Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles now stands as one of my top ten favorite books. I know this is going to sound terribly trite, but I loved this book. I knew it was going to be a tragedy, and it was so in unexpected ways, but there is still something about the ending that redeemed everything Tess went through (for me anyway). It is one of those books that I thought I already knew all about--but I didn't. The ending actually came as a bit of a surprise, though not really a shock.
Okay, it is a tad melodramatic. I can't remember a time when a book was filled with so many "if onlys" (perhaps Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet--if only Romeo's letter had reached Juliet when he had to leave Verona....). If only the parson at the beginning of the story had not told Durbyfield that he was actually descended from an old and aristocratic family, if only Tess had not been seduced (was she seduced, or was she forced--I'm not entirely clear on that point) by her 'cousin' Alec D'Urberville. If only the letter Tess wrote to Angel Clare the night before their wedding had actually been read by him. I could go on. There were so many times Tess or Angel annoyed me by their actions--how could they both be so stubborn? Of course it is easy for me to say from the outside looking in.
I have read only a tiny bit of criticism, and I know that Hardy was indeed criticized for a variety of things. I haven't read enough about Hardy or critical responses, however, to do any sort of justice to the novel here, so I am not going to attempt it. Maybe for some this is not a perfect novel, but it is one of the best novels I have read in a very long time. There is so much swimming around in my head, but I don't think I can adequately write about it right now. I want to read more of his novels as well as more about him (how often do I say that...another author to add to my list). I have already watched the first half of the A&E production of Tess, which I couldn't wait until the weekend to see. I know already that the story is going to stay with me for a long time (like that of Edna Pointellier, Emma Bovary and Dorothea Brooke--though all in very different ways). It's books like this that ruin me for other fiction.
Edited 6/23/07--Check out Cipriano's excellent post on Tess--he writes about the book how I would have liked to!