Jude the Obscure Paperback – July 10, 2016

When this novel was published in 1895, the reading public's shocked reaction created a scandal so big and criticism of author Thomas Hardy so intense that Hardy bitterly gave up writing fiction forevermore. This was the kind of book that was probably hidden under the mattress and secretly read by candlelight.What was all the fuss about? In the staid and conservative Victorian era, Hardy's classic tale follows Mr. Jude Fawley, a poor, working-class orphan living with his great-aunt but who has big dreams of attending a college in the nearby Oxford-like town of Christminster. Jude encounters a series of obstacles, including an eye for the ladies and a taste for the drink, that thwarts his lofty goal. While he may be teaching himself Greek and Latin after a long day of work as a stonemason, he also can't help falling passionately in love with the wrong women. He is tricked into marrying the coarse and crude Arabella, who then leaves him by escaping to Australia—and without the benefit of divorce. Jude then falls in love with his free-spirited and independent-minded cousin, Sue, and openly lives with her as they proceed to have children—and without the benefit of marriage. Jude and Sue deeply suffer the financial and social consequences of brazenly defying the mores and morals of society, but nothing can prepare them for the deepest tragedy anyone can bear in life and the heartbreaking actions that ensue.Hardy fully intended to use the novel to lambaste the institution of marriage, as well as the Anglican church and higher education, and he did just that masterfully. But on an even deeper level, the characters play out their own battle of religious faith vs. insidious doubt, making this a brilliant, multilayered novel that still resonates today.

This is a difficult book to review, as it’s not usually considered Hardy’s most popular, most significant, or most highly regarded. Yet it rates a “five” because, as a significant author, Hardy does one thing well: He illustrates the challenge of the desire of the human race to break free from old ideas and traditions, and to define and live out new, more satisfying and productive ways of living. He would say that the individual person should have the freedom to decide one’s destiny, not the rules defined by society or religion. In a sense, Hardy would be at home, a kindred spirit, in the discussions of the meaning of life carried out in a variety of complex ways by Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Sartre, or Camus.“Specifically in the novel” (says Cliff’s Notes), “Hardy depicts characters who raise questions about such things as religious beliefs, social classes, the conventions of marriage, and elite educational institutions and who feel in the absence of the old certainties that the universe may be governed by a mysterious, possibly malign power.”We who live in the 21st century face this constantly. An ongoing debate continues between liberal and conservative views of religion. Liberal Christians, for instance, have no difficulty accepting both scientific discovery and thought, while conservative ones conduct a constant battle against new concepts. Some will even insist on a narrow, literal view of Biblical Creation, instead of accepting the ongoing new discoveries of astro-science. Political contests abound in which those of progressive, liberal views, compete against candidates of conservative, even regressive views. Every new election in almost any country is an example of this tension. Keep the old way, or throw it out. Adopt a new way, or reject it. The recent U.S. election is the most visible illustration of this. Politicians will characterize their opponents as evil, even the devil incarnate, whether true or not, while offering themselves as the new savior, the new knight in shining armor who will ride in on a white horse and make everything right again (Translate, “Make America Great Again”).Jude the Obscure is an excellent example (even the best example) of the author’s “gloom and deterministic” philosophy of life. Optimism never appears on the scene, while tragedy dominates the narrative. The negative gets worse and worse as all sorts of situations block Jude’s desire for happiness.The book is really a post-modern, 21st century novel in the disguise of one written in a Victorian environment. Hardy’s treatment of marriage is quite akin to our contemporary context. In this regard, he was well ahead of his time. Further, he did not hesitate to depict the tragic, the horrific. The scene for example, of the deaths of Little Father Time and the younger children (Sue, who lived with Jude unmarried, expecting their third child, found Little Father Time had hanged the two babies and himself, after which Sue collapses and gives premature birth to a dead baby), were certainly shocking to Hardy’s contemporaries of the 1890's. However, they could fit in quite well with the novels, screenplays, and television dramas of today.So the five star rating comes from the unique parallel that Jude the Obscure has with the second decade of the 21st century. To put it another way, Hardy is a secular prophet in his own right.

Do not buy!! Filled with errors and unreadable. Here is a typical example. "It became for that reason left within the college till night, while more arms would be available for eliminating it; and the shoolmaster gave a final look spherical". I can only conclude that the e-book is a computer generated copy, possibly a poor translation of a foreign language edition. How else to explain why nearly every paragraaph is filled with multiple, incomprhensible sentences., Amazon should be ashamed for selling it. I am a Kindle reader with probably 600 e-books in my library, including books long out of print, and I have never seen anything like this.

