Tess

I finished reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles yesterday afternoon, and was left with my mouth open and a few tears welling in my eyes. I identified well with Tess, and my heart just broke for her. I think the subject was something that hit close to home for me. I imagine writing in a way sympathetic to a woman who had a child outside of wedlock was considered off-limits when Hardy wrote Tess, too. I'm glad he had the guts to do it, even though I was pretty upset throughout the entire book at the supposed "seduction." I seriously doubt that was what it was. There were a few parts in Tess that were hard for me to engross myself in, but I enjoyed the book for the most part. Of course, I don't read a lot of tragedies, so I suppose I don't know a lot about the genre. I do understand why a lot of people don't like Thomas Hardy. He's such a dark and pessimistic writer, and that just doesn't appeal to a wide audience for some reason. Nonetheless, I think Hardy is a beautiful, even if not happy, writer. His descriptions are amazing, and I'm a sucker for good descriptive writing. The darkness of his writing is something that also appealed to me when I decided to read this book. I think it's important to expose myself to lots of different writing styles, even if they are not optimistic.