Ken’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2020)

Ken’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

June will be lighter fare, certainly. More upbeat, maybe. But good writing. The kind that obscurely sneaks up on you.

Hey, friends. We have adopted a 3-a-year reading group model. The next month for a book discussion is therefore June.

Some time in late April, we'll blast a message out to members for book ideas. Then we'll do a poll and select one.

In this thread, feel free to discuss types of books we should tackle, whether you prefer a wide-ranging choice or prefer one genre more than another.

We could also designate each month of the year to a genre, e.g. Feb. = classics, June = another genre, October = a third.

When this week's discussion wraps up (officially Feb. 28th, though anyone can continue to chip in), I will redesign the page so it becomes The Obscure Reading Group with a reading schedule (looks like, with a 5 vote lead) of three reads a year:

February

June

October

Maybe the writer of the article is in error. Maybe "Little" Father Time is NOT a teenager.

Twain is universally criticized for that Tom Sawyer-hijinks ending to Huck Finn. Of course, I thought the book dropped off even sooner, with the arrival of the Duke and the Dauphin. I flat-out love the first third of the book, though.

The Partially-Great American Novel, let's call it.

Interesting, indeed. For one, it referred to "Little Father Time" as a "teenager," which I missed entirely. Why did I think he was this grade-school kid?

As for the Greek tragedy parallels, I certainly get how the ending matches up, but it's missing that lovely deus ex machina.

Self-knowledge? It doesn't go over so well, but the outside forces (social norms, small-minded gossip, Church of England) run so much interference that it's hard to think. Perhaps a move to Cold Mountain where the characters can meditate?

Also, Arabella just blithely goes on, almost like an animal, happy in her day to day living and doing her best to take the shortest route to happiness and convenience. Not a lot of deep thinking or empathy there....

So how do parents who created an Arabella raise (as grandparents in Oz) a kid like Father Time? The gap in personalities is so huge that it's hard to figure.

Speaking of Arabella, I found it interesting how Hardy made an "evil" character who didn't measure up to readers' usual expectations of an "evil" character.

This was no Fagin or Uriah Heep or Iago or Nurse Ratched, after all. Arabella was more in the line of "girls just want to have fun," but at the most inappropriate of times (like, say, when your husband is dying).

Unlike L.F.T., Hardy did it right with ole Arabella, a femme fatale like we've never seen before!

Jan wrote: "Kathleen wrote: "Jan wrote: "Carol wrote: "As for Little Father Time, I agree with you; though this was exceptionally sad for me, I never believed that this was logical or at least not feasible as ..."

Jan, at the end of your post, you mention something that always occurred to me when reading Victorian lit. (chiefly Dickens) that I knew was serialized. Namely, how much was the author affected by the unfolding narrative over time and by the public's reaction to it?

No doubt, many authors aren't 100% sure of where there novels are going, even when they are well into them. Serialization also offers the luxury of reconsideration.

As for Father Time and symbolism, I'm not sure about that. I do think, though, it was a statement about society's mistreatment of children of some sort. When the murders/suicide came, a bit of a hamfisted statement, but a statement nonetheless.

Cathleen wrote: "...maybe there’s only so much leeway for one to be an individual or to push against society’s norms before he or she gets snapped back or penalized into conformity."

Good point, though "society" used to be a monolithic thing until recently. Nowadays, like "Choose Your Own Adventure," you can choose your own truth and your own norms depending on what "feed" you're on (technology---and specifically the Internet---have made this possible).

Thus, there are more ways to "rebel" safely because you have a lot of company either way, sheep-le being what they are.

Diane wrote: "I believed that in this book, Sue was the most beaten down and affected by reality, changing her entire philosophy because of the death of her children. From being entirely against marriage and the..."


Hmn. Your post brings up a question I often posed to my students when we finished a novel: "Which character changed the most, and why did it happen?"

Often the question was debatable (always a good thing in the classroom, as it requires textual evidence to debate).

I think I might agree with you, though, that Sue is the biggest change of all. What a fall! As I said earlier, her submission to Phillotson in Marriage, the Sequel, is akin to Medieval flagellants or Christians wearing hairshirts.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God, indeed!

Cathleen wrote: "Arabella and Phillotson—they end up as the survivors. I’m not surprised by Arabella, but Phillotson’s tenacity and his canniness—that remarrying Sue would restore his standing and material gain str..."

Thanks for sharing that poem, Cathleen. A good insight to the writer's frame of mind and worldview!

Back to the book: Although I disliked the death scene of the three children for reasons stated above, I did think what Sue blurted out with all her defenses down was revealing.

