Tis because we be on a blighted star – Tess of the D'Urbervilles and A Little Life

Today I would like to write about how bad this world is. Seems silly.

Maybe. But this is what I need now.

I came through hell

and my life was divided on "before" and "after"this.

"After" is possible only because there was "before"

and I will keep "before" as a biggest treasure.

I don't want "after". Believe me. Or rather I do not have power for it.

I want "before" back or I don't want nothing at all

But...

"But" will be later.

Now I want to say how cruel this world is.

How numb, senseless...

How brings unhappiness and pain to good people

and destroys everything they love and value.

Just like that, with mindless power.

I will leave my personal experience 

as I am on my way to a slow recovery

and do not want to complain about myself.

I did it enough during last months.

I will concentrate on books

where the world shows itself in all its glory of cruelty.

The world face I hate so much.

Toward people who should not be treated like that.

Who were too delicate, too sensitive to be crushed...

Two books.

An old one and a new one

showing that, well it sounds like a cliche, nothing ever changed.

The world was always like that.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) by Thomas Hardy

- a Victorian novel.

A little life (2015) by Hanya Yanagihara–

a super hit that got many prizes.

I liked the first one much much more.

No, not because of Victorian times atmosphere

but because of beautiful language and much more consistent story.

Yanagihara went too much, put too many things in her book,

making it a little artificial and sometimes... boring.

I have nothing against long books, but this one was too long.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles on the other hand

even if far by time seemed so familiar, authentic

as I would hear a story about a childhood friend.

Both books are completely different

and I know that somebody can say that comparing them

doesn't make any sense,

but there is one character, main protagonist

I will dare to say that appear in both stories:

p  a  i  n .

And then the ways of dealing with it.

Tess and Jude's stories are absolutely different.

Jude went through suffering that was too much for me

to even try to grasp it.

Tess? Well, it was enough for a young girl living in the Victorian times.

There is a trauma, recovery attempts and ... a failure in the end.

They both found people they loved with all their hearts,

they both tried to start a new life.

They at least tried to believe that it is not an end for them.

But overcoming trauma was impossible. Or maybe fate. Or both.

I would like to say that at least they had some beautiful moments

before they fall.

Yes they had, but they were worth much more than this.

They should receive a consolation for this suffering...

When I finished reading both books

I was angry. I wanted to shout "no".

Don't allow them to finish like that.

But it was the end and I had to accept it.

Here is the world and what it has to offer you.

Nothing more. 

After anger some kind of wearisome apathy appeared.

So this is like that for all of us.

We can fight, try to recover, feel supported and then it just ends like that. 

I see so....

Life is so sad, he would think in those moments. It's so sad, and yet we all do it.

H. Yanagihara

And he cries and cries, cries for everything he has been, 
for everything he might have been, 

for every old hurt, for every old happiness (...)

H. Yanagihara

And then? 

we all do it

continue doing it...until the time comes.

And then nothing will change. 

No matter how much pain we go through nothing changes.

Meanwhile, the trees were just as green as before; 

the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever. 

The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, 

nor sickened because of her pain.

She might have seen that what had bowed her head so profoundly -

the thought of the world's concern at her situation- was found on an illusion. 

She was not an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself.

T. Hardy

Maybe this is why we continue it.

Because nothing will change.

Our suffering is an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations

for anybody but ourselves.

Why? Abraham, Tess's little brother words say it all:

Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a sound one, isn't it, Tess?" 

murmured Abraham through his tears.

This is a blighted star, indeed.

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