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A review by emmareadstoomuch
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
4.0
welcome to...TESS OF THE DECEMBERVILLES.
and welcome back to another installment of project long classics, in which i spend a month reading an intimidating work from the literary canon mostly as an excuse to a) make bad title puns and b) excuse my penguin clothbound addiction.
tess was my childhood family dog's name so i'm sure i'll be able to relate to this one.
this has 59 "chapters" (normal) divided into 7 "phases" (why), so i'll read 2 chapters a day. ish. (also, all of these reviews contain spoilers for books that are a million years old, if that counts as a spoiler to you.)
CHAPTERS 1 & 2
now we have met tess's dad, a drunk guy who just learned he's related to some knights (this is a big deal), and tess, who is really hot in a kind of not like other girls way and, case in point, has a red ribbon in her hair (this is a bigger deal).
CHAPTERS 3 & 4
well, tess was responsible for the gruesome death of her dad's horse, which has directly ruined her family. things are looking real bad at the moment. i understand why people did not have a great reaction to me assuming i could relate based on my childhood dog's name.
CHAPTERS 5 & 6
oh boy. our girl is being crushed on by a real creep.
CHAPTERS 7 & 8
tess's mom being like "maybe i should have double checked that the guy i just shipped my daughter off to isn't evil...oh well! hindsight is 20/20!" meanwhile the guy in question is using equestrian danger to manipulate said daughter into premarital kissing before they've even finished their commute.
CHAPTERS 9 & 10
so tess just manually brought each and every chicken on the property to be felt up by her blind great-aunt (?), took whistling lessons from her stalker, and nearly had to fight the town's hot girl while she was half-naked and covered in treacle. and none of that is a euphemism.
CHAPTERS 11 & 12
oh good lord. this is horrible. now i feel bad about all my dumb jokes.
CHAPTERS 13 & 14
ok, tess...i get that life is a series of unrelenting miseries, each one taking up the mantle of the last in a never-ending world of suffering...but do we really need to name the baby SORROW? he's going to have to live with that name his whole life.
...okay. so it does turn out that the rest of sorrow's life was 1 page. damn this book is sad.
CHAPTERS 15 & 16
we have entered "phase the third," and tess has a new job as a milkmaid. i have less than no confidence that life is going to get better — we're only at the 25% mark.
CHAPTERS 17 & 18
oh god, tess's former crush is one of her coworkers. STAY AWAY FROM HIM, TESS. MEN HOLD EVIL WITHIN AND YOU'RE VERY SUSCEPTIBLE. i don't care if his name is angel.
CHAPTERS 19 & 20
i can't believe that tess is the most beautiful girl in the land and her life still sucks. everything fairytales taught me was wrong.
CHAPTERS 21 & 22
the inciting incidents in these chapters are that angel is receiving cheek kisses from other maids, and the dairy accidentally invented garlic butter and british people are disgusted by seasoning so they have to manually locate and remove all of the garlic plants in the vicinity. across the board, some things never change.
CHAPTERS 23 & 24
workplace romances are weird when the workplace in question is a dairy. tell me why angel just declared his love from under a cow.
CHAPTERS 25 & 26
phase the fourth: the consequence. sounds like we're due for sunshine and rainbows.
CHAPTERS 27 & 28
probably the only book in global history in which the love interests take their relationship to the next level while breaking up masses of curds and putting them in vats.
CHAPTERS 29 & 30
far be it from me to criticize a woman...but it's stressing me out that tess is all "yeah, angel, i'll marry you. I WISH I HAD NEVER BEEN BORN!!! what? no i have no secrets." it's very love is blind to be like oh my motherhood? not really relevant to our relationship, babe.
CHAPTERS 31 & 32
okay. i will say we're on our 14th consecutive chapter of Angel Loves Tess And Tess Loves Angel And Is Spending Every Spare Second Loving Him And/Or Obsessing Over Whether To Share Her Tragic Backstory. we have got to wrap this one up sad as it's going to be.
CHAPTERS 33 & 34
okay now tess is just pissing me off. she slides an envelope under angel's door containing her confession a week before the weeding, never brings it up again, lives life as normal, and then decides THE MORNING OF to check if it's there, unopened, somehow under the carpet. YOU HAD FIFTEEN CHAPTERS, TESS.
CHAPTERS 35 & 36
i'm doubling up today because tess finally told angel, HER HUSBAND, who as it turns out also had a 48 hour hookup with some broad, and i have to know what happens next. surely his own experience and their holy matrimonial bond will make him understanding, i say sarcastically because this will certainly go poorly.
oh boy.
CHAPTERS 37 & 38
getting dumped and having to move back in with your parents...a nightmare rite of passage throughout time.
CHAPTERS 39 & 40
it's so funny that angel goes home to have dinner with his parents and they just so happen to essentially be throwing him an "A Godly Woman Is The Greatest Gift, And She Who Hast Not Sinned Is More Than Worthy Of Our Son" theme night. tess can't catch a break.
he just almost brought another girl to brazil??? this is wild.
