Jude the Obscure (Modern Library Classics)

by Thomas Hardy

book data

5,049 ratings, 3.83 average rating, 535 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		32%
4		33%
3		22%
2		7%
1		4%

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published

August 14th 2001 (first published 1895) by Modern Library

binding

Paperback, 528 pages

characters

Jude Fawley, Sue Bridehead, Arabella Donn, "Old Father Time", ...more

setting

The United Kingdom

isbn

0375757414 (isbn13: 9780375757419)

description

Upon its first appearance in 1895, Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure shocked Victorian critics and readers with a frank depiction of sexuality and an un...more

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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 6,702)

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09/05/07

Eric rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

bookshelves: literature

Read in February, 2007

recommends it for: people who feel better when they compare their life to Jude's.

If you like sunshine, unicorns, and lollipops, then you probably won't like this book. If it's raining and you're vaguely manic depressive of if you just want to sit around for a few hours and feel sorry for someone other than yourself - well, Jude's your man.

I can't fault Hardy's talents at controlling the mood. Even before it became horrendously horrendous, there was a pall of doom that hung over everything that poor Jude touched.

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

1 comment

07/21/08

Martine rated it:

(review of isbn 0140431314)

bookshelves: british, film, nineteenth-century, psychological-drama

Read in September, 1996

recommends it for: people in need of some good old-fashioned tragedy

If it weren't for the fact that it's somewhat whiny and depressing (and that's putting it mildly), Jude the Obscure would be an ideal book for secondary school pupils struggling with their book reports. See, the way Hardy wrote the novel, the reader is not required to think for himself about what the characters are like and why they suffer the misfortunes they do. Hardy spells it all out for him, mostly by having the characters analysing themselves and each other ad nauseam. Thus the reader is t...more If it weren't for the fact that it's somewhat whiny and depressing (and that's putting it mildly), Jude the Obscure would be an ideal book for secondary school pupils struggling with their book reports. See, the way Hardy wrote the novel, the reader is not required to think for himself about what the characters are like and why they suffer the misfortunes they do. Hardy spells it all out for him, mostly by having the characters analysing themselves and each other ad nauseam. Thus the reader is told that the ambitious stone mason Jude is a 'purblind, simple creature' whose scandalous relationship with his free-spirited cousin Sure is doomed to fail because Sue is an 'ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitive girl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfil the conditions of the matrimonial relation ... possibly with scarce any man' (subtle foreshadowing, that) and who, for all her modern ideas, doesn't 'have the courage of [her] views', as she helpfully informs Jude (and the reader) in one of the many dialogues in which her character is discussed at length. Hardy spends so much time spelling out his protagonists' psychological quirks (usually in the form of dialogue) that it borders on the absurd. As a lazy twenty-something reader, I loved this tendency of his (it even struck me as very good characterisation), but when I reread the book last weekend, I wanted to find myself a time machine, head for 1893 and hand Hardy the OED page on which the concept of subtlety is explained, as well as a plaque reminding him to 'Show, Don't Tell', to be put over his writing desk and memorised afresh before each new chapter. Seriously. The characterisation is that overblown.

Hardy's tendency to beat his reader over the head with psychological insights is not the only thing about Jude the Obscure which would make a modern creative writing teacher reach for his red pen. The author also makes the mistake of adding a child to the story who talks and behaves as no other child has ever been known to. His unlikely inclusion and the even more unlikely resolution to his storyline are so preposterously overdramatic and sentimental that they ruin what could have been a very good story despite all its flaws. For make no mistake, there's a good story hidden in there somewhere. There's some genuine tragedy in this tale about a man who keeps making the same mistakes, a woman who is emotionally incapable of love, and a cruel society which will neither allow them to make their dreams come true nor condone any impropriety. As an indictment of Victorian marriage laws and social intolerance, Jude the Obscure is quite effective (it caused an outrage on its initial publication, and understandably so; one can only wonder what the irate Victorian audience would have made of the uncensored draft of the book, which contained even more offensive scenes). As a requiem to dreams, an exploration of happiness versus duty and a lesson not to get side-tracked from one's dreams by false sentiments, it's a powerful read -- or so it would be if it weren't for Hardy's penchant for histrionics and unsubtle characterisation. Pity he didn't have a modern creative writing teacher to teach him the ropes. For all his talent, he really could have done with one here.(less)

