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Hardy's book follows Jude Fawley who is a poor, working-class orphan living with his great-aunt. Jude dreams of attending a college but he encounters the fact that he has an eye for the ladies and alcohol both of which keeps him from achieving his goal. Jude finds himself tricked into marrying Arabella, who then moves to Australia without a divorce. Jude then falls in love with Sue and lives with her and their children even though he is still married. These two suffer even to the losing of their children. This tragedy was too much for me.
I found parts of the book melodramatic and boring. He goes on and on describing the settings, characters and events. The choice of his words is sometimes beautiful and other times too much.

Enjoy! Wishlist RABCK to MmeClinton. It is part of the movie release 2022

I have received this lovely little book in the mail today...many thanks to booklady 331, who noticed it on my wishlist. I have wanted to read this Thomas Hardy novel for decades, so that may happen very soon now! Thanks for brightening a cold winter's day in Maine, booklady331!

Review: Jude the Obscure (Thomas Hardy) I realize that not all readers enjoy the 19th century novel, but I definitely do. This is one I have wanted to read for a long time, as it is considered perhaps his greatest novel. I have formerly read Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Far From the Madding Crowd and much liked them. The writing is exquisite. The picture of Victorian England, its inhabitants, its towns and cities, is presented in well-chosen detail. I never felt the story lagging. And it is a sad story, indeed, of a protagonist in a time and place in which his life's ambitions are thwarted by conventions, societal pressures, and his own nature. Right in the beginning, you know it is not a tale of joy, even though Jude is such a tender character in so many ways: "He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or topped, from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up and the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his infancy. This weakness of character, as it may be called, suggested that 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." Jude aspired to enter university life in the big city of Christminster and became an admirable didact, his knowledge of ancient languages and church doctrines superior to many educated men, but there is no upward path for him from his humble beginnings. He will become a stonemason by necessity, and his life will be buffeted by two women, both of whom are fleshed out into believable and fully realized characters as much as Jude. Via these three characters as well as that of Phillotson, caught up with all three, Thomas Hardy presents a real condemnation of the rules of society in his time. The book, of course, was savagely denounced by his contemporaries, as it dared to question the status quo of education, women's rights and intelligence, and so forth, and especially the understanding of the dynamics of sex in a time when the mere mention was taboo. I suspect it would curl the hair of today's avid book burners, although I doubt many have read it....

on the bench near the entrances