Oumaima BOUCHIBA BOUCHIBA itibaren Erftstadt, Almanya
While reading Tess, I listened to a lot of 'RadioHead'. Songs such as 'Karma Police' and 'Fake Plastic Trees' captured the mood of this novel perfectly, beautiful and absolutely devastating. From one mistake, one single moment of bad judgement, that was not even your fault, how do you move on with your life? How does that single moment in time affect every decision you make? And there is nothing more dangerous than a beautiful woman with good intentions. With every step Tess made you felt her pain. This a very earthy novel, you can feel the sloppy friction of the country mud, the grass between your toes, the sour breath of a cow (and there are a lot of cows). Tess, I suppose is meant to be a child of the earth, simple, pure. The intelligent thing Hardy does is, even though he hunts Tess with predatory sharpness, he gives her just enough room to fall off the cliff. And because of this, Tess is the rare creature who can step out of Victorian novel and into a modern flawed character.