Re: hi from Erika

[Noelle <http://dummy.us.eu.org/robert>]

How are you doing? How is Steve's job search?
I wrote to my friend in New York, Carolyn(you met her in SB summer of '93)
who now has a master's degree in English literature, about Tess. She 
wrote:"Yes, it's as dark as you can get outside of holocaust books and 
the Inquisition. I do not think Hardy was judging Tess as much as the 
society that was unforgiving and classist ( not to mention sexist of 
course)....when you finish, see Roman Polanski's Tess. The last scene is 
particularly vivid (as it is in the book, although Polanski's is quite 
different from Hardy's) and Polanski does not shy away from bitter 
conclusions." Anyway, thought you would be interested. You will have to 
read one of my pal Lawrence's novels sometime. Though I remember what 
work of his struck me first was a short story "The Horse Dealer's 
Daughter". I had read Sons & Lovers in England for class, but when you 
read something in class it does not always grab you. But I read it later 
and appreciated it and then a couple years back I read the UNexpurgated 
version and was totally floored by the psychological insight. Carolyn 
read Return of the Native "read appropriately when I still was in King 
City a good warning to me"(I don't know what she means exactly). She is 
a Henry James fan, so this makes me want to read something by him.
I bought a cheap book, literary critique of Lawrence's The RAinbow, at 
Barnes & IGNoble(as I call it). It says "he criticized both Hardy and 
Tolstoy for deciding in advance that their best characters had to suffer 
defeat....Ursula [character in Rainbow]  is tempted to succumb by 
becoming defeatist or at least unconventional...Although her relationship 
with Skrebensky is reductive and partially a failure, at the same time it 
is partially a success. It is a necessary part of that struggle  into 
being that everyone must experience to become a complete human being." I 
thought this was interesting. Well, so much for literature seminar on 
line! I really ought to be doing real homework, but got carried away with 
this. Enjoy!