A review by ianbanks
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

5.0

It is jarring to read a Thomas Hardy novel that mentions electricity and photographs and has characters catching trains. As his stories were usually a little more rural in setting and set a few decades in the past of whenever they were written, it is interesting to read Mr Hardy using a location more in line with his thinking.

Because Hardy is a writer who was definitely modern in his outlook: almost all of his novels involve characters rebelling against society or committing transgressions against it and paying for it. In this novel it is Jude who wants to better himself and self-educates himself into a state of misery because he is unable to take advantage of his drive and attain a place at the university he has used as a grail his entire life because of his social class.

He also has to contend with his family history and background: his family have a history of turmoil and bad luck. You can only wonder if it is due to them being too smart for this world: Jude certainly sees the lunacy of many of our "rules" and tries desperately hard to nail his colours to whatever mast he sees as being the right one. And he tries hard to steer a morally sound path - as he sees it - through his life but is continually held back because his moral honesty isn't as respected or as understood as the compromises that other people make.

What is astonishing about this book - and frustrating for someone brought up on a diet of modern stories and soap operas - is the notion that people make their beds in their relationships and have to lie down in them regardless of how their feelings or circumstances may change. Hardy recognises that what seems like a good idea can sour at a later date and that people want to move on and try again. And despite the efforts of Jude, Sue, Arabella and Phillotson to progress with their lives and mind their own business, society and their own suppressed guilt conspire to make things worse.

Jude's been a personal favourite of mine for years now (although I find myself getting a little more frustrated with him the older I get) because he's a man who wants what society says is a good thing... but not for people like him. And his story, while soaked in despair and darkness at times, is still a great read.