A Very Awful Good Book

I read Tess of the D’Urbervilles several years ago when I got it from a sister-in-law at a family “book exchange” -- I thought I was over it now, but someone brought it up recently and I was surprised by the intensity of my feelings -- like feeling a violent surge of anger upon hearing the name of a past enemy, one whom you’d convinced yourself you’d forgiven. I guess I am not over it. I hardly even remember the details of the book, but I remember that I loved poor Tess, and I remember how awful the end was. I was mad at the author for days afterwards (well, apparently more than days). It just made you want to raise your fists to the sky and shake them at fate (fictional though it was) for allowing her life to go so awry when with a few minute changes, just a few strokes of luck, had she not gone to one place, or had she gone to another, had there been a small change in the timing of any number of crucial decisions she might have had the most happy of endings!

So, I have not yet recovered after all. What’s more, I’ve given away the ending to anyone who didn’t know. I suppose, as a friend commented, it must have been a pretty good book for its outcome to affect me so.