Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Penguin Classics) (original 1891; edition 2003)

If you want to become a cutter...read this! ( )

I don't remember anything about this book. Evidently, it didn't do much with my imagination. ( )

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the plot of Tess of the D'ubervilles, I'll catch you up (spoilertastic). Tess is a peasant woman who has a drunken father and an idiot mother who, well- let's just say I ain't sayin' she a gold digger, but she ain't messin' with no broke- uh. Tess herself is a sweet but vapid country girl who falls victim to her parents' shenanigans and ends up living with a rich pseudo-relative who rapes her (I think. Hardy doesn't really go into any actual detail...or...you know...anything beyond gentlemanly allusions to "stuff happening" [even if she is seduced and not raped, it's still pretty venomous stuff and the rich guy is an asshat *but I'm pretty sure it's rape*]). She has a baby who dies, tramps around being poor and living with the shame (of being a rape victim UGH?!). Eventually she meets a nice boy who ends up abandoning her because she was raped (even though he had 2 seconds earlier admitted to his own CONSENSUAL mansluttery)- more tramping around. He comes back because he realizes that HE TOO IS AN ASSHAT, but by then Tess has gone back to the rich guy, who she then STABS TO DEATH in one of the most OUT OF CHARACTER scenes in the HISTORY OF BOOKS. She's then arrested while sleeping on a sacrificial altar of Stonehenge (SUBTLE) and hanged. AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

I DON'T GIVE A SHIT.


Ok. I know. What happens to Tess throughout the book is awful and disgusting. Everyone treats her like a disposable object, and I had plenty of righteous rage at all the places where righteous rage was warranted. However, Tess herself was so one-note that I didn't care so much about HER as I had generalized Rage For Victorian Womankind.

But here's another thing. I appreciated what Hardy was saying, mmkay? I'm glad he took it upon himself to point out the hypocrisy of Victorian society in regards to "fallen women." HOWEVER, this book is far from being pro-feminist. Tess is obviously Hardy's Eve (no really, he calls her that about 34,545 times), his perfect vision of femininity and womanhood, etc, etc, amen. EXCEPT SHE'S A MORON. Hardy's continual references to how she 'lacked reason because she was a purely emotional creature' and her inability to do/think/feel anything outside of what her husband tells her to is infuriating, ESPECIALLY coming from a book that I heard was so much about gender equality. Apparently, Hardy's paragon of the female species is obedient and ignorant, with no individual thoughts or spirituality, insufferably good and noble and chaste in thought if not in actuality.

Hardy would never have written a book with the same themes about a woman who slept with Alec because she darn well felt like it, or about a women who was upfront with Angel from the beginning, or about a woman who told Angel that he was being a toad the first night of their marriage, or about a women who in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM knew her own mind (and don't tell me it's a period thing- Jane Eyre and pretty much all of Austen's women knew their own minds, thankyouverymuch, it's a period thing when written by men [Tess reminded me quite a bit of Dickens' Nell, about whose death I had a similar snort/laugh reaction and who was similarly one dimensional and irritating]).

In short, it was an entirely unpleasant reading experience, both as reader in general and as a woman.

Oh yeah, but the landscape imagery was nice and Hardy knows how to write a beautiful sentence, etc.

One star out of your mom. ( )

Depressing and morose.
The story has potential but the main character needs some backbone. ( )

I read this book at school and then again at university and conceived a profound dislike for it because of my impatience with Tess Durbeyfield as a character. In the past couple of weeks I've listened to an audiobook edition of the novel, which I've reviewed here. Thirty-five years on, my reaction to the work is much more positive, but I think this earlier rating should remain. It reflects what at the time was a valid opinion and it's a salutary reminder to me that reactions to literature are not necessarily static. Re-reading books can sometimes tell you a lot about yourself. ( )