Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

I'm not sure where to begin regarding this book, for it's one that I bear mixed feelings. I don't feel it to be a book that I can wholly extol upon, but neither is it a book I can truly criticise. It is a book that I held different feelings about at different points, but this is not enough to say of it; after all, what were these feelings - what were these points?

Tess of the D'Urbervilles follows the titular character - although we perhaps may call her Tess Durbeyfield instead, for this is the name we learn holds her preference throughout - through a life which seems to showcase much mistreatment. When we first meet Tess, she is simple and beautiful, though a mere peasant; she is indeed 'pure' and perfectly naive. This, as one may expect, is soon shattered and her 'downfall', I suppose, is imposed by her family's discovery of their wealthy, boast-worthy descendants. She is pressured to make acquaintance with nearby 'relations', but something far from the lovely marriage expected occurs, something which steals away from her her title of purity.

Or so it would have seemed had not Hardy written of her with such sensitivity so as to imply the contrary. I almost want to wish I could know more of Tess, of her circumstances, but I've no doubt that the barriers formed were Hardy's intentions. We do not become attached to Tess, or at least I did not. I followed her through and rather than witnessing the tragic twists of fate, I merely heard of them, and perhaps this is the reason why I admit myself cold hearted here and say I do not feel this a book saturated with any real emotion. I feel it rather a tale of ambivalence and of longing, though I know not what we should long for; perhaps of fairness. It felt almost a tale of 'what if?'; such an idea, at least, is nurtured by Hardy when not implicitly stated; for, numerous times did I find myself reading "and if Tess had...".

There is nothing wrong with such; in fact, I think it its charm. I remember this novel and its events as I would remember a dream, and it's a nice feeling I suppose, and one that seems to only emphasise in me the thought that this is a book different to most. I think it is a book that requires slow, unrushed reading - either that or a later re-read - to fully absorb all the many things it has to say; or, rather, to allow it time for all its beautiful language to form itself into our own crude ideas on the subjects it so eloquently discusses.