Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Review by Anar M., Youth Reviewer
“Jude the Obscure” is the last of Thomas Hardy’s books — after it, he turned to poetry rather than novels, perhaps due to the extreme backlash “Jude” caused. I can understand why: the book may not be particularly revolutionary today, but it was published in 1895. It’s far ahead of its time.
Hardy’s characters, too, are ahead of their times. Jude Fawley himself was born a poor workman but hopes to work his way up to a position in a university, and has studied Latin and Greek from a young age in the hopes of achieving that goal, only to fail because he doesn’t have the money to buy a spot as a student. As a young man, he falls in love with Arabella, but they separate only months after their marriage because they cannot live together. Sue Bridehead marries a man many years her senior but cannot bring herself to love him, and therefore leaves him; she and Jude cohabitate and have children without being married because both dread going through the ceremony since they’ve had such negative experiences with it in the past. Rumors that they are unmarried make it harder for Jude to find work; society’s, and the church’s, dislike of such an unusual situation eventually destroys them.
It’s impossible to read “Jude the Obscure” without wondering what Hardy would have thought of the present day, in which most marriages end in divorce, the church has an optional role, and living together without marrying is completely normal. I found the comparison fascinating. Our current society values, or at least doesn’t mind, all the things for which Jude and Sue are discriminated against — and yet we seem to have just as many societal problems with marriage and the family (abortion rights, gay marriage, common-law marriages) today as we did then.
There are unquestionably old-fashioned elements in Hardy’s book. Even when Jude and Sue rebel against the conventions of church-sanctioned marriage, they phrase this rebellion as the belief that they are married in truth if not on paper: rather than rejecting entirely the necessity of marriage, Hardy changes the definition from having signed a piece of paper in a church to simply loving each other. It’s not that marriage is unimportant to love, but that official recognition is unimportant to marriage. In that way, Hardy’s ideal world is far from our current one.
Still, “Jude” is an interesting and relevant book and one that I would highly recommend.
Find “Jude” at the Kitchener Public Library!