pidgevorg 's review for:

Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

4.0

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So well written... and that's its saving grace. Every sentence is a tiny little pleasure, and you sort of go along from one to the next, and get pulled in... and it makes up for the fact that there'a no plot to speak of and the main characters are just... profoundly ANNOYING people. Honestly, I was actually happy when the sort-of villain, Alec D'Urberville, would show up. He was a dick, but at least he was a human being. But unfortunately the novel mostly focused on Tess, who, contrary to the narrator's constant assurances of her individualism and independent personhood (and maybe if he did more showing he wouldn't have had to do so much telling), really comes across as very empty-headed and strangely free of individual personality traits. I get that she's supposed to be some kind of allegory for rustic Nature, being rudely trampled by unnatural social mores and brutal technological progress, yadda yadda. In my opinion, this does not excuse Hardy from giving her a human personality or agency. But allegories aside, she's just one of those unfortunate Victorian heroines whose heads are just empty vessels waiting to be filled by their gallant lover. And her gallant lover is, sadly, an even bigger nonentity. To quote someone else, there is just no there there with these two people. Alec the dick, as well as some very-well characterized minor characters (mostly of the tragi-comic relief type), are the only glimpses of humanity. I would say that this book works as a very long prose-poem. Which is how I ended up processing it after getting about 1/4 of the way into the story. That's what kept me turning the pages. As a STORY though, it's a long, overly drawn-out slog.