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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
For a raging misogynist, Thomas Hardy sure did manage to accidentally capture the exact trauma of womanhood
An incredibly well-crafted novel that is gripping. Stylistically, it differs from his other novels. The first quarter of the book, when Jude is a boy, is so simple that it almost feels like a book written for young readers. However, once adult issues start to occur in Jude's life, the narrative matures too. In the end, its a morality play with desolate consequences. It isn't an easy book for anyone to read and if you are engaged to be married or about to have or adopt a child, DO NOT even touch the book. But if you can get through it, you'll feel a bit hollowed out and better for the experience.
hardy is always a comfort read for me - i usually try to read him in the summer, when the long days make his long-winded prose and evocations of nature a soothing presence, in spite of the bleak circumstances his protagonists often find themselves in. JUDE is the last of his four best-known novels i’ve read - an ex introduced me to tess, and i loved the mayor of casterbridge and far from the madding crowd - and it’s also set in and around oxford (which he calls christminster), where i’ve lived for the last four years, so i’ve been eagerly awaiting the time to get into it. in some ways it’s quite different from tess and the others in that the natural landscape is less of a presence here: jude, the title character, pays it little attention in his determination to get to christminster and study there, but he’s much more alive to stonework, buildings and churches, all of which hardy describes with his usual vividness. what’s really different about jude, though, is the novel’s being driven by its characters, from jude’s learning and determination to the enigmatic sue bridewell’s heterodoxy and emotional distance.
this novel has a reputation for being depressing, which i didn’t think it really deserved until towards the end, when things really go downhill extremely suddenly. much of what made the book controversial when it was first published, such as its questioning of religious and sexual mores, doesn’t really seem that way any more, but i was nonetheless fascinated by the way in which characters struggle against their times and fates. what really stuck with me as a present day reader, though, was the enduring sense that the forms of marriage and the conventional family don’t work for jude, or for sue, and that they have to work with or through these conventions in order to live their lives. there were moments of real hope (i was struck by phillotson’s convictions regarding his own marriage) and the inevitable tragedies (as well as not-so-inevitable ones)as late victorian society reacted against the measures the characters took to carve out authentic lives for themselves, but even now it’s not clear that things would be a great deal better for them. if i wrote the novel it would be called ‘sue bridewell’ and follow her instead, but the questions hardy raises here still speak vividly to current discussions about the nuclear family and the place of marriage in society. i’m glad i read this - i’ll be thinking about it for a long time yet.
this novel has a reputation for being depressing, which i didn’t think it really deserved until towards the end, when things really go downhill extremely suddenly. much of what made the book controversial when it was first published, such as its questioning of religious and sexual mores, doesn’t really seem that way any more, but i was nonetheless fascinated by the way in which characters struggle against their times and fates. what really stuck with me as a present day reader, though, was the enduring sense that the forms of marriage and the conventional family don’t work for jude, or for sue, and that they have to work with or through these conventions in order to live their lives. there were moments of real hope (i was struck by phillotson’s convictions regarding his own marriage) and the inevitable tragedies (as well as not-so-inevitable ones)as late victorian society reacted against the measures the characters took to carve out authentic lives for themselves, but even now it’s not clear that things would be a great deal better for them. if i wrote the novel it would be called ‘sue bridewell’ and follow her instead, but the questions hardy raises here still speak vividly to current discussions about the nuclear family and the place of marriage in society. i’m glad i read this - i’ll be thinking about it for a long time yet.
22⁰ Livro lido do ano e o último de 2022. Judas, o obscuro de Thomas Hardy. Parece que foi de propósito, mas não o foi. Fechamos o ano de leitura com chave de ouro. Decidi ler este livro porque era mencionado no livro de Terry Eagleton — "Como ler literatura". Devo dizer que gostei muito deste romance. Da história de Judas, Arabella, Sue e Phillotson. Um romance cheio de peripécias e volte-faces. Uma história verdadeiramente trágica.
Good grief. “Perhaps the world is not illuminated enough for such experiments as ours! Who were we, to think we could act as pioneers!"
Or, as Sue earlier puts it: “I should shock you by letting you know how I give way to my impulses, and how much I feel that I shouldn't have been provided with attractiveness unless it were meant to be exercised! Some women's love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can't give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop's licence to receive it.”
Or, as Sue earlier puts it: “I should shock you by letting you know how I give way to my impulses, and how much I feel that I shouldn't have been provided with attractiveness unless it were meant to be exercised! Some women's love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is their love of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can't give it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop's licence to receive it.”
Really fantastic, though I didn't love it quite as much as I loved Tess.
dark
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Possibly the most depressing book ever written and I have been reading it off and on for six months.
I am now done and to tell the truth I’d gotten attached to the most pathetic lot in British literature.
Maybe not Arabella, she sucked.
I am now done and to tell the truth I’d gotten attached to the most pathetic lot in British literature.
Maybe not Arabella, she sucked.
This book! I knew it was supposed to be the most depressing, but I was a little sceptical as I kept reading and the characters didn't seem to have it as bad as Tess. And then The Thing happened. I love Hardy.
Thomas Hardy writes books that are real, have fascinating and capturing characters, and to be depressing in a way that many other authors don’t even come close to capturing. Similar to Tess of the d’Urbervilles there are some incredibly dark moments in this story which may be unsettling for some. Personally, I share Jude’s mentality much more than other of Hardy’s characters and as such found his interactions and choices worth studying. Additionally, as a depressive cynic, the overall mood here was not off putting and I enjoyed another of Hardy’s immersive experiences into the striving commoner’s psychology of the day.