(spoilers)
Just finished reading
Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the first Thomas Hardy I've ever read, will not be the last for sure. I wonder what made me to neglect this literature classic for so long. I watched movie "Tess" when I was a teenager, it somehow didn't strike me as hard as "Jane Eyre" or some other films adapted from literature masterpieces. Recently, for some obscure reasons I picked up the original book, found myself immediately drawn into the story.
There's not much I could say about this book that is not been already said by others. Tess - an astonishingly beautiful peasant girl, a "fine creature", yet unbelievably selfless even downtrodden, tries relentlessly to make a better life for her family and herself, ends up being hanged. Not even that, none of the miserable happenings befall her is her fault, but she endures them all nonetheless. The tragedy is simply beyond anyone can bare. Her ultimate sacrifice seems avoidable, as I myself already "designed" a dozen of different endings, however, I have to admit, what she does at the end - murdering Alec d'Urbervilles is completely understandable under the context. Basically, Thomas Hardy just created a flawless tragedy, let his readers continue to moan for her heroine for centuries.