CHAPTERS 41 & 42
well, tess just spent the night in a pile of leaves on a random farm after running away from her former harasser only to wake up and mercy-kill a large number of wounded birds. you can never guess where this book is going, only "sadly."
CHAPTERS 43 & 44
took like a full week off of this project because i was at my fiancé's parents' house. sorry, but when i am in a paradise of homemade pho and melona bars, this book is just not conducive to my vibe.
tess finding out that angel tried to take izz to brazil and being like "my fault, i should have written to him more." girl if you don't stand up...
CHAPTERS 45 & 46
welcome to phase the fifth: the convert. tess's ex is back, my friends. and he's a preacher now. and he still sucks.
CHAPTERS 47 & 48
casterbridge mentioned! funny to learn that this takes same place in the same universe as that relatively chill and fun book. although i guess it intended to be equally morally didactic.
well thank god! tess finally smacked one of these losers across the face.
CHAPTERS 49 & 50
foolishly i have allowed myself to believe that this book was going to be sad for a very long time, and then potentially have a nice little happily ever after. it is clear to me now that things will only get worse.
CHAPTERS 51 & 52
much more so than tess is sympathetic, the men in her life are the most lowly and detestable literary characters of all time. the only kind of happy ending i would accept is brutal death for alec (her baby daddy) and angel (her deadbeat husband).
CHAPTERS 53 & 54
i keep telling myself that actually i don't even care if angel, who is now flying through england in various belated and annoying attempts to find tess, tracks her down. but i think if he finds her in alec's clutches and rejects her again i might tear this book in half, so.
CHAPTERS 55 & 56
i was going to throw this book across the room, but now i'm glad i didn't. turns out i can't predict everything!
CHAPTERS 57 & 58
see, this is why you don't DNF books. i could never have predicted how much i would love where this book has gone. although i wish i could make it end right after chapter 57.
CHAPTER 59
oh, brother.
OVERALL
i've read three books by thomas hardy this year, and this one is definitely the best. through a relatively interesting plot (minus a few chunks of okay-we-get-it-you've-made-your-point), hardy conveys a lot of messages about great families, religion, temptation, and good versus evil. the fact that it pissed me off continually is part of the intent.
if quarter stars existed (lol when we don't even have half stars) i'd give this book 3.75, but as is:
rating: 4
and welcome back to another installment of project long classics, in which i spend a month reading an intimidating work from the literary canon mostly as an excuse to a) make bad title puns and b) excuse my penguin clothbound addiction.
tess was my childhood family dog's name so i'm sure i'll be able to relate to this one.
this has 59 "chapters" (normal) divided into 7 "phases" (why), so i'll read 2 chapters a day. ish. (also, all of these reviews contain spoilers for books that are a million years old, if that counts as a spoiler to you.)
CHAPTERS 1 & 2
now we have met tess's dad, a drunk guy who just learned he's related to some knights (this is a big deal), and tess, who is really hot in a kind of not like other girls way and, case in point, has a red ribbon in her hair (this is a bigger deal).
CHAPTERS 3 & 4
well, tess was responsible for the gruesome death of her dad's horse, which has directly ruined her family. things are looking real bad at the moment. i understand why people did not have a great reaction to me assuming i could relate based on my childhood dog's name.
CHAPTERS 5 & 6
oh boy. our girl is being crushed on by a real creep.
CHAPTERS 7 & 8
tess's mom being like "maybe i should have double checked that the guy i just shipped my daughter off to isn't evil...oh well! hindsight is 20/20!" meanwhile the guy in question is using equestrian danger to manipulate said daughter into premarital kissing before they've even finished their commute.
CHAPTERS 9 & 10
so tess just manually brought each and every chicken on the property to be felt up by her blind great-aunt (?), took whistling lessons from her stalker, and nearly had to fight the town's hot girl while she was half-naked and covered in treacle. and none of that is a euphemism.
CHAPTERS 11 & 12
oh good lord. this is horrible. now i feel bad about all my dumb jokes.
CHAPTERS 13 & 14
ok, tess...i get that life is a series of unrelenting miseries, each one taking up the mantle of the last in a never-ending world of suffering...but do we really need to name the baby SORROW? he's going to have to live with that name his whole life.
...okay. so it does turn out that the rest of sorrow's life was 1 page. damn this book is sad.
CHAPTERS 15 & 16
we have entered "phase the third," and tess has a new job as a milkmaid. i have less than no confidence that life is going to get better — we're only at the 25% mark.
CHAPTERS 17 & 18
oh god, tess's former crush is one of her coworkers. STAY AWAY FROM HIM, TESS. MEN HOLD EVIL WITHIN AND YOU'RE VERY SUSCEPTIBLE. i don't care if his name is angel.
