Christmas is on the way.

Yesterday silkyraven and I made Four trips out shopping to buy food, booze and supplies for Christmas! It was all Very heavy but now we have a well stocked house. HORRAY! Later we were joined by indigo_violet for a trip to Big Red. Which made for a relaxed and fun evening. This afternoon my sister camelstrong is coming to stay! I'm excited to see her. Poor Bill is still quite feverish, but I'm giving him lots of medicine and hopefully he'll be better for the holiday!

Tess of the D'ubervilles by Thomas Hardy

Tess of the D'ubervilles by Thomas Hardy

I decided it was time to read this book as last week my flatmate described it as the "most depressing book I've ever read". Now having finished it I can't say the same (Well of Loneliness still wins that award for me) but I did enjoy. The only problem I had with it was Tess herself. She seemed not to have enough clear definition or motivation. It was difficult to know what her feelings and ideas were. I thought this was particularly struck home when Angel Clare showed up 150 pages in, and suddenly Hardy was explaining his background, education, thoughts ideas and principles. Unfortunately with Tess herself there was none of that. I think this made it harder for me to feel her plight. And I did find the "moral" stance to be rather strange. Still there were some things that were done very well. I got a real sense of place from the book, I felt that the minor characters were more developed and could imagine them carrying on their lives outside of the main plot. I also really liked the family curse and the suicidal milkmaids. Overall I did like it, but not as much as I had hoped to.