The Unforgivable Angel Clare

I have just finished watching Tess of the D'Urbervilles and cannot believe how relentless it is. I've read the book (twice) and still find it shockingly, hopelessly bleak. It is not the cruel, insatiable Alec D'Urberville who is the villain of the peice, but Angel Clare. And it is not his leaving of Tess which is the betrayal of the book, but his love for her, when he does not have the moral fibre or courage to see it through. That is what leaves me in tears, the inevitable truth that it will be those who love us most that will wound us the worst.

Some people don't like Hardy, because his work is flowery and heavy going, but he is an author that deserves time and effort. His stories may be somewhat fantastical, but the emotional depth is authentic, and he was a man that championed women and the under-priviledged, at a time when to show decency and morality in a "fallen" woman was scandalous.