Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)

Tess was the second Thomas Hardy novel I read and probably overall his best. The characters are deeply drawn, with complex motivations. It's a deeply tragic work, but the tragedy seems to flow realistically, arising from the social norms of the day and from the characters own failings, which are often indistinguishable from their virtues. Tess's pride and independence keep her from asking for help from those who would have been willing to provide it, for instance. The final pages were the books only unrealistic turn for me, with Tess's husband seemingly ready to start his live anew with Tess's sister. I guess such things might actually happen in real life, but it held and unpleasant creepiness for me.

The setting is probably the real star of this book. Hardy is meticulous in his description of life on an English dairy, but he as a deft hand that doesn't allow the description to distract from the plot. Hardy also produces stunningly beautiful prose, but his books never feel overwritten. Highly recommended. ( )

Not long ago I had a parting with my mother which was unexpectedly emotional. We both hastily pulled back from that, not being given to such displays with each other, but a few days later my mother wrote to say she was suddenly overwhelmed with the sense that there are more partings than meetings in life, if that were philosophically possible.

A mathematician, I fancy, would say this is a perfectly simple situation. If there is a parting, there must have been a meeting, just as for every ending a beginning. And yet this is simply not true, which is why science is so limited in what it can explain to us. In fact, the more one begins to consider the matter of meetings and partings the more complicated it all becomes.

My father died a couple of months ago. Was that his parting from me, as my mother moved him from one position from another to make his unconscious state more comfortable for him, only to see him stop breathing for ever? Or was it a few days prior when I arrived in Adelaide and he squeezed my hand, his last conscious gesture? Was that a greeting or a parting? A few years ago I had two of my closest friends die, suddenly, without warning, doing domestic chores one minute, dead moments later. Where is the parting? An innocuous affair on both occasions. Breakfast with one the day before, ‘see you on Friday, Maree’. Coffee with the other, ‘Til the weekend, Paul’. These are not partings.

And, if it comes to that, which meeting matches a parting? In the case of my relationship with my father, is his death to be counterpoised by my birth? My father most gingerly picking up this tiny thing who is appalled by the flat hairy chest she finds with the entirely inadequate nipple. ‘Whah. WHAHHHHHHH. Give me back to the one with the big breasts, get me outta here.’ Most likely complete relief on the part of both of us. Does this occasion in any way match up to our final parting?

Do we intuitively feel like the partings outweigh the meetings because in the end sadness overwhelms joy? But is this really true? Do not tiny moments of happiness have the capacity to overrun and totally banish the sadness that led up to them? Maybe some tiny twist in logic of which a mathematician might totally disapprove lets us see not meetings and partings, but partings and meetings, sadness leading to joy, not joy to sadness.

I’d forgotten until I just watched it, that Tess is a story of meetings and partings. In a life of cruel partings, and meetings which are always tainted so that joy is melancholic and not to be trusted, when Tess takes the final decisive step that permits her no more than a few days of the exquisite all-encompassing happiness which was so rightfully hers, but which she could only take through an act that ensured her happiness would be the briefest of things, still, do we not have a sense that those few sweet days are what she takes with her, that they negate every shitty dreadful thing that has happened to her before then?

rest is here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/tess-of-the-durbervilles-t... ( )

Not long ago I had a parting with my mother which was unexpectedly emotional. We both hastily pulled back from that, not being given to such displays with each other, but a few days later my mother wrote to say she was suddenly overwhelmed with the sense that there are more partings than meetings in life, if that were philosophically possible.

A mathematician, I fancy, would say this is a perfectly simple situation. If there is a parting, there must have been a meeting, just as for every ending a beginning. And yet this is simply not true, which is why science is so limited in what it can explain to us. In fact, the more one begins to consider the matter of meetings and partings the more complicated it all becomes.

My father died a couple of months ago. Was that his parting from me, as my mother moved him from one position from another to make his unconscious state more comfortable for him, only to see him stop breathing for ever? Or was it a few days prior when I arrived in Adelaide and he squeezed my hand, his last conscious gesture? Was that a greeting or a parting? A few years ago I had two of my closest friends die, suddenly, without warning, doing domestic chores one minute, dead moments later. Where is the parting? An innocuous affair on both occasions. Breakfast with one the day before, ‘see you on Friday, Maree’. Coffee with the other, ‘Til the weekend, Paul’. These are not partings.

And, if it comes to that, which meeting matches a parting? In the case of my relationship with my father, is his death to be counterpoised by my birth? My father most gingerly picking up this tiny thing who is appalled by the flat hairy chest she finds with the entirely inadequate nipple. ‘Whah. WHAHHHHHHH. Give me back to the one with the big breasts, get me outta here.’ Most likely complete relief on the part of both of us. Does this occasion in any way match up to our final parting?

Do we intuitively feel like the partings outweigh the meetings because in the end sadness overwhelms joy? But is this really true? Do not tiny moments of happiness have the capacity to overrun and totally banish the sadness that led up to them? Maybe some tiny twist in logic of which a mathematician might totally disapprove lets us see not meetings and partings, but partings and meetings, sadness leading to joy, not joy to sadness.

I’d forgotten until I just watched it, that Tess is a story of meetings and partings. In a life of cruel partings, and meetings which are always tainted so that joy is melancholic and not to be trusted, when Tess takes the final decisive step that permits her no more than a few days of the exquisite all-encompassing happiness which was so rightfully hers, but which she could only take through an act that ensured her happiness would be the briefest of things, still, do we not have a sense that those few sweet days are what she takes with her, that they negate every shitty dreadful thing that has happened to her before then?

rest is here:

http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2013/04/08/tess-of-the-durbervilles-t... ( )

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. ( )

The struggles that Tess faced are just as real today. Do you tell or not tell the truth? Can you live with hiding the truth your whole life, perpetually afraid of being exposed? But are you able to take the consequences of telling the truth? Tess didn't think it would be so bad, especially after Clare admitted to almost a similar thing in his past. However, the standards to which he holds himself are different from how he holds Tess, to her disappointment and to disastrous consequences. ( )