Tess of the d'Urbervilles Paperback – June 5, 2017

A tragic story narrated with exquisite prose. Tess is an unforgettable woman, blessed with beauty and character but seemingly cursed by the fates. She is certainly unlucky in love.Hardy was a master of the craft: the settings, characters, the plot, and the narrative voice are first rate.The story saddened me so much at times that I had to put it aside. Doing so was paying homage to Thomas Hardy. And I always returned to the book, an even greater compliment to him.

I am naturally drawn to works of literature that explore the effects of the past on the present. (This, I know, is a tricky statement; some will argue that all works of literature do this in some way.) I trace my obsession with the past to two main factors: I belong to an inherently nostalgic culture, and during my adolescence I moved to a different country. At a crucial moment in my life, in other words, I experienced an event that dramatically accelerated a preexisting tendency. I've quoted a famous line by Faulkner in previous reviews, but I'll do it again: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Thomas Hardy obviously understood this sometimes fascinating, sometimes irritating fact of life._Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ (1891) is the first novel by Hardy that I read in its entirety. My first experience of the author's prose was _The Mayor of Casterbridge_ (1886), which I was supposed to read years ago for a university course on the nineteenth-century novel. I was not able to finish it due to an illness, but I remember being pleasantly surprised. For some reason, I had expected a boring story and a tedious style; instead I found an engaging narrative with a few unexpected twists. I promised myself I would read the novel some day. Years passed, and when I heard that _Tess_ dealt with purity in a fallen world, I felt inclined to read this novel before reattempting _The Mayor of Casterbridge_.Tess is one of the most interesting characters I have encountered in nineteenth-century novels. If Flaubert and Emily Brontë catered to readers' fascination with illicit pleasure and self-destruction, and Jane Austen proved that virtue is far from safe and humdrum, Hardy offers a heroine that is pure, human, and real. Tess is a good girl who makes a mistake through no fault of her own. She is too good for this fallen world.The first quarter of the novel relates the realist equivalent of the story of Little Red Riding Hood. When Tess' father is told that he is the descendant of the noble family of the D'Urbervilles, the young woman's parents send her to a well-off family that bears that name, in the hope of improving their status. The wealthy family, it turns out, has merely adopted the name of D'Urberville, and Tess gains nothing from the experience. On the contrary, she is seduced, ruined, by Alec D'Urberville, who calls her "coz." Years later, Tess meets Mr. Right in the form of Angel Clare (talk about a symbolic name), and the encounter gives rise to the novel's central dilemma. If Tess tells Angel about her past, she may lose her second chance at a happy life. If she does not tell, her new relationship will be based on a lie (or, at least, a hidden truth) that may be made manifest at any moment. Tess' present and future are thus determined by her past. One of the crucial questions that Hardy raises is this novel is: to what extent should a person be judged by one specific past action?_Tess_ owes its transcendence largely to the complexity of the issues it raises. We as readers know that Tess should not be judged by her past mistake. She is innocent, not to blame for what happened to her. Angel, for his part, may not be so sure. On hearing about Tess' mistake, he may come to perceive her as a loose woman, someone not to be trusted. Society condemns Tess because she is a woman; her seducer does not suffer at all the consequences of his action. The situation is complicated by the fact that the society that Hardy portrays is not exactly Christian. For a Christian, the answer to Tess' dilemma is quite simple: she should be open with Angel, as it is preferable that he know the truth from the beginning. If he is to find out later on, as he surely will, he will feel cheated. If Angel judges Tess unjustly, finally, he will be responsible for that. ("In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was.") In the novel, Tess knows (almost instinctively) what to do, but her hesitancy, combined with Angel's optimism, leads to greater conflict.Another major issue treated in _Tess_ has to do with the selfish nature of human attachments. When rehearsing to herself words that are meant for Angel, Tess says: "she you love is not my real self, but one in my image, the one I might have been!" Tess is conscious that Angel does not love her for who she truly is. How many people can say that they love someone for who he/she is? To put it another way, to what extent can we claim to know a person for who he/she really is? All we know is what others choose (consciously and/or unconsciously) to show us. Based on this, we create for ourselves an image of the other person, almost as if we were covering his/her face with a mask. (In psychoanalysis, this mental image we have of another person is referred to as the "imago.") Many times, our perception of the other person is even a reflection of ourselves. We do not see each other face to face. One cannot love what one does not know, and yet how many people can truly say that they even know themselves? Our way of life does not promote this type of knowledge. We are conveniently kept busy.So far I've commented on the novel's moral and psychological dimensions. Let me now mention the style. One may criticize Hardy for many things, among which are his relativism and his pessimism, but he is undoubtedly a master stylist. The beauty of his prose is heightened by its measured quality. He is not excessive; rather, he will dazzle the reader every now and then with a beautiful passage. For instance: "It was a fine September evening, just before sunset, when yellow lights struggle with blue shades in hair-like lines, and the atmosphere itself forms a prospect without aid from more solid objects, except the innumerable winged insects that dance in it." Consider also the following meditation: "Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order." The actual explanation may be simple (the law of cause and effect), but this does not diminish the beauty of the prose. Philosophy is a different matter. At the risk of sounding simplistic, I believe much of Hardy's worldview may be summarized with the paraphrase, "Fate acts in mysterious ways."Why not five stars? I feel the novel could have been 100 pages shorter. The world it describes is rather small, so small, in fact, that serendipity plays a pretty large--and unfortunately not always believable--role. _Tess_ is great realist fiction, but it is not _Middlemarch_. At the same time, the heroine herself is memorable and unique. Like Dostoevsky's _The Idiot_, this novel seeks to trace the effects of a corrupt world on a pure individual. Hardy is a much more effective narrator than Dostoevsky, however, and personally the story of an innocent woman appeals to me more than that of an innocent man.My next Hardy novel will be _The Mayor of Casterbridge_.Thanks for reading, and enjoy the book!

