of Casterbridge Some who have read Tess first have also said they found it so depressing that they vowed never to read Hardy again but its undeniable greatness forced nearly all to break the vow Thus whether you read Tess first or not Hardy is a must read for any serious lover of literature and Tess is at or near his considerable summit
>> Boring
Completely boring and a hard read I was assigned this book for school and did not enjoy it
>> Misinterpretted Child Blossoms to Sainthood 26
Tess is a novel written by a man about a woman who is mistreated by other men until she defies the men s acts with a crime conceived by the men s cruelty inflicted upon her In short it is a passionate statement about man s cruelty to a woman
This book understands the differences between man and woman and for the most part it is not complimentary to men Exceptions exist The sun on account of the mist had a curious sentient personal look demanding the masculine pronoun for its adequate expression
And during the hard times inflicted upon her Tess refuses to reproach those men who made her life a miserable existence It starts with her father whose newfound nobility engage him in a mead house where he misses a deadline requiring her to carry on the family business which results in a horrible accident and family economic loss From there she must endure hard work be sexually mistreated by an employer move away from her castigated self from a problem to which she had no cause live a life as a simple milk maid and then marry
When she marries it seems that all is well But her husband when discovering during their honeymoon that her flower was violated even though without permission by one before him immediately exiles himself to Brazil and leaves her in poverty and public humiliation Her life is not good and she knows it to the point where she contemplates suicide
But one day when walking in the woods she sees maimed birds hunting s collateral damage which slowly walk about to a cruel and painful demise When seeing their tortured final moments on earth she says Poor darlings to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o such misery as yours And not a twinge of bodily pain about me I be not mangled and not bleeding and I have two hands to feed and clothe me She is miserable but she understands the relativity of such emotion
Men in this book really have to take the blame Like the hunters who irresponsibly leave half shot birds to limp to their graves her husband must atone for his terribly misguided and failed judgment of her and her unwelcomed sexual experience She was by modern standards too young to consent and certainly did not consent And after years of review of the issue her husband concludes what modern men would have been capable of doing in moments ask for her forgiveness and pity her Thus from being her critic he grew to be her advocate
But this is not a love story with undertones of happy endings Shakespearean in many ways devoted to tragic ending this book raises the title character to sainthood And like most tragedies only the cold can complete the final pages without welled eyes
