Contemporary Critical Reception of Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Summary

When Tom Hardy’s “grim Christmas gift” (381), Tess of the d’Urbervilles, came out in 1891, many of the contemporary reviewers hailed it as a literary triumph—and hated it as a story. Not all, of course: The Pall Mall Gazette (381) praises the novel as a “concentrated tragedy” that gives a “most moving presentment of a ‘pure woman’,” and The Athenaeum (382), despite some quibbles over the author’s lack of impartiality, predicts Hardy’s work is “destined…to rank high among the achievements of Victorian novelists.” Others disagree. Their howls of displeasure center chiefly on Tess’s artistic honesty, or lack thereof. “[T]here is not,” writes The Saturday Review, “one single touch of nature either in John Durbeyfield or in any other character. All are stagey….Tess herself comes nearest to possibility…but even she is suggestive of the carefully-studied simplicity of the theatre” (383). The Review complains that if how a story is told matters more than what it is about, then “Mr. Hardy” has failed, telling “an unpleasant story in a very unpleasant way” (384). The Spectator agrees. “On the whole, we deny that Mr. Hardy has made out the case for Tess.… we cannot at all admire Mr. Hardy’s motive for writing this very powerful novel” (384). Perhaps Robert Louis Stevenson captures their feelings best when he cries, “Not alive, not true…not even honest!” (387).

Analysis

The Saturday Review writes: “it matters much less what a story is about than how that story is told” (384). This reminds me of an argument I have read many times by John Gardner, famous artistic novelist and creative writing teacher. “Nothing, let me pause to argue, could be farther from the truth than the notion that theme is all” (40). He explains:

The good young writer…knows what he knows and will not budge—chiefly knows that the first quality of good storytelling is storytelling. A profound theme is of trifling importance if the characters knocked around by it are uninteresting, and brilliant technique is a nuisance if it pointlessly prevents us from seeing characters and what they do. (44)

I believe The Saturday Review levels, in essence, this charge against Hardy and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. His theme is deep, his technique masterful, but his characters act so unbelievably that he failed on that most vital all points, good storytelling. Do I agree? I don’t know; but the argument does speak to the uneasiness I had while reading Tess. In moments Hardy would call fate, I found self-defeat. The author made his characters choose the worst of available choices at the worst moments—every time. No human being would do this. Hardy—again, every time—would trip up his characters not with a fateful event, but with the worst possible chain of fateful events. Perhaps the universe is random and therefore uncaring, but it is not so concentrated in malice. The book is one giant, oozing application of Murphy’s Law. To paraphrase Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, the god that Hardy doesn't believe in is unbelievably cruel.

And so I stick with Gardner:

In the final analysis, what counts is not the philosophy of the writer (that will reveal itself in any case) but the fortunes of the characters, how their principles of generosity or stubborn honesty or stinginess or cowardice help them or hurt them in specific situations. What counts is the characters' story. (43)

Works Cited

Gardner, John. On Becoming a Novelist. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1985. Print.

Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles: An Authoritative Text: Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. Ed. Scott Elledge. New York: Norton, 1991. Print.