Tess of the D'Ubervilles

I've been especially grateful for the time to get back to reading for pleasure. It is such a simple joy that I had missed dearly.

I very much enjoyed this novel. Honestly, this book made me appreciate the work of early feminists ever so much, and helped me gain a greater appreciation for the rights I currently posses as a woman of the modern era.

Hardy did an incredibly job of encapsulating the deep shame that Tess carried as a result of her rape. It was fascinating to see the heavily entrenched notions of right and work in the book and of the observation of early Christian philosophy. I didn't care for Angel Clare much, and definitely not for Alec Stoke. I often felt like Tess had been stripped of any real personality post-rape, but was instead ascribing to the views that society had of her as being worthless and a scorned being.

My favorite characters were Tess' stalwart dairymaid friends who were without guile and always had Tess' best intentions at heart. I watched the latest BBC adaptation of the novel, and was very pleased. Gemma Arterton's Tess brought the character some spunk and zest to the character. Perhaps this was something Tess possessed all along, but I recognized it even more in a live-action adaptation. Eddie Redmayne served as the perfect complement to Tess, he was all I expected an Angel Clare to be.

"Thus, neither having the clue to each other's secret, they were respectively puzzled at what each revealed, and awaited new knowledge of each other's character and moods without attempting to pry into each other's history."