Ah, Tess!

(warning: though I love reading I am not a literary critic...)

As a voracious reader and bibliophile, I don't usually leave a book unfinished. It's not typical. I've read countless horrible books merely for the sake of having completed it, and usually I have to know what happens.

But I am done with trying to read Tess of the D'Ubervilles. The book was depressing me. I've read other books of Hardy's, but this one strikes me with its hopelessness. I just couldn't go on. The scene where Tess confesses to Angel what happened to her(what kind of name is that anyways?), after she has forgiven him his indiscretions, and he has refused to do the same for her, though she was a victim of rape... just got to me. I hate Angel, I hate his sanctimoniousness (if that's even a word) and I couldn't stand reading any more of it.

I don't think I've ever read a piece of literature so drenched with pain, numbness, or hopelessness...the pain Tess goes through the first few days of her marriage after her cruel treatment by Clare is tangible and heartbreaking. I almost had to put down the book to distance myself from her grief...

Throughout this I'm wondering just what Hardy was trying to say? Life then for a woman of the agricultural class was hopeless? Was he stripping Victorian morality down to what it really was?

Anyways, I had tried to read it for my book club, and I had it on my shelf for years as one of those bargain book buys that I bought but never read. Now I can put it back and be done with it. Maybe I reacted so strongly to it because it is so hopeless, and I'm of the firm belief in hope... because life without hope is no life at all... Life doesn't always give out happy endings (it rarely gives out happy endings), but as long as someone has hope, you can go on...

Has anyone else felt this way about Tess? What books have you had to just put down because you couldn't go any further? It would be interesting to know.

(I felt the same way after reaing Rohintin Mistry's, A Fine Balance - also a book with no hope)