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whogivesabook 's review for:
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure charts the life of Jude Fawley. From youthful aspirations, through troubled marriage, divorce, doomed love, fatherhood and grief so stark it cleaves the heart.
Each stage of his life is the direct result of missteps already taken. And chief among his crimes is a simple accident of birth. He is poor and has no prospects. The world is unforgiving. Second chances appear and then mutate into new catastrophes.
Starting out with such promise, Jude is at first presented as a boy filled with the hope that one can achieve any goal with hard work and perseverance. How quickly that bubble pops.
It's not a spoiler to say that society traps him in a number of ways. First, he is tricked into a marriage. Next his love is seen by everyone around them as an abomination for breaking social convention. Which traps his family in poverty. And then a shocking and heartbreaking tragedy locks him in despondency.
It's a perfect balance of bad choices, bad relationships, bad social structure and bad luck. It's bleak, but honest.
Hardy clearly didn't like the idea of marriage. Women in this novel aren't fleshed out. Be prepared for that. There are plenty of classics that handle them better, but it isn't a story about them. It doesn't blame them either, so that redeems things slightly, they're just as poorly treated as Jude is. Their crimes are just them trying to make the best of things, I feel. I think Hardy saw religion as hypocrisy, a snare for the lower classes. Holding them, choking, in the dirt.
I love the novel because I see myself in Jude. A man who was early led astray from wild ambition by base desire. Long since floundering painfully through a life with no real purpose. So I think that this novel is one I continue to read, because it gives me a window into the future. I'm a far weaker soul than little Father Time, who takes stock of his lot and refuses to let life choose the hour for him. I envy that resolve a lot.
Each stage of his life is the direct result of missteps already taken. And chief among his crimes is a simple accident of birth. He is poor and has no prospects. The world is unforgiving. Second chances appear and then mutate into new catastrophes.
Starting out with such promise, Jude is at first presented as a boy filled with the hope that one can achieve any goal with hard work and perseverance. How quickly that bubble pops.
It's not a spoiler to say that society traps him in a number of ways. First, he is tricked into a marriage. Next his love is seen by everyone around them as an abomination for breaking social convention. Which traps his family in poverty. And then a shocking and heartbreaking tragedy locks him in despondency.
It's a perfect balance of bad choices, bad relationships, bad social structure and bad luck. It's bleak, but honest.
Hardy clearly didn't like the idea of marriage. Women in this novel aren't fleshed out. Be prepared for that. There are plenty of classics that handle them better, but it isn't a story about them. It doesn't blame them either, so that redeems things slightly, they're just as poorly treated as Jude is. Their crimes are just them trying to make the best of things, I feel. I think Hardy saw religion as hypocrisy, a snare for the lower classes. Holding them, choking, in the dirt.
I love the novel because I see myself in Jude. A man who was early led astray from wild ambition by base desire. Long since floundering painfully through a life with no real purpose. So I think that this novel is one I continue to read, because it gives me a window into the future. I'm a far weaker soul than little Father Time, who takes stock of his lot and refuses to let life choose the hour for him. I envy that resolve a lot.