CHAPTERS 19 & 20
i can't believe that tess is the most beautiful girl in the land and her life still sucks. everything fairytales taught me was wrong.
CHAPTERS 21 & 22
the inciting incidents in these chapters are that angel is receiving cheek kisses from other maids, and the dairy accidentally invented garlic butter and british people are disgusted by seasoning so they have to manually locate and remove all of the garlic plants in the vicinity. across the board, some things never change.
CHAPTERS 23 & 24
workplace romances are weird when the workplace in question is a dairy. tell me why angel just declared his love from under a cow.
CHAPTERS 25 & 26
phase the fourth: the consequence. sounds like we're due for sunshine and rainbows.
CHAPTERS 27 & 28
probably the only book in global history in which the love interests take their relationship to the next level while breaking up masses of curds and putting them in vats.
CHAPTERS 29 & 30
far be it from me to criticize a woman...but it's stressing me out that tess is all "yeah, angel, i'll marry you. I WISH I HAD NEVER BEEN BORN!!! what? no i have no secrets." it's very love is blind to be like oh my motherhood? not really relevant to our relationship, babe.
CHAPTERS 31 & 32
okay. i will say we're on our 14th consecutive chapter of Angel Loves Tess And Tess Loves Angel And Is Spending Every Spare Second Loving Him And/Or Obsessing Over Whether To Share Her Tragic Backstory. we have got to wrap this one up sad as it's going to be.
CHAPTERS 33 & 34
okay now tess is just pissing me off. she slides an envelope under angel's door containing her confession a week before the weeding, never brings it up again, lives life as normal, and then decides THE MORNING OF to check if it's there, unopened, somehow under the carpet. YOU HAD FIFTEEN CHAPTERS, TESS.
CHAPTERS 35 & 36
i'm doubling up today because tess finally told angel, HER HUSBAND, who as it turns out also had a 48 hour hookup with some broad, and i have to know what happens next. surely his own experience and their holy matrimonial bond will make him understanding, i say sarcastically because this will certainly go poorly.
oh boy.
CHAPTERS 37 & 38
getting dumped and having to move back in with your parents...a nightmare rite of passage throughout time.
CHAPTERS 39 & 40
it's so funny that angel goes home to have dinner with his parents and they just so happen to essentially be throwing him an "A Godly Woman Is The Greatest Gift, And She Who Hast Not Sinned Is More Than Worthy Of Our Son" theme night. tess can't catch a break.
he just almost brought another girl to brazil??? this is wild.
CHAPTERS 41 & 42
well, tess just spent the night in a pile of leaves on a random farm after running away from her former harasser only to wake up and mercy-kill a large number of wounded birds. you can never guess where this book is going, only "sadly."
CHAPTERS 43 & 44
took like a full week off of this project because i was at my fiancé's parents' house. sorry, but when i am in a paradise of homemade pho and melona bars, this book is just not conducive to my vibe.
tess finding out that angel tried to take izz to brazil and being like "my fault, i should have written to him more." girl if you don't stand up...
CHAPTERS 45 & 46
welcome to phase the fifth: the convert. tess's ex is back, my friends. and he's a preacher now. and he still sucks.
CHAPTERS 47 & 48
casterbridge mentioned! funny to learn that this takes same place in the same universe as that relatively chill and fun book. although i guess it intended to be equally morally didactic.
well thank god! tess finally smacked one of these losers across the face.
CHAPTERS 49 & 50
foolishly i have allowed myself to believe that this book was going to be sad for a very long time, and then potentially have a nice little happily ever after. it is clear to me now that things will only get worse.
CHAPTERS 51 & 52
much more so than tess is sympathetic, the men in her life are the most lowly and detestable literary characters of all time. the only kind of happy ending i would accept is brutal death for alec (her baby daddy) and angel (her deadbeat husband).
CHAPTERS 53 & 54
i keep telling myself that actually i don't even care if angel, who is now flying through england in various belated and annoying attempts to find tess, tracks her down. but i think if he finds her in alec's clutches and rejects her again i might tear this book in half, so.
CHAPTERS 55 & 56
i was going to throw this book across the room, but now i'm glad i didn't. turns out i can't predict everything!
CHAPTERS 57 & 58
see, this is why you don't DNF books. i could never have predicted how much i would love where this book has gone. although i wish i could make it end right after chapter 57.
CHAPTER 59
oh, brother.
Spoiler
i am so purely delighted by tess stabbing the life out of alec. i never expected such a gift from this book. but did angel HAVE to end up with liza-lu? bleh.OVERALL
i've read three books by thomas hardy this year, and this one is definitely the best. through a relatively interesting plot (minus a few chunks of okay-we-get-it-you've-made-your-point), hardy conveys a lot of messages about great families, religion, temptation, and good versus evil. the fact that it pissed me off continually is part of the intent.
if quarter stars existed (lol when we don't even have half stars) i'd give this book 3.75, but as is:
rating: 4