Customer Reviews
Hardys best - By: Stevo, 01 Nov 2007 
Hardy evockes such a powerful impression of women as strong independent people which at the time must have seemed brave for such a highbrow author. It seems a very modern novelin this respect & draws together all of his usual themes of class, tragedy, fate & love. His writing is at time's incredibly moving & powerful that you often need to take time away just to digest it's beauty & humanity. It is the perfect novel for me & one i now regard as my favourite ever. It always seems a shame that so few young people like myself read such a brilliant authors work .
Excellently read by Bron - By: Gavin Wilson, 21 Aug 2003 I have to be honest. Though a great lover of all of Hardy's fiction, I wasn't a big fan of Eleanor Bron's. (Perhaps I remember too vidily her sneering characterin Ken Russell's 'Womenin Love'.)
But Bron's sensitive reading of this tragedy is a revelation which had me totally enveloped. Tess comes across as a pitiful, humbly righteous creature whose destiny seems inevitably gloomy almost from the first minute. The male parts (mainly D'Urbeville & Angel Clare) are equally well read & clearly differentiated.
Tess's silent suffering is the antithesis of today's modern, assertive woman, but is no less noble.
This reading lasts six full CDs, but I wished it were even longer. (I have previously bought a two-CD version, but that necessarily eliminates much of the subtlety of the book.)
If you're studying this novel for an exam, this is the ideal version to get well acquainted with the story.
