Tessy
Just finished reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles. For some reason, this snatch of
dialogue from Mel Brooks's Young Frankenstein kept coming back to me: "Could be worse."
"How?" "Could be raining." [starts to pour].
Don't know that much about literature, but am I wrong in thinking that the two main
characters were Tess and The Creation? I don't recall feeling so embedded in a place
while reading a novel before. I'm not just talking about the hills and valley's but
also the details of outdoor activities. Most authors that I've read will synchronize
the duration of the reading with the duration of the dialogue or activity by
eavesdropping on the character's thought or by inserting relevant bits of back-story to
draw things out. But Hardy will describe the physical reality that contains the
dialogue. Conversations that take place, for instance, while milking cows really take
place amidst the miking of cows. The threshing scene in chapter 47-48 is amazing. The
remorseless grinding of the machine with Tess standing on top, feeding it all day long
is unforgettable, as is the detail of the rat-catching hunt as she got to the bottom of
the rick.
The scene takes two long chapters, and the "point" of it (as far as plot goes) is an
intermittent conversation. That conversation could have taken place anywhere, but
having it just there imbued it with all sorts of resonances or connotations--and also
extended it for emphasis. There's a lot to glean from those pages. Here are some
descriptions of the threshing machine itself: "Close under the eaves of the stack, and
as yet barely visible, was the red tyrant that the women had come to serve." And here
is what he says of the man who ran the thresher: "He was in the agricultural world, but
not of it. He served the fire and smoke; these denizens of the field served vegetation,
weather, frost, and sun." And further, "His fire was waiting incandescent, his steam was
at high pressure, in a few seconds he could make the long strap move at an invisible
velocity. Beyond its extent the environment might be corn, straw, or chaos; it was all
the same to him. If any of the autochthonous idlers asked him what he called himself,
he replied shortly, 'an engineer.'" The Biblical and pagan allusions abound throughout,
but they do so in the detail, and the detail is in the environment.
Anyway, I expected when I started that I would hate this book, but quickly changed my
mind. It is now one huge puzzle to me. Clearly, Alec d'Urberville is an irredeemable
baddie, but I'm totally perplexed about Tess and Angel. For instance, there is one line
that epitomizes my point. Tess has just heard from Alec that he has rejected his
newfound religion and feels that the absence of God's threat has now removed all reason
for him to be responsible. Tess has been relying up to this point on arguments she
heard from Angel. Hardy now says, "She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed
in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of
mankind had been quite distinct. But owing to Angel Clare's reticence, to her absolute
want of training, and to her being a vessel of emotions rather than reasons, she could
not get on." It's this last phrase that jumps out: "owing to her being a vessel of
emotions rather than reason." So just exactly how do we take this? The surface
reference is to the common assumption that all women are by nature incapable of
reasoning. But is this really Hardy's statement? Is it the narrator's? Is it bitter
irony? Is it mockingly said of Tess alone, rather than of all women? The men, after
all, nowhere exhibit any ability to reason either, driven as they are in every action by
lust, public opinion, or vanity. It seems the height of irony to drag up this
shibboleth to explain Tess's lack of ready words when she's been feeding the threshing
machine for hours while Alec has dawdled nearby watching.
Great book. Lots to explore.
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