Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Okay, let's actually do an old Old Book this week, from an old favorite of mine, the master of doom himself, Thomas Hardy. Why do we (or at least I) enjoy stories where bad things happen to good people, as they so often do in Hardy? Perhaps the way Hardy mercilessly arranges coincidence and fate to thwart his characters makes the life force within them even more evident and attractive (none more so than Tess herself). Their fates may be specific to their circumstances, as Tess's is to her untenable ambition for freedom as a woman, but the spirit with which they resist (and succumb) resonates with all of us for whom fate will also, sooner or later, have its way.