A review by that_was_then_this_is_now
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

4.0

I would recommend Jude the Obscure, as it was to me by a professor who called it his best work. How often are these sort of male writers able to write their best works at the end of their lives. Dostoevsky's Brother Karamazov for example (Magarshack transl.) What I found irritating in the book is exactly what is wrong in our society. All the phaffing and ambulating is remarkable. The social critique and accommodation makes the work important. When a character lights his cigarette with the stove top gas jet, I stood still musing, "NOT so long ago......" I harbor quite a complex feeling about all the characters, I am particularly a bit more lenient to the older Arabella. Some other readers' flashes of exclamation about being "Hardy-broken", and "book scarred" serve, I believe, to scintillate curiosity towards an important book of social critique. I felt equipped to manage the emotional turmoil and narrative events in merit of having experienced the Medea in theatre several times, (once even as a New Year's Eve event). Then there are Antigone, "The Color Purple" book and film, "Herzog" not to mention life experience, and the work I do, which includes reading and training. Oh yes, the ills of our socialisation, they are here until we step away from dominance-socialisation. Androcracy Kills.