Tess Of The d’Urbervilles - BBC 4

I'm glad I'm not the only one who likes the books. As a teenager I was absorbed into the books. My father introduced me to them and they were just up my street. I've never really got into the TV versions but I think I'll give them a whirl.

Far From The Madding Crowd was one of the books on an OU course I did on the 19thC novel. It was originally published as a serial in a magazine edited/owned IIRC by Virginia Wolf’s father, and (to me anyway) it was interesting to see how each episode ended on a cliffhanger, like a TV soap.

The original magazine version was toned down here and there, as certain scenes (e.g. Bathsheba opening the coffin to see the abandoned woman (forget her name) and her baby) were considered too shocking for Nice Innocent Young Ladies of the sort who could afford a relatively expensive magazine! (A shilling, IIRC).

Hardy put them back in for the book version, since it was considered that anyone able to afford a guinea and a half per volume (usually 3) or to have a lending library subscription, was unlikely to have their morals corrupted!

I love Hardy's novels. Maybe it's the bleakness!
For me, Julie Christie was a brilliant Bathsheba - we both see that version as the definitive Far from the Madding Crowd film.
I'm now keen to re read Hardy's poems.

Just watched Far From the Madding Crowd with Carey Mulligan. Saw it at the cinema and liked it and have watched it a few times. Maybe it’s because I’ve come to realise what a great actor Matthias is ( when I first saw it he didn’t seem right as Gabriel; I still think Captain Troy was miss cast) but I now think it’s a classic. And, unlike most Hardy adaptations, the end makes me cry but in a happy way.

If anyone watches the series of The Mayor of Casterbridge and has read the book could they tell me if the adaptation differs from it. I did Wikipedia it and some storylines seem different. It was a masterclass in acting by Alan Bates although I felt that Anna Massey seemed to be miss cast as Lucilla. Now to start on Wessex Tales!

Started catching The Mayor of Casterbridge last night. Hadn’t realised it was adapted by Dennis Potter. I must admit that it seems like quite a miserable story but it’s good to watch an adaptation of a book that I know nothing about ( same thing happened with the wonderful adaptation of Bleak House). Good as it is for its time tv dramas are so much better visually now.

I watched the last episode on iPlayer last night. As usual I was upset and disturbed by the ending. It’s just so unbearably sad. Yet again, I wanted to shake Angel Clare, brilliantly played by a young Eddie Redmayne.

All of his novels have the same frustrating element - that of just missing something positive that results in the negative. Hardy was a fatalist. The last line of Tess is “The masters of fate in aschylean phrase had finished their sport with Tess.”

DrWatson

Yes, Jude was on last night (Thurs) too. Sadly Thomas Hardy is one of the most miserable, tedious authors in the English Language, exceptionally fortunate to appear at a time when almost anyone who could string a couple of vaguely credible sentences together might get published.

I recall having to waste a year of Eng Lit lessons when we had to study Far From The Madding Crowd, a novel I also mostly slept through a couple of years later when it appeared in film form, even Julie Christie's charms or those of Alan Bates couldn't enliven it enough. I see an IMDB review now says :- "does not shy away from Hardy's bleak view of existence". Well, if in any doubt readers, DO shy away!

I totally agree DrWatson ! And I too hated FFTMC at school. When I expressed doubts about his writing to my teacher (mainly his tortuous language) she said to remember that he was self-taught, so possibly wanted to use his novels to emphasise how well-read he was. Funny how I remember this conversation nearly 50 years later!

It is. Wessex Tales looks really old.

Thank you, I will check these out over the weekend. I wonder if The Mayor Of Casterbridge is the old version with Alan Bates?

They’re also showing Wessex Tales and The Mayor of Casterbridge. I haven’t seen either of them. Along with several documentaries about Hardy. I shall watch them and work myself towards rewatching Tess.

MayBee70

I’ve just watched the Gemma Arterton interview about the making of it and I’m in bits. I hadn’t realised that Jodie Whittaker was in it too. I don’t know if I can bear to rewatch it.

