Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy | 1912 | Barnes & Noble Books | Paperback $7.95

When Tess Durbeyfield is driven by family poverty to claim kinship with the wealthy D’Urbervilles and seek a portion of their family fortune, meeting her ‘cousin’ Alec proves to be her downfall. A very different man, Angel Clare, seems to offer her love and salvation, but Tess must choose whether to reveal her past or remain silent in the hope of a peaceful future.

Confession time — this book has been toted around in my bag and moved from end table to end table and desk drawer to desk drawer since this past summer. Shameful! But last month a patron at the library where I work stopped by the Reference Desk to ask about our Thomas Hardy offerings, and I mentioned that I had started on Tess — and she said she’d be back to ask what I thought of it, so I thought I’d better do my librarian duty and finish this book!

I’ve not read any other Thomas Hardy works before, so this book was an entirely new experience for me. More importantly, I was totally unfamiliar with the story. In any case, once I chose to read it I decided to make a valiant effort to avoid spoilers. Miraculously, I managed to be surprised by the ending of this over-a-century-old book.

Even if I hadn’t known it from the start, I think I could easily tell that this was written in the 1800’s — not just because of the technology level (horses and buggies, etc.) but because of the general style of the prose and dialogue. It reminded me in many ways of the tone or style of Gaskell’s North and South, though to be quite honest I enjoyed this book much more than my previous try at that era’s literature

I think I enjoyed it more primarily because it didn’t seem quite as preachy, even though it does clearly have some sort of moral lesson to impart to the reader. I also fell a little bit in love with the author’s poetic descriptions and… well, I don’t know if “rumination” is exactly the word I’m looking for, but that’s what comes to mind. Clearly, I ought to try out some of Hardy’s poetry in the near future.

Tess was quite bleak — not just tragic, as expected, but outright depressing. It was comparatively feminist-humanist in a time when even Queen Victoria herself thought such ideas were folly, which is unavoidably part of the tragedy for my rather liberal modern self.

The poor girl is beset by men who can’t seem to see her as an actual person. The first, seeing her as an object to be won or a plaything to be toyed with, ruins (well, “ruins”) her physically. The next sees her as some sort of idealized figure, a maiden on a pedestal to be worshiped for her natural purity (again, let me employ some sarcasm-quotes: “purity”) and to be made into a worthy wife.

The worst of all this is that our titular character isn’t a weak shell of a woman, content to let the winds of fate make her life for her; alas, said winds of fate blow too hard for our fair protagonist to fight them. When she first rebuffs the first man and then disappoints the second, her life accelerates on a downward spiral from which she never recovers.

This story is about oppression, double standards, and the cruelty of pitting strict social rules against the realities of nature. Tess Durbeyfield is essentially a sacrifice to the small god of Victorian values and progress.

I must confess that I might not have made it through this book without the generous footnotes, endnotes, and comments. Some of the rural dialect was a bit confusing and I’m not particularly familiar with most of the artists, philosophers, and poets referred to throughout the book. All of the little “extras” in this edition were produced by David Galef.

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Publication information: Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the d’Urbervilles. New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 2005. Print.
Source: Personal library.
Disclaimer: I am not compensated, monetarily or otherwise, for reviews of books or other products.

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