"Tess of the D'Urbervilles" by Thomas Hardy

Review by Madeline Salmon

"The corpses of those old fitful passions which had lain inanimate amid the lines of his face ever since his reformation seemed to wake and come together as in a resurrection."

Sentences like this fill Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, the crowning achievement of an author who began and ended his career as a poet. They make for arduous but rich reading. This is the first caution I will give in regard to Tess: Don't expect the story to unfold quickly. Depending on your point of view, you will either slog through page after page of scene setting and flowery language, or you will let Hardy transport you to the agricultural fields of Wessex and immerse you in the most beautiful use of the English language since William Shakespeare. If you can't tell, my opinion falls on the latter end of the spectrum.

My second warning is this: Tess is a story without joy. I think Hardy invented angst before it was cool. At least he had the decency to set the tone early in a conversation between the heroine and her younger brother:

"'Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?'

'Yes.'

'All like ours?'

'I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound--a few blighted.'

'Which do we live on--a splendid one or a blighted one?'

"A blighted one.'"

If you like a story told with poetry and you can bear the sadness, Tess of the D'Urbervilles is a work of beauty.