Customer Reviews

Jude the Obscure (Modern Library Classics)

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This novel is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions and if you're looking for happy endings, this isn't the story for you. The central theme surrounds the defiance of cultural norms and the consequences of same. Sue is the love of Jude's life. The main obstacle: Sue's flightly, unpredictable and unconventional nature. It's her liberal critical thinking that attracts Jude to her, but it's also his (and her) ultimate undoing.

As a reader, I found Sue's actions maddening: she leads Jude on, then spurns him, then leads him on again. She leaves her husband for him...yet she refuses to marry Jude for fear that the conventions of marriage would sully thier "pure form" of love. This see-saw relationship goes on for hundreds of pages. I knew I was engaged in the book when I shouted at Jude for not waking up and running away from this obvious kook of a woman. Then again, his willingness to put up with her unbearable behavior made me think they were made for each other: two loons together in a world of stiflingly normative behavior.

As if this wasn't unsatisfying enough, Hardy really pours on the tragedy in the last 100 pages. I won't ruin it by spreading the details here, but you'll basically be begging the author to let you off of the emotional wrestling mat by page 450. In the end, I conclude that the author's point is that (1) don't buck the system too strenuously lest you be smacked down, and (2) life's miserable; don't go thinking that you can escape it because your love is powerful or your mind is open. That's Great English Literature for you, right there.