By Thomas Hardy
Perhaps you've read this classic -- but if, somehow, you did not find it required reading in school or college, then I'd suggest you give it a read. I have always been in favor of 'unhappy' endings, and most classics seem to reflect real-life in a doomed, tragic manner, even though being redeemed by abundant human pathos.
In this classic, a poor villager, Jude Fawley, wants to enter the divinity school at Christminster (Oxford University). He gets sidetracked by falling in lust with an earthy village girl; marries and then, eventually, manages to escape her only to admit his long-time love for another woman. Together, their plight of poverty and ill-fated timing seem to create a never-ending series of failed endeavors and misfortune.
This is a deeply depressing, pessimistic novel; and yet, there is one scene that is so disturbing but almost prophetic about child abuse/neglect (and lack of societal opportunities) that it could be translated into today's society. Reading it made me cry -- and it'd been a long time since a novel had actually brought tears to my eyes.
It's slow-going at first, but I highly recommend this novel if you want to take a close look at the human condition and reality. Not for fantasy-lovers though!
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Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Tess, the heroine, becomes
a virtuous victim of a rigid Victorian moral code in
a series of plot twists and turns that will keep you
up weeping all night! Ladies should love it, even if
there is a grim, harsh light shone on Victorian
English society.
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The Scarlet Letter
By Nathaniel Hawthorne
Another novel for the ladies -- though it too has a deeply disturbing societal theme about passion and adultery. If you have been unlucky enough to have ONLY seen the movie version starring Demi Moore, I beg of you to read the novel. As so often is the case in Hollyweird, the movie directors just couldn't stand an 'unhappy' ending, and truly played fast and loose with the original story. Nathaniel Hawthorne must be turning over in his grave about that movie!
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