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

4 comments

11/14/07

Jessica rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

bookshelves: kind-of-depressing

Read in January, 2001

recommended to Jessica by: the guy at the crisis hotline
recommends it for: YOU, if you've finished all the chicken soup for the soul books already

If I remember correctly, this book is a real laff riot, with a touchingly sweet and uplifting message. I think I read somewhere that Hardy was feted in the streets of his hometown Christminster and given the Feelgood Author of 1895 Award for this baby, and rightly so! What a heartwarming gift for someone who's feeling down, such as a student who's just lost his financial aid, or someone you know who's trying to make an unconventional relationship work despite social strictures. Okay, full disclo...more

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39 comments

07/02/07

Ted rated it:

i've avoided thomas hardy for most of my life: first from ignorance, then on the advice of a few friends whose taste i trust. then i read an inspirational article in the tls this summer, on the relationship -- both personal and working -- between hardy and henry ibsen, which directed me towards jude the obscure. the description i found there led me to hope that the novel's themes (anticlericism, the emerging modern person, etc) would be right up my alley. so i took the dive.[return][return]i wis...more

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07/23/07

Drew rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

bookshelves: lit

Read in January, 2000

recommends it for: men

Jude is every man. He is obscure, in that his choices make no sense, and yet complete sense. He manages to impregnate a local woman he has no aspirations to marry, and yet does. He abandons hope for a rewarding and successful career. Then he carries on with his cousin, mainly because she is a way out of his dull life. All along, we are reminded of what could have been, if only this man could settle for one woman. He meets the best end for a character I've ever read, and one that is more th...more

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12/31/07

Lauren rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

Read in April, 2007

Just about killed me. An incredible, crushing novel. Hardy writes what I feel. If I didn't know any better about Hardy, I'd think this novel was the 19th-century "Requiem for a Dream," the equivalent of an anti-emotional, anti-adultery PSA. That's how harsh it is. I know a lot of people were made to read it in high school, but then again, I had the weird childhood. The epitome of a tragic figure, Jude Fawley is shut down at every turn... or built up slightly, only to lose everything. T...more

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10/02/07

Jeremy rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

Read in August, 2004

recommends it for: Young Men (there's no need to feel down), I said Young Men

Much truth to be taken from this book, for instance: don't trust women. They lie. All of them. And don't like girls that don't like you back, it'll only end badly. And don't let your children kill themselves, that'll also end badly. And stop trying to be a priest when you enjoy getting your laid on all the time.

Man I learned a lot. Thank you Mr. Hardy!

PS. The descriptions of Christminster are phenominous (yeah, I made that word).

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11/26/08

Nocturne rated it:

(review of isbn 0451523709)

As with Tess, this book concerns the injustices inherent to conventional society with particular emphasis on marriage and religion. Unlike Tess, it's written primarily from the male perspective -- and perhaps more closely reflects Thomas Hardy's own point of view.

I found it validating and infuriating by turns. At times, it was disheartening. I very much related to Sue but couldn't quite discern Hardy's tone in regard to her. (I wish reviewers would stop calling her a frigid narcissis...more

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2 comments

06/18/08

Jamie rated it:

(review of isbn 1593080352)

Read in September, 2008

If you are looking for a good cry, Thomas Hardy is always there. I did not like Jude the Obscure nearly as much as I have liked some of Hardy's other works (i.e. Tess and Return of the Native), but I still very much enjoyed it. I never really liked Sue Brideshead as a character, but I found myself rooting for Jude the whole way through the book and hoping that she would say yes to marriage. Alas!

By the end of the book I was sobbing. Not that I didn't know it was coming. Hardy ha...more

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08/03/07

Chris rated it:

(review of isbn 0760703000)

bookshelves: all-time_favorites, classic_literature

Read in January, 1994

To say that the book is bleak is to say that the sun is warm. Bleak is the entire point of Jude the Obscure. In fact, most of Thomas Hardy's works can be summed up with that same word.

Characters in Hardy's books make bad decisions. As a reader, you "watch" them make bad decisions, and you know that there will be consequences. But Hardy never lets you believe that all of the misery in your life is self-inflicted - because even when his characters try to make the right de...more

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08/18/08

Choupette rated it:

(review of isbn 0140431314)

bookshelves: 1001-books, classics, own-or-access, to-review

Read in December, 2008

More like 3.5.

