I have been into books as soon as I was old enough to hold one properly - thanks to my school library, my Mom’s school library(she is a teacher and her school has a massive library) and other libraries etc.
When I now look back, I think there has hardly been a day when I have not read something or the other. By the time I was in Std VII-VIII, I’d read Oscar Wildes, Thomas Hardys, Bronte sisters, Dickens’, Daphne du Maurier, P G Wodehouse etc.
When I read ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’, I was a still a child and maybe had missed some of the nuances of the story, yet loved it, so the other day when I was at crossword and chanced upon the book again, I purchased it.
I was reading the book after years and found the story still fresh in my mind. Classics are like that, they do not fade away like usual novels do. Thomas Hardy is astounding- this man knew the way inside a woman’s heart so well, he understood all the little whys behind its beatings and flutterings. How could he feel so much and understand so much about a woman- he must’ve been an incredible boyfriend/husband.:P
This story is about Tess, a woman in love and her journey from girlhood to being a woman and how love is all she lives for and later dies for too… The story is about how being beautiful isn’t always nice …It is about how fate has a very powerful role to play when it comes to love…About how love makes and can also break everything in life…About how someone’s past is something that is not easy to get rid of and comes back and haunts the present… About how there are so many things a man can do and can get away with, while a woman cannot… About a woman’s love, and how nothing else in life ever matters to her but for a man it may not be the same… About how everything in life becomes minute and insignificant when compared to the mammoth, irrepressible, unforgettable feeling: love…It is about this all consuming, mother of all feelings- love.
The books begins with Tess and Angel seeing each other for the first time at a field amidst dozens of other young men and women.
As he fell out of the dance his eyes lighted on Tess Durbeyfield, whose large orbs wore to tell the truth, the faintest aspect of reproach that he had not chosen her. He too was sorry then that owing to her backwardness, he had not observed her…
…Trifling as the matter was, he yet instinctively felt that she was hurt by his oversight. He wished that he had asked her; he wished that he had inquired her name. She was so modest, so expressive, she had looked so soft in her thin white gown that he felt that he had acted stupidly.
Her father, Jack Durbeyfield, finds that he is a descendant and relative of the rich, well-known and ancient family of the d’Urbervilles. His wife and he decide to use this, to better their standards of living by sending their eldest daughter, Tess, to the family. Tess, a young beautiful girl, leaves home to help her family and meets Alec d’Urberville, her supposed cousin. This notorious man professes love for her and seduces the naïve girl. Tess comes back home, unwed and pregnant. She does not love this man and refuses to marry him.
(She had never wholly cared for him, she did not at all care for him now. …Hate him she did quite; but he was dust and ashes to her, and even for her name’s sake she scarcely wished to marry him.)
She gives birth to a child when she herself is no more than one and baptizes her son, ‘Sorrow’ before he dies, months after he was born.
Tess sets out to look for a job to feed her parents and siblings. She is soon hired as a milkmaid in Talbothay’s farm. Here she meets Angel, again. Angel has three other eligible milkmaids(Izz, Marian and Retty) swooning over him. The girls unanimously decide that Tess is the lucky one, since she is so beautiful. Tess in her heart of hearts knows she is unworthy of Angel, the priests’ son, yet she is unable to deny her love for him. Every time he tries to propose to her she manages to refuse in some way. She cannot decide whether to reveal her past to Angel. Finally Tess agrees to get married to Angel. Her mother forbids her to confess to him, but, Tess feels she cannot betray the love of her life and decides to convey her story in a letter before the wedding day. All the time she is worried that Angel would never accept her after he knows about her past. The letter however, escapes Angels’s notice and Tess tears it up when she finds that it is unread. They get married and the ever so much in love couple leave Talbothay’s. On their wedding night Angel talks about his past relationship and asks Tess to forgive him. She is elated that his confession makes her own easier and she hopes he will forgive her too the way she did- but when her narrative ends so does their relationship. Their world falls apart- they are separated. Angel deserts her, leaves the country. Tess cuts her hair and eyebrows in order not to look attractive and then goes off to find work. Tries to contact her in-laws but finds they are not even aware that Angel and she separated. Her family is too poor and she does not want to trouble them. Months pass and she struggles.
One day Alec d’Urberville returns, a changed man(Her father-in-law was responsible for the change in Alec), a preacher of God’s words. But he forgets everything when he notices Tess. He claims that he is her husband, after all she had borne his child. He loves Tess and pursues her once again, all the time telling her that Angel would never return to her.
What happens to Tess? Does Angel return to her, does he forgive her? Is Tess able to free herself from Alec?
Read the book to find out.
My review was becoming too lengthy so I have deleted more than half of it. It is a beautiful book and is for those who love reading just for the love of reading. The story is kinda hindi filmish and melodramatic at places and slow and pessimistic. But the way Hardy narrates it, is amazing. When you read a good book you can see it all happen in front of you and this is one such book. You can see the expressions of pain and intense love bordering worship, in Tess’ eyes when she looks at Angel, and the look of passionate love in Alec’s eyes and Angel’s mixed expression of happiness, bewilderment and pain when Izz says she does love him but never more than Tess.