From the Bookshelf of The Readers Review: Literature from 1714 to 1910…

Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy

Start date: March 21, 2011

Finish date: May 1, 2011

Discussion: Thomas Hardy Collection

Discussion leader: Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.)

Why we're reading this: 03/21/11 - 05/01/11
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Sep 03, 2012 Kim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: re-read, audiobook

This is one of the three novels by Thomas Hardy which I read when I was at school and university. While it's not the one that made me decide I didn't like Hardy - that honour goes to Tess of the D'Urbervilles - I was not motivated to read it again. However, thirty five years later I've developed a new appreciation for Hardy, thanks to a wonderful audiobook of The Return of the Native narrated by Alan Rickman. I'm now slowly working my way through his novels, including the ones I've read before.
This is one of the three novels by Thomas Hardy which I read when I was at school and university. While it's not the one that made me decide I didn't like Hardy - that honour goes to Tess of the D'Urbervilles - I was not motivated to read it again. However, thirty five years later I've developed a new appreciation for Hardy, thanks to a wonderful audiobook of The Return of the Native narrated by Alan Rickman. I'm now slowly working my way through his novels, including the ones I've read before. I listened to an audiobook edition narrated by Stephen Thorne. The narration was excellent. Unlike most male narrators I've listened to, Thorne does a very good job with young female voices.

The Jude of the title is Jude Fawley, a sensitive orphan with a passion for learning who grows up to become a stonemason. Jude dreams of becoming a scholar at Christminster - Hardy's version of Oxford. The narrative centres on his relationship with two women: the earthy and resilient Arabella Don and the intellectual and ethereal Sue Bridehead, whom Jude sees as his soulmate. The novel is also an impassioned critique of Victorian attitudes towards religion, marriage and sexual morality. The views which Hardy has Jude and Sue express concerning these particular issues put the author well ahead of his time - something which Hardy overtly refers to in the text on more than one occasion.

Jude is like the biblical Job, a parallel which Hardy makes explicit by having Jude recite from the Book of Job towards the end of the novel. Put briefly, nothing goes right for Jude and when things go wrong, they go badly wrong. My heart ached for him, although to some extent the tragedy is so relentless that my response to how Jude was affected was numbed. I had a sneaking admiration for the unappealing Arabella, who at least knew what she wanted and went after it with gusto. Sue, on the other hand, enraged me for most of the novel with her inconsistency and her inability to engage on an emotional level. But she is a brilliant, complex character and it's difficult not to feel her pain.

Let's face it, this is not a book to read if you're feeling down. On the other hand, contemplating the misery of Jude Fawley's life might make you feel that your lot in life is not so bad after all. I've given this 4-1/2 rather than five stars because at times I felt that the message of the novel overwhelmed the characters. However, it's still an amazing read.

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Feb 02, 2021 Sidharth Panwar rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I think if you're reading this review to choose whether to read this book or not, you may not find it as useful. I think this review may serve better those who have already gone through the book and find themselves thinking about the things that happened in it. My only complaint with the book was that it was a hundred pages too long but is it worth a read? Yes! But, I think it can be best appreciated when life has hurt you a little.

Jude the Obscure is a story about a young man who hailed from a I think if you're reading this review to choose whether to read this book or not, you may not find it as useful. I think this review may serve better those who have already gone through the book and find themselves thinking about the things that happened in it. My only complaint with the book was that it was a hundred pages too long but is it worth a read? Yes! But, I think it can be best appreciated when life has hurt you a little.

Jude the Obscure is a story about a young man who hailed from a working class background and aspired to enter a university and follow in the footsteps of famous philosophers and thinkers. At least that's what the cover said but after finishing this book I found that this is not what it's about. This was what originally motivated my desire to read this book, the premise, but this book is so much more about other things, in a sense other characters as well than Jude and his yearning to enter a university.

I found that the most significant theme in this book was the almost suffocating stranglehold of society and societal norms on the life of an individual, especially those who naively believe that they are different and maybe beyond the norms of society. Hardy skillfully paints several portraits where those holding such independent views come to tragic ends and suffer much humiliation and misery and those who adhere to the norms (no matter how disgusting and inhumane there conduct is) are always better off than the formers. Hardy doesn't preach that it's the right way, of course. He's not trying to change our opinion to make us better adhere to social conventions. Rather, he shows how this society doesn't allow individual thought to breathe and prosper. This is chiefly the reason why all the "bad" or "unsympathetic" characters are always the ones who conduct themselves as per convention - and this is regardless of whether it's a prominent character like Arabella or a side character like Gillingham.

The masterfulness in Hardy's work is that he even holds our finger and take us to this conclusion by placing a character right in the middle who changes from being of independent mind and suffering profusely because of this and later changing his mind to conform with societal norms and comes to a happy end (a selfish and despicable end but for this person a happy end nonetheless). And I'm not talking about Sue here.

Much of the oppression felt by our protagonists is through the focus on marriage and marital conventions or lack thereof. But, in my opinion Hardy didn't write this solely to critique on how marriage was perceived but rather how individuality was perceived and attacked. This book shows us time and again that it is the duty of society to crush, repeatedly, the individuality and non-conformity of people with ruthless precision. Jude and Sue are crushed by this machine not through a decisive blow but by a thousand little cuts that eventually bleed them dry of purpose and hope. ...more

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Mar 21, 2011 Karen rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, good-reads

This is my first return to the classics in along time. I have much enjoyed it despite its tragedy and the urge to shout out to the main characters for a variety of reasons. It has also led me to read during the day rather than while falling asleep over a thriller. This was necessary in order to try to properly follow the different arguments on love and marriage expounded in this novel. It is interesting to read these ideas set over 100 years ago, and yet some so relevant today.e.g Sue stating th ...more

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Mar 19, 2011 Deborah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Many keep telling me that this book is bleak. I just don't see it, and maybe that is a positive. Hardy has beautiful prose especially when he is describing the physical surroundings. What I enjoy the most about his writing, however, is his strong characters. He is to be commended for trying to change society of his time through his writing. He clearly shows the many obstacles one would face due to status, poverty, education, and gender (to name a few). I found myself looking forward to each and ...more

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Jun 10, 2011 Mary rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-2011

This will now always be special to me as the first book I read on my Kindle! And, of course, I've read Jude several times before. But it's always heartbreaking. A true tragedy.

I can never make up my mind, though, as to whether I like Sue or not. She's essentially a prude and a tease, and then deeply stupid. But I like her for at least trying to rebel. ...more

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