I felt misled about this book. It wasn't nearly as dark and depressing as it claimed to be, and as such was disappointing to me. Also it seemed to be less about Jude's struggles to get into a university (indeed he seemed to give up rather easily to my mind) as promised by the blurb, than about his romantic trials and tribulations, particularly those involving Sue Bridehead, whose character, incidentally, drove me up the wall. A more pathetic, snivelling, 'quivering', de...more

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09/19/07

Elwood Glover is currently reading it (review of isbn 160312067X)

bookshelves: currently-reading

Read in January, 1990

recommends it for: anyone

It's a classic. The edition I own is actually a British paperback that I bought in 1976, when I was 20. I started it at that time but didn't finish it; picked it up again 10 or 15 years later and read it through. I found the story gripping but was irritated by the arbitrary-seeming strokes of misfortune that afflict the main character. I've since read several of Hardy's earlier novels ("Far From the Madding Crowd", "The Mayor of Casterbridge", "A Pair Of Blue Eyes"...more

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03/15/08

Colin rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

Read in March, 2008

I bought this book so long ago. During my sophomore year in high school, I was in Kaufman and Hart's "The Man Who Came to Dinner," a play littered with literary allusions. I don't know why, but I decided that I was going to make my way through them.

Eight years later, I have completed the first of the books, and it was great. Last fall, I read "Far from the Madding Crowd," but this was much better. Mostly over 400 pages of Victorian prose is not easy to get t...more

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07/23/08

Amy rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

This was difficult to rate. I wholeheartedly agree with another reader who wrote: "Some days it was a five star read and others a two, with me wanting to throw it at a wall." The characters were so human, so painful in their weaknesses. It was heartbreaking to witness the obscure (yes!) demise of humans with so much initial promise. I'm half-cursing Hardy. But he does make his statement (shockingly for the time period) about marriage, social norms, feminism. Sue drove me crazy th...more

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2 comments

08/29/08

Rob Walter rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

bookshelves: currently-reading

This man can write! It was recommended to me by Nicholas Manning, but he failed to mention that the man can write. Very beautiful, economical, unselfconscious prose that is refreshing if you've been working through too much Don DeLillo and Martin Amis.

I'm only about thirty pages in, but so far the plot is basically the same as Harry Potter (with about the same depth of charecterisation). I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles many years ago and hated it because of that stupid I-love-you-but-...more

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08/26/07

Dorothy rated it:

This one killed my Hardy reading streak. Jude is the male version of Tess of the D'Urbervilles: witless, gullible, and uber-dramatic. He wallows in self pity while stumbling through his highly improbable, moronic existence, which reads like a twisted version of "A Series of Unfortunate Events." Suicide? It's a given. Adultery? You bet. Incest, polygamy and infectious disease? Yes indeedy. I was so hardened by the grisly events of previous chapters that I found myself rejoicing a...more

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04/24/07

Claire rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

this book annoys me to an incredible degree, forced to study Hardy at college, i developed a loathing for his novels that has never faded. perhaps the most trying element is 'young father Time' and idea that 'dun because we are too menny' - what on earth was Hardy thinking? a child can spell 'because' but not 'done' or 'many'?

his poetry is all right, mind.

the best thing I ever learnt about TH was that when he was born, the midwife thought he was dead and chucked him int...more

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11/16/07

Meaghan rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

bookshelves: classics

Read in January, 2005

recommends it for: Hardy fans

Midway through I called my boyfriend, who has an English lit degree, and asked, "Um, besides all the spouse-swapping, is anything actually going to happen in this book?" He laughed and said, "Trust me. Something's going to happen."

Something did.

I finished the book at 3:00 a.m. and couldn't sleep all night. I staggered down to breakfast and sat in the cafeteria with such a traumatized expression that several friends asked me what had happened. Thomas Ha...more

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11/20/08

Nate rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

Read this if you're looking for that final push towards suicide.

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12/31/07

Salma rated it:

(review of isbn 0486452433)

bookshelves: classic-lit

I probably have no business reviewing this at all, since I've gotten only halfway through the book. And that was three years ago. I adore Hardy, so what the hell is it about this tome that had me putting it aside every time I progressed a few pages? Maybe because it was taking so long for things to happen, for Chrissake. I've read about how this book shocked society through all the horrid things that happened, and I'm like- okay, where do these horrible things happen? Page 300? Maybe I'm just hy...more

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