Just when I thought I had the measure of Thomas Hardy, Jude the Obscure comes along to shatter my expectations. Hardy's final novel ramps up the bleakness and tragedy whilst delivering a scathing critique of religion and the marriage contract, though he denied he had any such purpose in mind. The book follows the life of Jude Fawley, a working class orphan who grows up with lofty aspirations to become a scholar. Christminster (Oxford) is the shining beacon upon which he sets his hopes, and after uuugyears of self education in the classics and a steady apprenticeship as a stone mason, he is almost ready to make his move. Desire proves the means of his undoing when his steadfast purpose wavers and he is seduced by the village strumpet, Arabella Donn. Don't worry Jude, we've all been there! Tricked into a bad marriage, Jude realises too late his folly. Following a botched suicide attempt, and after Arabella abandons him, he nonetheless decides to try and pick up where he left off. Once in Christminster, Jude meets his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who causes him to bitterly regret his earlier rash marriage. Rejected by the universities and foiled in love, Jude's life spirals into further tragedy and disappointment.
It is a rare thing to go into a classic novel relatively blind, but having somehow avoided spoilers and seen no screen adaptations, I knew nothing about the plot. I even mistakenly assumed Jude to be a tragic heroine. I had some inklings from school that something terrible happened towards the end, but I was never too clear on the details. When I encountered that scene whilst reading one more chapter before bed, it was a blindside rarely experienced in literature, and one that haunted me long into the early hours. I even experienced nightmares, such is the book's power to unsettle. Knowing that things could definitely not improve after this incident, the rest of the story was an inevitable plunge towards Jude and Sue's sorry fates. What began as a story of optimism, idealism, and the breaking of oppressive regime, leads to ruin, despair, masochistic penance, and a return to the status quo. The message seems to be that no matter how hard one rallies against the injustices of social convention, society has a way of beating you back into place. Predominantly an unrelentingly grim book, there are some moments of dark humour to lighten the mood, such as when an innkeeper suspicious of Jude and Arabella's marital status is reassured that all is decent and respectable after hearing them quarrelling and throwing shoes.
Rating: 4/5
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