Ruth Jones is in it too, as Tess’s mother.

I’ve watched the first two episodes this weekend. I remember watching this series when it was first screened in 2008 (I looked up when it was first shown.) It’s a beautiful series, captures the essence of Tess so well.

rubysong the letter slipping under the mat was in the book. It was one of those ‘chance’ happenings that Hardy was so fond of, that influenced the next events, just by chance.

I think the letter going under the mat was in the book. (I now need to reread it.)

rubysong

This morning I listened to a very interesting discussion about Tess. It was on BBC sounds, Melvyn Bragg 'in our time'. Well worth a listen if, like me, you are currently obsessed with the book. A few years ago we went to Hardy's house in Dorchester and saw the room in which he wrote Tess.

Just listened to it. It was very good ( sometimes IOT can get a bit tedious, it depends who’s on)They did make one mistake, though. They said that Tess confessed her past to Angel on their wedding night. However, she’d written to Angel prior to that telling him about her past and slipped it under his door. She assumed that he had read it but still wanted to go ahead with the wedding. But the note had slipped under a mat and he didn’t see it. Was that just put into the adaptation or did it happen in the book, too ( it’s a long time since I read it)? I’d forgotten just how beautiful the music was in the BBC production; at least I knew it was lovely but it was even more heartbreakingly lovely than I’d remembered. It’s a book that you need to read for the first time when you’re young and love and finding that special person is such a huge part of your life. I think that’s why it’s so painful reading it when one gets old as it takes you back to how intense those feelings are, and how painful broken romances and rejections* are.
*Alas I had plenty of those !

I’ve just watched the Gemma Arterton interview about the making of it and I’m in bits. I hadn’t realised that Jodie Whittaker was in it too. I don’t know if I can bear to rewatch it.

Thanks for that. I haven’t listened to In Our Time for a while ( there are so many good podcasts these days I can’t keep up with them). I’ll check that one out. I wonder if there’s a Backlisted podcast about it, too?

This morning I listened to a very interesting discussion about Tess. It was on BBC sounds, Melvyn Bragg 'in our time'. Well worth a listen if, like me, you are currently obsessed with the book. A few years ago we went to Hardy's house in Dorchester and saw the room in which he wrote Tess.

Thank you Jane 43 I'll be looking out for it.

True. But as a young man meeting and falling in love with Emma in Cornwall was truly romantic. I wonder if their childlessness caused them both a lot of pain? When I used to walk along the Valency (my favourite walk; from The Cobweb Inn up to Minster Church) I always used to imagine them walking there.

madalene

Ilovedogs
I remember my first visit to Stonehenge. It was when you could still walk amongst the stones. It felt very evocative to me, thinking of the symbolism of Tess lying on the stone. When we pass Stonehenge now, I always think of Tess.
I said I love it in my first post. I meant it really touched me because it was so emotive. I always think of Hardy even now, when something happens just by pure chance, and then leads to something else happening.
I agree that Hardy had a dark view of life.

Like me you can feel Tess's pain & heartbreak. It's quiet amazing, uncanny even, that a grumpy older gentleman from a rather privileged, uptight upbringing could possibly capture the essence & agony of poor tragic Tess. 😥

I think it’s the most beautiful adaptation. I spent my hippie years in Cornwall which is probably why I love it so much. My only problem with it is that I thought d’Urbeville was far more gorgeous than Angel! The acting, scenery and music is wonderful and the bit at the end makes me cry no matter how many times I watch it ( when the flag goes up …)

rubysong Episode 3 is on next Wednesday at 10pm.

rubysong

I saw parts one and two this week but can't find parts three and four in future listings. I hope I haven't missed them as our I player is not loading properly.

It’s possible that they haven’t been broadcast yet and sometimes episodes are only put in the iPlayer after they’ve been broadcast. I’ll have a look in the tv guide to see if they are on soon.