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SPOILERS
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Especially because of the rape scene and because she dies, and all the rejection and sadness.
I was traumatized by this series. i had to watch it to the end, even though i googled it and found out she dies...
I had to watch 2009 Emma and P & P, to get over it... Man...
steffany
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
shareWelcome to Thomas Hardy's world, homie!
There IS much sadness in his novels (Woodlanders is my favourite), but if you are of a melancholy disposition you'll appreciate them.
Tess is a study of social injustices - and Hardy was so empathetic and understanding of the female experience. But the books also capture that sense of loss, of an old world disappearing in the industrial age... social flux.
I recently read Two On A Tower and this is ACHING for an adaptation, being very pertinent with its themes about an older woman, younger man - AND love, loss, aging, etc, etc. Very underrated work.
I think Hardy was a compassionate man - I believe he was involved in the founding of the RSPCA?
I thought that the DVD / series was disturbing. I'm too used to 20th century movies using deus ex machina to lend their characters a lifeline. Thomas Hardy pushes the characters from one escalating tragedy to another. It's like a trainwreck of tragedy.
What makes it worse is that I assumed for half of my life ( 17 years ) that Tess was a romance!
I'm curious to read the book though.
MrAgmoore
Hmmm, my own lovelife is utterly pitiful so I find a strange comfort and beauty in Hardy when I am feeling depressed, lonely and ugly. I relate to Giles in The Woodlanders!
The introduction to the Penguin edition of the novel is very pertinent as it discusses Hardy's intentions - his determination to not give the readers what they want. I think Tess is a story of redemption, and justice, and maybe it deconstructs notions of romance in the novel. Henry James was very disdainful of Hardy, James saw him as some kind of retrograde, but Hardy pre-empts the modernist novel by breaking from conventions.
You should read Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant - there's macking galore, hustling, people change their names as they wont, reinventing themselves to climb the social hierarchy. It's the anti-Tess. V French and naughty and the protagonist gets what he wants. I just finished it. Funniest 19th Century novel I ever read.
Try Boule de Suif by the same author next. A bit different.
You can eat in the restaurant and stay at the Inn in which de Maupassant wrote both of those books. The Auberge du Cygnes at Totes in Normandy. Guests have included four different Prices of Wales, Generals Haig, Ike and Montgomery, de Maupassant (obviously) Flaubert and Stendhal, lots of French royalty and their mistresses and, somewhat more improbably, D'Artagnan. Rooms are nice and the food is great and it won't break the bank. It's fame is due to its position at the most important crossroads between Paris and Dieppe rather than the Guide Michelin.
5, Rue Guy de Maupassant - 76890 Tôtes
Tél: 02 35 32 92 03 - Fax: 02 35 32 92 03
alfa-16
I'm actually reading GDM's short stories atm, as it happens, and Boule is in there.
Bel Ami is so spookily relevant for today, it's not funny! I should love to travel to France and actually eat (!) but I am leading a similar lifestyle to Bel Ami at the start - I really wish I could mack my way out of poverty but I'm not belle, alas.
I'd recommend Hardy's short stories too, they're quite surprising. I like The Withered Arm. Haunting.
Oh god yes, just finished watching it. Wonderful acting and beautiful cinematography, but the eff... if you're unfamiliar with the story, just don't go into it with jane austen expectations for a redemptive ending! My goodness Gemma is a patient actress.
shareJude has this one beat. I can never watch that one again.
"What happens to a dream deferred?"
Definitely depressing.
But my wife and I respected the writing and the production.
The series was beautifully done.
And we have no regrets for watching it.
BB ;-)
it is just in my opinion - imo - 🌈
Yes! I don't remember much about this mini series now (it has been some years since I saw it), except that it has to be one of the most depressing things, that I have ever seen in my life. Like someone else said earlier in the thread, I guess we have become too accustomed to happy endings... (Then again, most writers back then had happy endings too, didn't they?)
Intelligence and purity.
I love period drama's, but, this. - and most of Hardy's work. - is just far too depressing. I could've maybe handled the rape and the poor baby dying if Tess had somehow managed to get a happy ending, but, then, she was hung and made you feel it wasn't worth watching / reading
shareNo doubt, my wife and I just watched all 4 episodes on Hulu figuring something had to go right sooner or later for the girl. We just sighed and went to bed tired and depressed.
shareYou haven't seen or read Wuthering Heights, have you?
Quit ya moanin