TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES By Thomas Hardy (PHASE THE SEVENTH)

Alas! It is finished. To be honest it all seemed to end rather quickly and I can't decided whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. All the way through, despite enjoying the book, and I've been longing for it to finally finish, and now that it is finished, it's sort of left me with a bit of a book-hangover. I genuinely never expected Tess of the d'Urbervilles to give me book-hangover. For those of you who are unaware of the term book-hangover here it is:

Even twenty four hours after finishing the book, I still don't really know how I feel about the ending. Its really difficult to explain without giving too much away, although with it being a classic, everyone probably knows how it finishes anyway.

I knew what was coming and I knew it was going to be awful,but I never envisaged it to be like this. In fact, this has been the only section of the book when I haven't been furiously angry with the author, the characters and everyone else involved in the book. Hardy wrapped everything up and tied all the loose ends incredibly quickly, leaving you with a sense of almost lostness and almost defencelessness because for so long you have had these characters and their personalities to keep you going and now it all ends so quickly that you don't really have time to say goodbye properly. In addition to this, I find that Tess becomes very harsh and impulsive in the final chapter of this book, which is understandable once she meets Angle again but, before hand it seems a little odd that she has gone so long living in the hope that her husband would return that you never expect her to suddenly up and leave to go somewhere else.

I found that once Angle returned to the country from Brazil, I didn't hate him nearly as much as I did before he left and what was more was that I wasn't upset with myself for not hating him either. In fact the tables turned a little and I felt really sorry for him and I was so please that he had finally come to his sense, but even Angle seems to follow the same metaphor as everyone else in this book: Too little too late.

Over all I have very much enjoyed reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles and I would not at all mind reading some other works of Thomas Hardy. Hardy is a very successful author who definitely knew how to get a response out of his audience and how to make them feel exactly what he wants them to feel. I admire him and his work and would recommend that most people should read his work if they get the chance.