Sunday 9 January 2011

Hardy, Thomas "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"


Hardy, Thomas "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" - 1891

Tess Durbeyfield is a girl from a poor family who is thrown into a difficult situation without any fault of herself. This will determine her later life which is not a happy one.

This novel certainly belongs to the tragic ones. A friend of mine said it was the most horrible book she ever read. But usually we disagree about books. As we do this time. I loved this novel. Of course, I didn't like everything that happened to Tess or the other girls in the story, but the way Hardy describes the ordinary people's lives and the countryside is just great. I really enjoyed reading this book.

From the back cover:

"Hardy tells the story of Tess Durbeyfield, a beautiful young woman living with her impoverished family in Wessex, the southwestern English county immortalized by Hardy. After the family learns of their connection to the wealthy d'Urbervilles, they send Tess to claim a portion of their fortune. She meets and is seduced by the dissolute Alec d'Urberville and secretly bears a child, Sorrow, who dies in infancy. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer Tess love and salvation, but he rejects her - on their wedding night - after learning of her past. Emotionally bereft, financially impoverished, and victimized by the self-righteous rigidity of English social morality, Tess escapes from her vise of passion through a horrible, desperate act.
 
See more comments on my ThrowbackThursday post in 2022.

No comments:

Post a Comment