Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Penguin Popular Classics) |
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Author:
Thomas Hardy
By Penguin Classics
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: £2.00
Our Price: £0.01
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780140620207
ISBN: 0140620206
Label: Penguin Classics
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
Number Of Pages: 528
Publication Date: 2007-01-25
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Studio: Penguin Classics |
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Thomas Hardy at his best, 2008-09-15
I was first introduced to Thomas Hardy at the age of 12 via an extract of this book in a girls' annual. Just that one short passage was enough to make me want to read the rest of the novel and from then I became a Hardy fan and this remains my favourite Hardy. If you have never read Hardy this would be a wonderful introduction to a great writer.
This is the tragic tale of Tess Durbeyfield, Thomas Hardy's favourite heroine. For a visually stunning depiction of Tess I would also recommend Roman Polanski's "Tess", starring Natassja Kinski.
A truly pure woman, 2007-03-07
In this book, Hardy tells us of the tragic story of Tess, a self-sacrificing woman who seemingly cannot escape her destiny or find happiness. Packed with emotion and landscape symbolism, in "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" one can't help feeling strong sympathy for her character and the unfair course of events in her life, which leads me to affirm that she is indeed "a pure woman", as the subtitle of the novel declared. Although to some the plot of this novel may seem unnecessarily tragic, this book is simply unputdownable and, once in a while, it is a joy -to me, at least- to read a story that touches one's heart so deeply.
Simply Wonderful, 2007-01-30
This has to be one of the best books I've ever read. A tragic tale of Tess Durbeyfield, a young woman of pure spirit wronged by society and forced to live in shame, even though she was the victim of a crime (rape). The story ebbed and flowed like a long running soap opera until its tragic end. The author's use of prose was lyrical and magical. I wished I had marked my favorites to quote now. Maybe next time I read this.
Highly highly recommended.
sad and tragic, 2007-09-21
I really like Hardy's novels for all the themes they deal with. This book tells of Tess, a womanwho is treated badly by society and cant find a way out of her destiny. Hardy uses lots of symbolism in the novel, i.e weather etc.
If you're an adolescent... or still feel like one..., 2006-10-26
I have to give Tess five stars because no book I have read before or since has moved me to such a degree. Thirty years later I still have my original copy, entirely disintegrated, the glue dissolved, very possibly by my hot adolescent tears. It simply tore me apart - I remember in particular struggling to finish Tess's letter from Flintcomb-Ash through eyes blurred with grief and that after finishing the book I was well-nigh inconsolable for days. I spent the following summer touring the Dorset locations on my bicycle as a kind of pilgrimage, and remember those cruel hills pretty well too.
But having said that, I was sixteen at the time and emotionally wide open. Reading it five years later, I could hardly get past the clumsiness and infelicities in the writing and the crude manipulation and melodrama of the plot. How could I have fallen for this? Reading it again another ten years further on I better understood the theatricality of it - it should be read in some ways like the old ballads with which Hardy was very familiar, with their highly exaggerated representations of good and evil - but the magic had gone.
Maybe the key is that Tess is a book written by an emotional adolescent - Hardy was a writer who arguably never really grew up, and his own relationships seem to bear this out - which speaks most forcefully to other adolescents. The melodrama and the suffering, the torment and the injustice which Tess is put through really are meat and drink to the average sensitive sixteen year old, but seem perhaps a bit foolish in retrospect.
But this isn't really a criticism. 'Tess' is by far the greatest of Hardy's novels and the high point of his career as a novelist (Jude the Obscure would tip over into self parody) and is written with a rare passion - Hardy said that he loved Tess and, although he perhaps had a funny way of showing it, his depth of feeling for his creation really comes through. Like 'The Catcher in the Rye', if you're in the right demographic - a sixteen year old or someone who still feels like one - you're going to love it. If not, you may wonder what all the fuss is about and should perhaps move straight on to Dickens.
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