I have just finished reading Tess of the D’urbervilles, a book that I studied for A-Level English and last read when I was a law student in Chester in 1992. The book group that I am in reads a ‘Classic’ each year over Christmas, and this year it was the turn of Tess.

I loved the book when I was 16 – it is, I think, an ideal book to hand to an A Level class as ‘proper literature’. There is a good story, excellent and consistent characterisation, a huge amount of author comment and an eye-opening view on lifestyle and attitudes of the mid-to-late nineteenth century. Lots there for a class of intelligent not-quite-adults to get their teeth into.

So, has the book retained its power to enchant this older and more cynical 41-year-old version of myself? Yes, and yet also no. It is beautifully written, and there is more that I understood this time round. There is also less ‘black and white’ than I had believed when I saw the world in those hues. Yes, Alec is a pantomime villain in one light – but in another, he is as obsessed with Tess as Angel is, and it could be argued he actually treats her better than Angel Clare  in the later stages of the book. Angel is far, far from being a hero, yet one has to read his actions in historical context. And this time, I think it more likely that Tess was seduced than raped than I had thought when I was a teenager. Though it is still pretty ambiguous.

My big problem this time was Tess herself. She is not the strong protagonist I had thought two decades ago. Tess does virtually nothing in the book. No, that is not quite true. She does precisely two things, both of them disasterous (and in case you haven’t read the book I won’t say what they are). Otherwise, she flits from one event to another, always as the passive party. She is done to, or she follows someone else’s suggestion. Apart from the two Events, Tess is at no part in control of her own destiny, and this, I think, makes her a weaker character. I just wanted to give her a shake for much of the book and shout “For God’s sake woman, stop being such a drip.”

This may, of course, all be Hardy’s point. At the end of the book we are told that the President of the Immortals has finished his sport with Tess. So, maybe she is just a chess piece being moved around the board and this is what Hardy intended all the time – by making her take control, the Tragedy would somehow be diminished.

I think my next book will be something considerably lighter.