Jude the Obscure (Dover Thrift Editions) |
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Author:
Thomas Hardy
By Dover Publications
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: $5.00
Our Price: $3.16
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Product Description
Hardy's masterpiece traces a poor stonemason's ill-fated romance with his free-spirited cousin. No Victorian institution is spared — marriage, religion, education — and the outrage following publication led the embittered author to renounce fiction. Modern critics hail this novel as a pioneering work of feminism and socialist thought.
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I enjoyed this book because I sympathized with Jude and really wanted a good life for him, 2008-12-26
Although Jude The Obscure may see somewhat depressing dark, and gothic I did enjoy the story of the character Jude. He admired his schoolteacher as a boy and wanted so bad to go to Christminister and become a scholar. The fact that Jude is a gentleman allows women like Arabella and Sue to stray him far of the path towards his goal. It makes me wonder what would have happened to him if he hadn't run into Arabella. After being away from Arabella he starts to fall in love with his cousin Sue. All Jude wanted was to marry her, however she did not want to conform to society after being married once before. The end of the novel is sad, however I really sympathized with Jude and felt like he did the best he could with his life.
Ahead of its Time, 2008-10-06
Jude the Obscure is easily one of the best-written stories I have read in a long time. You will probably think Jude and Sue are so weird they are from another planet. In a way, you are right.
It may help you understand it a bit better if you think of it this way:
Jude has Asperger's syndrome. Sue is a "Highly Sensitive Person" (HSP).
On top of these problems, Jude is a young boy ready to have sex but not mature enough to be married and have responsibilities. His cousin Sue is a young girl ready to "be loved" but unready to have sex.
Life repeatedly rushes Jude and Sue into the very things they are unprepared for and things get VERY bad quickly. The author, who obviously has baggage, is trying to make a case against marriage.
I found myself caring for these characters, even though I knew that the story could not possibly end well. I found myself vomiting when the murder takes place.
Do not read this book unless you are willing to have your traditional values unseated very painfully.
This is my favorite book - , 2008-09-18
- ever, ever, ever, ever, ever! I have never felt this intensity of pure love for a person who I'm told is fictional? He stares out at you, so real you could touch the stubble on his chin. You'll take each loss so personally, and feel each disappointment with such ferocious, physical pangs! Oh, his poor judgment. His bad, impetuous, foolish choices (like mine!), hard knox, followed hard upon by brittle, fleeting true love.
The details of the characters make this book great. I loved reading about Jude's struggle to learn Latin. I loved his whimsical sympathy for the hungry rooks. I loved his simultaneous attraction/revulsion for Arabella. I loved the description of her slaughtering the pig, and then later her removing her hairpiece. I loved Jude's tribulations as a mason in the great Cathedral. I loved the complexity of his feelings for Sue. I loved his defiance and obstinacy in the face of death. Oh, he was so brave and stupid and romantic and deluded and smart and thwarted and alone. Read it for Jude!
Unforgettable story and characters, 2008-03-17
Jude's life is short and miserable. His aspiration of becoming a scholar is thwarted when he is trapped into marriage by Arabella. But even without Arabella's manipulations, he is trapped in time, born many years too soon for the reality, instead of only the dream, that someone of a working class background can attend an institution of higher learning.
He remains a stonemason and eventually unites with Sue Bridehead, not in a legal marriage, but one of heart and mind. Jude is ahead of his time, again, for this type of union to be socially accepted. Their rejection of a marriage contract turn them in social outcasts and their hardships culminate into a horrific event that affects Sue profoundly and causes the separation between her and Jude.
For me, Sue is the character who leaves the most lasting impression in Jude the Obscure, even though it's not in a wholly positive sense. She is indecisive and at times so annoying that I clenched my teeth as I was reading. But the scene where she jumps out the window when Phillotson accidentally enters her bedroom is priceless and forever ingrained in my mind. She cannot force herself to accept him as a husband. Others, less free-spirited and emotional than Sue, might have been resigned or indifferent to being the wife of a dull, older man. Not Sue. Her spirit rebels because she wants to be with Jude, until she is shocked and overwhelmed by grief. Then she transforms into someone who can overrule her own will and submit herself to Phillotson. In the end she is crushed and as dead as Jude in his coffin.
Jude the Obscure is bleak, but also surprisingly fast-paced with good dialogue and memorable characters. If the book had been more favorably received by critics upon its publication Thomas Hardy would almost certainly have continued writing novels. But he was discouraged by the cries of outrage and turned his attention to writing poetry. We'll never know what great books he might have written but the masterpiece Jude the Obscure is an exclamation point as a last novel.
Truly a Masterpiece!, 2008-01-23
Thomas Hardy has accomplished a miracle with this novel. He has written a novel equal in the strength of the ideas, the beauty of the writing, and the compelling nature of the story. If he had only done one of the three well, the book would be worth reading, but having done all three so beautifully has resulted in a masterpiece.
I first read Jude about 10 years ago and recently re-read it. I was even more delighted after reading it again, and plan to read it a third time.
Some of my literary compatriots have been put-off by what they characterize as stiff language in Hardy in general and Jude in particular, but I would encourage anyone to persevere...after a few chapters, it wears-off and then you will thoroughly enjoy the reading!
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780486452432
ISBN: 0486452433
Label: Dover Publications
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2006-12-01
Publisher: Dover Publications
Studio: Dover Publications |
