Jude the Obscure question

Are you studying English literature?, if that's so then I hope my next explanation can be useful.

Hardy lived during the Victorian Era.

In that era, the novels and stories which were acceptable to society and also passed to posterity without any problems were those which emphasize the good values and morals people should take, the rules society wanted to promote, that those things can lead us to the real path of happiness. If the characters accepted they were wrong for not following the mores, then there was still hope for them to be in the path of happiness.

Some examples, which are very very popular nowadays, are Dickens (Great Expectations, A christmas Carol, The Curiosity Shop, etc), Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility), Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre).

However, Hardy's novels and stories challenge the society rules and mores of the Victorian era. A reason of why his novels were a controversy and a danger to society.

As you could see, his stories show hopelessness, depression and sorrow, but at the same time they show how society can totally crush an individual even though he/she tries to follow the society rules. He shows the real world.

The contradicitons of society: while society promotes to be a good person and follow God's word, at the same time society doesn't follow it.

Also some of its rules can oppose to the Natural and Divine ones.

He shows that people who are from middle class don't have a happy ending as Dickens, Austen and Bronte had shown. This happy ending could be possibly only for people of rich status.

People are considered sinners even if they don't have the fault of the "sin" or if they are not selfish and crafty like the "villians". And society can punish them without mercy.

If you are looking for solace I think you have come to the wrong author. Hardy's writing is unapologetically realist, showing the disharmony present in everyday life and lifting the idealistic veil away from the pastoral genre. I read Hardy, primarily, for his language: 'Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity' (The Return of the Native) and his descriptions of nature that are so insightful and his studies of character and of humanity. He shows the thorns underneath the roses and acknowledges that all things must die, that life is not easy and injustices exist. This is not happy and it is not sunny but it is truth and it is real.

The only solace I found in Jude the Obscure was when I put the book down and "came back" to my own life. By comparison I ended up feeling I didn't have it so bad. I don't know if the author had this intention, but in this way Jude the Obscure made me feel better about who I am.

Well, I have to say I used to be a serious Hardy fan, reading up on his life (Wikipedia) is pretty interesting. My favourite book was definitely The Laodicean and is more of a mystery. I also have to say, I could never read Jude the Obscure or Return of the Native, nor Tess ever again. The movie of Jude was good with Kate Winslet. Like Jude, Thomas' family couldn't afford to send him to uni, nor did they have the social standing required in those days for entry. I believe neither he nor his brother or sisters had children interesting eh. Makes you think of the end of Jude...

I like books that make me feel. I don't really care how they make me feel. Hardy's books move me.

I'm not sure how your teachers and mentors expect you to find solar in Jude the Ob. It's pretty dire, with its self absorbed protagonists blathering on about themselves and how they feel and what they want, then doing things that make the opposite happen.

The only oth Hardy book I have read is The Mayor of Casterbridge, and I enjoyed that fairly well.

One of the things that fascinates me about Goodreads is learning how different people approach reading. I get a lot out of Hardy (I've read Return of the Native, Tess, and Jude, and Jude is my top pick of the three - plus I actually visited his cottage in England; nearby Egdon Heath has been reforested and is no longer a heath), but I wouldn't want to read him all the time (nor would I want to read Victorian novels all the time, or only fiction written in English, or even only fiction).

I agree with the person who said that it's the writing that matters the most - not the story, or the characters or the tone. And great writing comes in many forms: Cat's Cradle, The Trial, The Golden Bowl, Beloved, The Odyssey, Ulysses, Hamlet, Absalom, Absalom, Leaves of Grass, and Great Expectations are all "well written" masterpieces but the writing in each is unique - some are much more challenging than others, and the 'message', 'philosophy' or 'theme' of each is also unique.

What would turn me off reading the fastest would be only reading books that have a message I agree with, or that makes me "feel good."

One of the messages I get from reading Hardy is that no matter how good our intentions, there is a malevolent force (fate?) in the universe that will bring pain and disaster into our lives. Put succinctly and oversimplistically: life sucks, and then you die. I've certainly felt that way at times, and when I enter Hardy's world, I can immerse myself in his way of looking at things for a while. But then I finish the book and go on with my life, with my mind stimulated and enriched, but not battered, and ready for the next book on my list. And although I have no training in psychology or psychiatry, my guess is that if any book (or movie, etc.) takes me too high or too low, the problem isn't in the work of art, but in me.

First, I don't take Hardy as a writer only, I take reading Hardy as an experience. I mean, such as starvation, having your life threatened or losing a dear person. When I first read Jude, I was petrified for two days. The second time, which was a few weeks ago, made me throw up and cry. I was really upset. Hardy is one of the few authors who were realistic and daring enough to say "This is real life. It could have happened this way. It could have happened to you. Did you see it coming? They did not, either. Watch your back, from now on"

Rakesh wrote: "I've read three of Thomas Hardy's Novel; Jude the Obscure, Far Away from the Madding Crowd, and The Woodlanders. But I didn't find the solace that my teaches and mentors talk about, I just did find..."

Rakesh, I love your comment about the harmony of despair! Excellent.

We don't need to read the books of anybody, we need to live our own lives, but in reading the deep pessimism of Jude we are moved and start to feel we don't have it too bad. Nothing in our life is as black as that of Hardy's unfortunates.

Jude the obscure is a difficult book. The turning point in the story is easily some of the most shocking and depressing stuff ever written. As to why we read it, It's because it has weight and veritas woven into its fabric, especially Jude the Obscure which to me is about the crushing of dreams, dreams of love, dreams of happiness, all crushed. Who among us really is fully self realized and who among us is more like Jude. It is not a happy book and it doesn't have a Hollywood ending, Hardy was if anything the anti-Dickens and perhaps he made a conscious effort to be so. We read his books because they are well written and full of the wisdom and the powers of observation such a towering genius as Hardy brought to his writing. We read the great books because the writers who wrote them were compelled to write not just for commercial reasons (although there's no doubt they wanted to get paid) but for arts sake, and if art should imitate life, it reaches a literary zenith in Jude the Obscure, where the unhappy struggles of the mass of obscure humanity as represented by Jude are delineated in stark, simple and well paced prose that draws us in and reflects (if we are honest) ourselves back at us. That's why we read Jude the obscure.

In my view, Thomas Hardy held an unusually tragic view of life. I've read a number of his books, and just started reading Tess again after seeing the Nastassia Kinski film. Hardy's picture of life is even bleaker than the real lives of especially bleak people. But I think we can learn something from this. So many of his minor characters (usually women, I might add) are thoughtlessly happy, annoying creatures. And while we've all known people like this, and are annoyed by it, Hardy also brings us in touch with the dangers of excessive bleak thinking by promoting just that quality in his writing.

Mary
If you think that Hardy's books are bleaker than real life, you are either fortunate in that you don't know people whose lives are particularly bleak or unaware of how unhappy they are as they have been particularly clever in concealing it.

Geoffrey how many of Hardy's books have you read?

Why do we read and like a book?..I like a book because of the feelings that it is able to stir in me...that is why mostly the sad books are the most appealing...
"Jude The Obscre" is a sad book -- it talks about the dreams and aspirations of a boy and how they are not fulfilled...but it is als about the life..the real life..though the ending could have been different..but if you forget the end...the rest of the book is deeply emotional, touching and I was not able to put it down before finishing it and cannot forget it now that I have read it...not to mention that I read it around 35 years back!