After Jude asks why she told Father Time what she did, she replies:

"I can't tell. It was that I wanted to be truthful. I couldn't bear deceiving him as to the facts of life. And yet I wasn't truthful, for with a false delicacy I told him too obscurely.---Why was I half-wiser than my fellow-women? And not entirely wiser! Why didn't I tell him pleasant untruths, instead of half-realities? It was my want of self control, so that I could neither conceal things nor reveal them!"

I made note of this quote because it is one of several instances where the word "obscure" (or a variation of it) is used by Hardy.

I also thought this confession scene provided a microcosm of her personality in general, how it played out with Jude and Phillotson, why she came across as a tad maddening to some of us in Parts Third and Fourth.

Darrin wrote: "In regard to Ken's suggestion to do this group read again my reply is "yes", definitely! Count me in. It doesn't have to be Shakespeare. I am honestly willing to read anything new."


I don't want to distract from this discussion, but I am soon to send out a poll to all group members, gauging interest in staying together as a public reading group here on GR.

Maybe we'll be "The Obscure Reading Group," in honor of our roots.

Also in the poll will be # of reads we'd like to do a year. I have no interest in monthly reads like many GR groups do, but I wouldn't mind a few times a year.

Watch your poll inbox for more details soon!

Jan wrote: "Laysee wrote: "Hi all, how liberating not to have to worry about spoilers! :-)

This must be one of the bleakest and most tragic stories in classical literature. My heart broke the most for little ..."

I agree, Laysee and Jan, that Sue and Jude are intended to show "true love" in all its complications. But, like Jan, I never felt fully invested in the characters and think it might be that Hardy used them as a foil against society, the Church, and other harsh monoliths. In other words, the characters aren't the point themselves so much as they're used to MAKE a point.

As aggravating as Sue was in Parts Third and Fourth, I still felt sorry for (or maybe disappointed in) how quickly she folded in the last segment. Almost like a flagellant, she decided to "punish" herself with a marriage that didn't include love. (Cue Tina Turner: "What's love got to do with it, do with it?")

One true hero of sorts is the bit character Mrs. Edlin. No there's a woman who can see through all this nonsense, a character who thinks like the reader (who says to himself, "Why isn't it that easy for EVERYone to see in this story?").

Sandra wrote: "I just finished. Such a sad story. I was actually quite moved by Father Time. I understand his behavior may seem unmotivated, but I recognize how tragic his life was. Some might say that when Oedip..."

To me, Jude's end is tragedy; Father Time's and the other two barely mentioned kids (Sue's and Jude's) ends are melodrama. Of course, I am also taking into account the development of literature over time. What might be melodramatic in ancient Greek lit might not be in Victorian lit.

...such as Christminster's apparent rejection of "common folk" with higher aspirations.

At first when that whole "children as a burden" topic came up, I thought Dickens! You know, shades of Oliver Twist and Pink Floyd.

Hardy lost me, however, with that telegraphed effort with "Father Time." You knew something was coming, the way Hardy went out of his way to describe this kid as dour-isn't-the-word-for-it.

Anyway, a kid with psychopathic tendencies might do such a thing in such a way (and even that seems extreme), but not a kid who just heard his "mom" bemoan hard times (Dickens again!).

In other words, my suspension of disbelief did not suspend that far and the melodrama was a big turn-off because it didn't ring true. I just cannot accept that this was the kid's literal interpretation enacted "for the good of all."

Here we go: the final thread.

Here we can discuss not only the final two parts to Hardy's novel, but what they mean to the story as a whole.

What's more, you no longer have to worry about spoilers!

Jude himself admits his two weaknesses are a.) women and b.) liquor.

Great quote, Jan. I used the speech announcing MLK's assassination for two reasons: rhetorical devices and the message itself.

Listening to this speech now, to its plea against division and hate, is especially bittersweet, given that we now live under people who wallow in it and use it toward their own perfidious ends.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoKzC...

From the "At Shaston" chapter, I noted these lines:

"Strange that [Jude's] first aspiration ---towards academical proficiency---had been checked by a woman, and that his second aspiration---towards apostleship---had also been checked by a woman. 'Is it,' he said, 'that the women are to blame; or is it the artificial system of things, under which the normal sex-impulses are turned into devilish domestic gins and springs to noose and hold back those who want to progress?'"

The "gins and springs to noose" bit alludes to the trapped rabbit that he mercy-killed outside the home that night after hearing its wail (rabbits only make sounds when they are in the death throes). That was one of the many Hardy scattered throughout the novel to show Jude's St. Francis-like pity for God's simple beasts.

But still, Jude's question seems Hardy's question for the reader. What brings Jude down? Women? Society? Both?

Hardy gives us ample ammunition for both causes which, I think, is one of the book's claims to being "artful" in its way (and also "maddening" in its way).

How different his life would have been had he never met Sue and Arabella (or, as Freud might have coined them, a Madonna and whore complex come to life)!