Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Hello and welcome to another Thomas Hardy video. I only have three novels left and then I'm going to be at the end of all of my reviews of all of Thomas Hardy's books that I've been reading in publication order since last year. It feels like it's been going on a very very long time but I've read them all now so I've got three more videos left and I also have a video where I'm going to talk about my recommendations of where I think you should start with Hardy but that's all in the future. So today we're going to talk about Tess of the d'Urbervilles. As I do quite often with these videos I'm going to show you some of the editions of Tess of the d'Urbervilles that I have. I've only got three copies only. One is I think the oldest one I've had which I've had for a very very long time. Does this one have a date in it? No I don't think it does. I think I've had this since I was 17. That was a long time ago and it's a bit trotty and a bit grubby now. I also have this little tiny collector's library edition which is very cute. I think it's been gnawed on by some animal. It's got some damage there and I also have this lovely penguin cloth hardback edition which is my favourite and it's the one that I read from most often now and it's a lovely lovely edition. So I think that Tess of the d'Urbervilles is probably a favourite of almost everyone I know when they talk about Hardy novels. Everyone says Tess of the d'Urbervilles and everyone seems to love it and I can see why. Tess of the d'Urbervilles has everything that you could ever want from a novel. It has exquisite descriptions of the nature and the countryside. It has a really deep exploration of the lives of ordinary people. It has love and marriage and rape and dead children and dead adults and marriage and abandonment and just more more. Why would you want any more? I think it's safe to say that it'll probably up there with Hardy's top two most miserable novels. Novels that will probably make you cry. It's definitely up there along with Jude the Obscure of course and we will be getting to Jude the Obscure in just a few videos time. So although I think a lot of people have already read Tess I know a lot of people also haven't read Tess and there's nothing I'm going to say in this video that will spoil it beyond maybe the most basic plot points which you might already know just because it's a class thing and it's been around for a very very long time. So nothing I'm going to say is going to be too spoilery but I will start as I always do with just a brief summary of what it's about. So it is about Tess Durbeyfield who is a young girl who lives at home with her parents and her siblings. They're poor but they're not an unhappy family and they muddle along quite well until one very very fateful day when somebody tells Jack Durbeyfield, Tess's dad, tells him that the Durbeyfields were once distantly related to the more noble aristocratic Durbeyville family and that is the inciting incident The Spark that then sets off this frankly horrific chain of events that I described at the start and it completely changes Tess from what we're given by Hardy to be this very kind of stereotypical naive country girl and it changes her from that into very much a woman of the world who has unfortunately had to experience quite a lot of horrible things that the world has to offer for women of this time period. It does have all of the things that you probably would expect from Hardy if you've read all of his previous novels up until now in publication order who would do such a thing but if you had it would kind of show you once again Hardy's deep love for the I guess ordinary country folk and just how much he really dislikes nobility and wealth and class or the class system and the upper classes. We've got to the point now where Hardy is successful enough to say okay so all of the things that I was hinting at in my previous novels I'm now just going to kind of lay them out in the most brutal fashion he just doesn't care anymore by this point. It's all of those things about how much the English class system is designed to manipulate and just keep down anyone who isn't fortunate enough to be born at the top of the food chain basically and how no matter how hard you try you're unlikely ever to be able to raise yourself and your family out of poverty because there's always people who are going to try and keep their foot on you and make sure that you can't succeed. There are two love interests I guess you could call them although really don't really want to call them that there are two love interests in I'll talk about them later but I think actually that you can kind of see them as being symbols maybe of wider society so Alec is the sort of the rich nobility he kind of looks down on the poor the poor country people he mocks you he pretends to help you but actually you never really believe his motives are honest because they're not and even though he pretends you don't believe it and then he just kind of throws it back in your face you know he kind of does see how I tried to help you I tried to help you but you didn't believe I was trying to help you and that's why I didn't help you yes thanks Alec thanks the upper class I think ultimately you know exactly what you're getting with Alec you know exactly how he's going to behave he behaves exactly as you'd expect he's not pretending to be something he isn't you can't trust him you don't you know you can't trust there's ultimately nothing really two-faced about him because you always knew that he was a massive scumbag and he is and then on the other hand you've got Angel and I think that he is somehow representative of the other side of society that says to poor people you know I love and I care about you and I'm here for you and I'll support you and I'll be I'll be I'll be here for you always but actually when it comes down to it you're just not good enough for him he doesn't support you he doesn't actually stick around when things when things get tough um because he wants you to be he wants you to be some kind of ideal that you never pretended to be but it's just his expectations of what he wants you a poor country girl imagine you're a poor country girl for a moment it's his expectations of what he wants from you that are actually the cause of all of the and all of your problems as well oh I always kind of waver in my love of this book it's definitely in what I think is probably my top four favorite Hardy novels possibly at number four or three I do really love it a lot and I don't know if there's any way actually that you can rank all of Hardy's novels and pick a favorite I don't know if that's possible because there's so many brilliant ones I have a video coming soon which I mentioned at the beginning I'm going to think about where you should start with Hardy if you've never read Hardy um or where you should go next but I don't think you can actually go too far wrong if you start with Tess of the Devils it does have all of the things that you would expect from Hardy it is beautifully written and it's utterly miserable up until this point if you read them in publication order it is his most miserable novel and then Jude the Obscure's like hold my beer I've got more misery for you but up until this point I think it's his most miserable novel so that's what you're looking for that's what you're looking for beautifully written utterly miserable you should start with Tess my next video that I'm going to do in between Tess and Jude I'm going to give you my thoughts on the well-beloved which is the only Hardy novel that I actively hate with a burning passion and after that uh I'll have finished all my videos and after that I'll have finished all of my videos so those are my kind of very brief thoughts on Tess of the Devils I really love it I think it's a really exceptional novel it's beautifully written it's very very miserable I think a lot of people love it and it holds a very special place in a lot of people's hearts and there's a very good reason for that because it is exceptional and I will be back soon with another Hardy video so thanks so much for watching