Rating: 
Summary: almost perfect
Review: This novel is just one step shy of being a true and great masterpiece. But it's still excellent and its near perfection makes it a compelling read. It's also a deeply moral work, although attacked upon publication as an insult to marriage and religion. No, it isn't. It's the story of a decent Christian guy named Jude who has dreams of getting educated and becoming something in life, so he teaches himself Latin. He meets and falls for a pagan girl named Sue, with whom he has nothing in common. Love works in mysterious ways. Although Thomas Hardy's writing is powerful and gripping with great storylines, his stories are ultimately tragic and convey his pessimistic view on life. But I prefer unhappy endings anyway. He's my favorite Victorian novelist. David Rehak
author of "Love and Madness"
Rating: 
Summary: Jude the DEPRESSING
Review: Thomas Hardy's novel, Jude the Obscure, was a very insightful book, but I found its depressing content reminiscent of The Jungle. This is definitely not a novel that I would want to read sitting out in my garden on a sunny day,but rather for educational purposes only. It's examination and criticism of society makes the reader think, which is an essential element in any good novel.
As in The Jungle, Jude the Obscure seems to make the characters' lives worse and worse and worse. The novel begins with high hopes for it's main character, but soon turns into a never-ending landslide of tragedy. The story follows Jude Fawley, who in the beginning of the book is full of dreams of going beyond his lower class station and on to college in Christminster. To do this he studies from books given to him by his old schoolmaster, Phillotson. Jude is a very compassionate and kind-hearted soul who wouldn't hurt a fly and when he is 19, he develops a crush on a local girl named Arabella. She seduces him and then pretends to be pregnant, so that Jude's sense of duty forces him to marry her. The marriage eventually falls apart and Arabella takes off to Australia with her family. Jude then goes to Christminster to pursue his aspirations, but is blatantly rejected. There he meets his cousin, Sue, and falls in love with her. Sue, realizing that Jude loves her, plays with his emotions, and marries Phillotson, the old schoolmaster. Hating the relationship, she asks to be freed from the marriage. Eventually, she likes Jude, but they never officially marry. They end up going from town to town because of the bad reputation surrounding their relationship. During this time they have two children, who are eventually murdered by Arabella and Jude's child, Father Time, who commits suicide after the murders. This drives Sue mad. She then returns to Phillotson, although she can't keep from cringing at his touch, as a form of penance for leaving him in the first place. This leaves Jude alone until Arabella comes back and gets him drunk, so that he will remarry her. Jude, completely broken, dies not too long after the second marriage.
Bad experience after bad experience, nothing remotely uplifting happens! It is just depressing and painful. Not to say you can't learn a lot from books that aren't pleasant. This book examines society in a very pessimistic, but accurate light. Hardy's ideas about the negatives of society and the harsh realities of the human condition are apparent throughout the novel. I liked the book only in that it made me think. Beyond that it was just too hard to read because you feel for Jude and want him to find happiness at some point in his life, but he never does. I also found it very dull when it wasn't making me cry. It is a book I would recommend reading once, but definitely not for amusement and only if you can handle 400 pages of gloom.
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