To wish Tess had just gone with Angel

[WallaceinAnderland]

This is probably a popular and well discussed opinion but it just makes me so sad every time. She didn't have to kill Alec, she was legally married to Angel. She could have just walked away.

Sorry to disagree, but I don't there will ever be a more perfect Tess than Nastassja Kinski 😍

I studied Hardy years ago as an undergraduate - both poetry and novels - but until this year I'd never read The Dynasts. I suspected I'd find it really hard going - a history of the Napoleonic wars didn't necessarily grab me as scintillating - but the idea of the overworld and its various spirits had me hooked.

Half the last instalment to go!

no I'm not joking.

I have read it - plenty of people have not.

Do you post spoilers for the Mousetrap for fun?

OH he did indeed like to torture his characters; anybody read his long short story "Barbara of the House of Grebe"?

The Mousetrap is a play that has been running for a few decades and there is an accepted etiquette about not spoiling it for other theatre goers.

Tess of the Dubervilles was published in 1891.

Lol, I saw the mousetrap years ago and can't remember a thing about it... so I couldn't post spoilers even if I tried!😂

But what book?!

Well you know, threads about real people not book/TV/show characters.

There's currently a thread in AIBU about Peppa Pig.

There's no rules about what subjects can be discussed in AIBU.

I must admit, it didn't really occur to me that people who didn't get the reference to a classic book would be bothered about reading the thread or posting on it.

Given that you can read the entire plot of The Mousetrap online in great detail, this is one of the silliest posts I’ve seen here for some time.

Tess of the D’urbervilles.

whatever. There are PLENTY of people who don't go out of their way to look for spoilers for anything.

You do you

Hardy dropped it 134 years ago and it's not a famous whodunit that specifically requests the audience never to reveal the twist ending.

It doesn't require a spoiler warning.

Mousetrap spoilers 🤣

Poor Hardy received such a terrible backlash from an appalled public after he published Jude, he refused to publish his novels ever again. He just stuck with his nice poems instead.

I'm not easily shocked but I was, genuinely, when I read the infanticide aspect of Jude - not that this isn't an integral part of human history, sadly.

I assumed that Victorian readers had responded similarly, hence the controversy surrounding the book. It came as quite a surprise that nobody seemed to turn a hair at that, and were instead offended over childbirth out of wedlock.

Could be a question of changing values for changing times, but I always found that odd.

It came as quite a surprise that nobody seemed to turn a hair at that, and were instead offended over childbirth out of wedlock.

And ironically, of course, that level of moral outrage over children out of wedlock - that it was more shocking than murder and suicide - goes some way towards explaining why Little Father Time did what he did.

I must admit, it didn't really occur to me that people who didn't get the reference to a classic book would be bothered about reading the thread or posting on it

Quite.

Fascinating thread. Equal mixture of interesting discussion about a classic novel, and free for all bunfight over very little.

What are you talking about?

I think she killed Alex because he consistently told her that Angel would never come back and that was part of the reason she started living with him again ( that, and to help her feckless mother and her young siblings) She should have murdered Angel too!

Tess of the D'Ubervilles. A novel by Thomas Hardy.

I hate that book.

Mumsnet all over

I love that book. We can't all like the same things!

I thought it was this fury realised Alex had lied to her and finally snapping at his cruelty to her - she lost control.

She may also had less educated ideas around common law marriage and may have thought Alex has some marital claim - but that's less clear.

I found Jude much bleaker - but saw that as film rather than read it as I did with Tess of the d'Urbervilles so that could be why I suppose as I had no idea of the plot.

It's not embarrassing you nit. I read it 40 years ago, probably before you were even born. It is most commonly discussed on MN after one of the screen adaptations has been aired.

It is a classic, but they're not real people. IMO it does not belong in AIBU, especially written as it is.

MN is a largely U.K. based forum, but there are plenty of people from other countries/cultures who will not have a clue they are characters in a book/screen adaptation & not everyone in the U.K. will have read it or seen it. It is rude to just post it like this, as another poster rightly said 'this is not 'vaguebook'