This review is for the storyline only. The condition of the book, etc., was great. Anyway, my least favorite Hardy novel. It just felt so negative. And Sue was SO ANNOYING. She was cold, callous, severely selfish, and borderline sociopath. I'm not sure there was anything strong-minded or feminist-like in her at all. She was just outright cold-hearted, and hid behind her tears and self-pity a lot. She ruined so many lives around her, and, if I must add, responsible for her children's death. What a terrible person. She wasn't even a modern girl with modern ideas. She was hateful. She made everything centered around HER. With Sue, it was, "Me, me, me, me, poor unfortunate me." ....God she was so self-centered. I HATE SUE. She didn't deserve either man, and those poor children didn't deserve her for a mother. She was unfit.

I gave the book itself 4 stars and others have reviewed it based only on the story so I won't go into that. I just want to review the Kindle version I bought. There were strange breaks in the text which sometimes made it difficult to keep up with who was saying what and there was a large part missing from part 4 chapter 4. I have a paperback version so, luckily I was able to read the missing part. Maybe there are more missing parts that are less noticeable. The only illustrations I saw were occasional small decorative squares, like illuminations. I was able to read this Kindle version but I was not happy with it and thought others should know to avoid it.

Thomas Hardy is quite something. He goes on and on describing the settings, characters and events. The choice of his words is just breath-taking: it's unbelievable how someone can use that many words to describe.As a teacher, I think his books should regularly be used in secondary schools to teach students how to create imagery.A note of warning, though: Hardy wrote in the 19th century and some of the words he uses should be checked up in a dictionary.Reading Thomas Hardy reminded me how beautiful English language is.

"He was the sort of man who was born to ache a good deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary life should signify that all was well with him again."In this age of diversity and equal representation, I have heard people dismiss Hardy as just another dead white dude who doesn't have anything to say to us. That's quite sad, because Jude is one of the great novels of exclusion, a gutwrenching tale of a human being who is refused entry to the elite simply because he was born in the wrong circumstances. Even here in the 21st century, this book has a lot to say about power structures in society, and how a humble human life can be ground to dust if it finds itself on the outside, or dares to transgress the conventions of the day. Jude is one of the great achievements of Western literature and remains as urgent and moving today as it was in Hardy's time.

Arguably Hardy's bleakest and most controversial novel, Jude The Obscure covers a range of themes that readers would no doubt have found difficult to face at the time it was first published. Jude and his cousin Sue are outsiders in terms of their behaviour and aspirations. He is a frustrated scholar, shunned by the academic institutions he craves to enter, she a flighty, manipulative character who plunges them both into ultimate despair and ruin.The book feels inevitably dated in the topics it covers and the style of writing, but Hardy is excellent at screwing down the atmosphere of the book as the saddest of stories unfolds. Jude and Sue move in ever decreasing circles of opportunity and acceptance, and you just know it's all going to end badly for all concerned.Perhaps one frustration with the book is the closed nature of it - with few characters really being fleshed out as the book unfolds and develops over a number of years. But the unforgiving and judgemental nature of rural and urban society is explored well; the harshness of lives lived in the landscape of Hardy's Wessex is vividly depicted, and although very much a slow-burning and often melodramatic read, the book lodges itself into the memory.The free Kindle version is essentially free from too many annyoing formatting errors - the opportunity to read this and other Hardy classics for nothing is both remarkable and to be recommended.

Book Club choice. Have read it before many moons ago but had forgotten how wonderful it was. It is a fantastic read. I have loved it from beginning to end. I was disappointed that it was the Christmas read as it were but it has just been a great read

I have read most of Hardy's novels and found them engrossing, educational and thoroughly enjoyable. His detailed but lyrical descriptions transport me to a bygone era and draw me into his books. However, Jude the Obscure failed on almost every count. It lacked the detailed descriptions of his other novels, the story was (in my opinion) just plain silly and the endless dialogue at times almost impossible to follow. In the book's favour, it did give an interesting window onto the prejudices and behaviour of provincial late Victorian England. I finished reading the book feeling unfulfilled and deeply depressed. What happened to Hardy here? It was his last book - had he lost the plot at that stage in his life.