Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions)

Author - Thomas Hardy ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Paperback Book item from Dover Publications was reviewed on 3-Nov-2008.

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1) Paperback Book Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions) by Dover Publications. Jude the Obscure is easily one of the best-written stories I have read in a long time. You will probably think Jude and Sue are so weird they are from another planet. In a way, you are right.

It may help you understand it a bit better if you think of it this way:
Jude has Asperger´s syndrome. Sue is a "Highly Sensitive Person" (HSP).

On top of these problems, Jude is a young boy ready to have sex but not mature enough to be married and have responsibilities. His cousin Sue is a young girl ready to "be loved" but unready to have sex.

Life repeatedly rushes Jude and Sue into the very things they are unprepared for and things get VERY bad quickly. The author, who obviously has baggage, is trying to make a case against marriage.

I found myself caring for these characters, even though I knew that the story could not possibly end well. I found myself vomiting when the murder takes place.

Do not read this book unless you are willing to have your traditional values unseated very painfully.
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2) Paperback Book Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions) by Dover Publications. - ever, ever, ever, ever, ever! I have never felt this intensity of pure love for a person who I´m told is fictional? He stares out at you, so real you could touch the stubble on his chin. You´ll take each loss so personally, and feel each disappointment with such ferocious, physical pangs! Oh, his poor judgment. His bad, impetuous, foolish choices (like mine!), hard knox, followed hard upon by brittle, fleeting true love.

The details of the characters make this book great. I loved reading about Jude´s struggle to learn Latin. I loved his whimsical sympathy for the hungry rooks. I loved his simultaneous attraction/revulsion for Arabella. I loved the description of her slaughtering the pig, and then later her removing her hairpiece. I loved Jude´s tribulations as a mason in the great Cathedral. I loved the complexity of his feelings for Sue. I loved his defiance and obstinacy in the face of death. Oh, he was so brave and stupid and romantic and deluded and smart and thwarted and alone. Read it for Jude!¤

3) Paperback Book Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions) by Dover Publications. Jude Fawley, is an orphan trapped in poverty and a narrow working class paradigm, but in spite of these limitations, he dreams of a scholarly life in the university town of Christminster.
Jude is smitten by Arabella, who tricks him into marrying her. After a short time Arabella leaves Jude to go to Australia. Shortly after Arabella leaves him, Jude moves to Christminster to pursue his dreams.
While in Christminster he meets his cousin Sue. Jude had fallen in love with Sue when he first saw her picture. Now he is in Christminster where he can pursue his dreams of becoming a scholar and meeting Sue. The conversations between Sue and Jude, despite their differences, bring them closer together and they quickly become friends. Sue deflates Jude´s dream when she marries the schoolmaster (the same man at the beginning of the book, who had promised Jude some books but never fulfilled his promise).
Even after Arabella comes back into the picture, Sue and Jude get divorced from their respective spouses and live together without marriage. In the years that follow, because the couple is not married, they face a lot of difficulties and become social outcasts. In spite of their difficulties, they still love each other and the family they are raising together. An extremely tragic event shatters the family. The consuming guilt, brought on by the tragic event, leads Sue and Jude back to their former hated lives.

It was a desperate try on Sue´s part to say no to customs she didn´t believe in, and a desperate try on Jude´s part to live the peaceful life he wanted with the woman he loved, but just as life didn´t grant him his dream of an education, Society denied him acceptance of the relationship he wanted with Sue. The shocking end was Hardy´s way to convey his thoughts on love, sex and the institution of marriage, at a time when talking about love, sex, and criticizing the marriage constitution was taboo.

Hardy was criticized for creating complex, overtly sexual characters like Sue and Jude who would act against established norms of marital and sexual behaviors. Sue, recognized her intellect but still used marriage as a way of having the career she wanted, She could not force herself to be attracted to her older husband, who was understanding and gave her a divorce, after which she was free to pursue Jude. Jude loved Sue deeply, but knowing that she was married, he still slept with Arabella, when she came back, because she was still his legal wife.

Reading the entire 500 plus pages of Jude the Obscure was totally draining. The emotional torment that Jude experienced throughout his life left me depleted. Each and every person in Jude´s life played a little role in aborting his dreams of happiness: the schoolmaster who didn´t pay attention to a promising ambitious little boy, Arabella who was a totally self absorbed narcissistic woman, whose character along with Jude´s character is clearly revealed during the pig killing ritual, Sue who truly loved Jude, but her love was a selfish love that was centered around her own demons of guilt and doubts. Even Jude´s older son, was another extension to Jude´s obscurity.

In the end Jude became completely obscure to the people for whom he cared. I don´t think Hardy himself totally understands the canvas he has painted and perhaps that is the reason Hardy turned to poem after Jude and wrote no other novels. It wasn´t the controversy that took place in Great Britain and the United States over the scandalous nature of the book, which led him away from novels to poetry. But rather Hardy left part of his heart in Jude and was unable to retrieve it.
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4) Paperback Book Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions) by Dover Publications. Jude´s life is short and miserable. His aspiration of becoming a scholar is thwarted when he is trapped into marriage by Arabella. But even without Arabella´s manipulations, he is trapped in time, born many years too soon for the reality, instead of only the dream, that someone of a working class background can attend an institution of higher learning.

He remains a stonemason and eventually unites with Sue Bridehead, not in a legal marriage, but one of heart and mind. Jude is ahead of his time, again, for this type of union to be socially accepted. Their rejection of a marriage contract turn them in social outcasts and their hardships culminate into a horrific event that affects Sue profoundly and causes the separation between her and Jude.

For me, Sue is the character who leaves the most lasting impression in Jude the Obscure, even though it´s not in a wholly positive sense. She is indecisive and at times so annoying that I clenched my teeth as I was reading. But the scene where she jumps out the window when Phillotson accidentally enters her bedroom is priceless and forever ingrained in my mind. She cannot force herself to accept him as a husband. Others, less free-spirited and emotional than Sue, might have been resigned or indifferent to being the wife of a dull, older man. Not Sue. Her spirit rebels because she wants to be with Jude, until she is shocked and overwhelmed by grief. Then she transforms into someone who can overrule her own will and submit herself to Phillotson. In the end she is crushed and as dead as Jude in his coffin.

Jude the Obscure is bleak, but also surprisingly fast-paced with good dialogue and memorable characters. If the book had been more favorably received by critics upon its publication Thomas Hardy would almost certainly have continued writing novels. But he was discouraged by the cries of outrage and turned his attention to writing poetry. We´ll never know what great books he might have written but the masterpiece Jude the Obscure is an exclamation point as a last novel.

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5) Paperback Book Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions) by Dover Publications. Thomas Hardy has accomplished a miracle with this novel. He has written a novel equal in the strength of the ideas, the beauty of the writing, and the compelling nature of the story. If he had only done one of the three well, the book would be worth reading, but having done all three so beautifully has resulted in a masterpiece.

I first read Jude about 10 years ago and recently re-read it. I was even more delighted after reading it again, and plan to read it a third time.

Some of my literary compatriots have been put-off by what they characterize as stiff language in Hardy in general and Jude in particular, but I would encourage anyone to persevere...after a few chapters, it wears-off and then you will thoroughly enjoy the reading!
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6) Paperback Book Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions) by Dover Publications.

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 1-Dec-2008, 04864524339780486452432, 990-7X0-670-700-330-050-8

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