I cannot believe I waited so long to read this fantastic and fabulous novel! Without a doubt, this is the most probing and moving novel I have ever read in my entire life. It hit areas of my heart and mind as no other book ever has, especially in terms of being a woman. It was never required reading in any area of my schooling, even college. Yet as a former administrator, grade advisor, and mentor in a private school, I now realize that many of the students were required to read this book, but I never thought of reading it to discuss it with them; what a mistake. Had I known, this book would have been an invaluable tool for bringing out the horrors of the double standard.Every man, woman and child alive should read this book to find out the true sentiments of a woman who is brutalized sexually and mentally and shunned, not only by the man in question, but by the community, her family, the clergy, and ultimately, the man who claims to love her. How she deals with a "shame" that has been thrust upon her is crushing, and brings to mind that even in this 21st century, the double standard has not changed one iota, not even in the biggest of cities, regardless of what we see and hear in books, films and music. Go into any neighborhood, in any town, and in any city, and we see that this still exists. Tess of the d'Ubervilles walks among us even today, for she is still whispered about.

I have been planning to read Tess of the D’Urbervilles for a long time. I know now why this book has been so beloved by readers. This book is a long saga about a young girl named Tess who is very beautiful. She is raped by a person in a higher social class than she, and as a result has a baby. Shunned by her neighbors, she leaves her home village and becomes a milk maid. There she meets Angel Claire also of a higher class. He falls in love with her, and eventually they marry. When he learns of her past, he is shocked, shuns her and leaves for Brazil. The man who raped her, Alex d’Urberville tragically returns to her life. Tess is a very pure, admirable, hard-working, sympathetic character, and your heart will go out to her and hope things are going to eventually turn out well because she deserves it. But this is a tragedy, and nothing works out for Tess. .

During COVID-19 lockdown my mother requested reading material with large print. This book, along with two other large print Thomas Hardy novels, was just what she was hoping for. The actual books are larger than other large print books we found for her. The stories are classic. The books arrived well packaged and in a timely manner.

Accordingly, Mr. and Mrs.Durbeyfield sent their eldest daughter, Tess to Trantridge poultry-farm to claim kin. They should have prevented this journey which committed their daughter to the care of a man as Alec. Here began the strange and dreadful events of her future life.Alec's words troubled her maiden modesty. This wretched man destroyed her quiet for ever! He offered to marry her but she detested the sight of him! She came back home and gave birth to a baby who died a few months later.She went to Talbothays dairy House in Blackmoor to work. Angel Clare fell in love with her. Tess' heart exulted at his honourable love — so pure and lofty. She wanted to tell him her secret, but he didn’t want to hear. They married each other to continue their sentimental romance.When she confided in him, she found out that he was a monster of hypocrisy! So changeable and unsure of himself! She had made a god of him and he left her. He went to Brazil to try his hand in farming and sent money to her. What atonement could purchase the pardon of her crime? Even bad women, as they are termed, have in them sorrow, repentance, pity, sacrifice. She wept from fathomless depths of hopeless, hopeless grief.She met Alec again. He had become a preacher now. After practicing immorality for so long, he was preaching morality. Alec asked Tess to marry him, but she refused.Her father passed away. Her mother and her young siblings were evicted from their house.Angel came back after a year, slightly damaged. He repented and asked Tess for forgiveness. Was it too late?

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I should start by saying that no other book has made me cry in my entire life as Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles did. This is arguably because of the author’s writing style and how the plot unfolds. While his novel is certainly not an easy one to read, it keeps you on your toes from the very beginning, a point by which the heroine starts her unfortunate journey. Personally, I think this work is greater than his Jude’s, which, by and large, focus too much attention on the character’s love story. Tess’s love is different, intense, and full of consequences one would not expect. On top of that, the background landscape is described in detail by Hardy’s narrator, revealing several social changes taking place at the time. Thus, we can grasp Tess’s deepest feelings as well as the historical context in which she lived. Once you start reading the book, you won’t stop until you finish. Have it a try, it’s really worth reading.

Amazing! Good book! A nice classic, and lovely to read. The book itself is perfect, penguin classics is my favorite, the cover is fun. Love the chickens and the colors. Good, and readable. Perfect!