How does one start with a schoolmaster and a young boy, and end with two women looking into a grave? Surely someone can make sense of how this education-laden image begets yet another one of Hardy’s gender themed novels. Surely, though I am not the one.
While I did enjoy Jude the Obscure—it was what any good Hardy reader expects with its grand eye for social commentary and melodramatic tragedy—I can’t help seeing the discrepancy between intention and product. Where Hardy fails to write the story he seems to have desired, he succeeds in instilling this pursuit in the very essence of the work. It is a book about failure, and it is one.
Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe that this work was supposed to be about a boy’s attempt to join the ranks of scholars. Is the point, then, that women are the disruption of this aim? I don’t recall any inclusion of the alternative, the scholars at Christminster touting their sexlessness around town. No, I think the problem was that his story about a boy reading all the time was boring. So he changed it. Jude couldn’t get anywhere because he never did anything truly productive, and Hardy couldn’t keep telling the story of some guy with his nose buried in books that was bound to go nowhere. That story was shelved for the more “interesting” aspects of Jude’s history, the moments when he made choices and mistakes. When he instigated and struggled and interacted. Therefore, if one looks deeply enough, there lies a theme more thought provoking than the more obvious “What is love in the eyes of God and man?” and “Do we serve our God if we serve societies mores and superstitions?” This theme is: why do we read these ‘classics’ at all?
Yes my fellow book-loving-bloggers, why are we here? Do we read with a sort of hero worship as Jude read to find his mentor Mr. Phillotson? Do we read to better ourselves? To find greatness? If the later is the case than keep in mind the lessons learned by Jude: to follow, no matter how diligently, is not a life but a characterization. If you want your efforts to be your story, than pave the way yourself. Find what it is that makes your efforts productive, and not just a chauvinistic rehashing of written words. Don’t fall to Jude’s frenzied, drunken quote-ranting. Don’t let yourself be led into more “interesting” territory. Don’t be scared into thoughts of mores and love, grand themes with little else but lazy controversy. Read, and thereby create. Invent. Formulate. Discover. Devise.
Forgive the sermon, but when I first went to review this work, I found myself tempted to read the word of others. I needed to know if I’d caught all the themes, and knew which scenes were praised and which were trivialized. I needed my opinion handed to me. How scary is that? Though, by the way, I thought the book was grand when Hardy stopped digging his heels and allowed his talents to shine in all of their grotesque über-tragedy glory. Thumbs up. Gold stars. Smiley faces and high fives. There’s my review and I’m sticking to it. Amen.
4 comments:
btw... learning to write in the cut took FOREVER even with your direction, Amy. Oy vay.
Oh no, I was hoping that they weren't confusing directions by me, but I was afraid they were. Well I'm glad to see that you figured it out!
I think I'm going to wait until finishing the book to read the review. I don't want to spoil anything, but I have to say that I am so pleased to hear that it ends up with two women looking into a grave. It's exactly what I would want from a Thomas Hardy.
I started reading the book today and I really want to read it quickly since it took me a whole week to read On The Road which was longer than I would have liked. I don't know how reasonable I'm being wanting to read a Hardy quickly.... but there you have it.
Once I finish I'll come and write a detailed comment on my thoughts. ;)
Ok so I read your review anyway ha ha. And I'm glad I did because I TOTALLY answered your "why do we read classics" question in my On The Road review. Or at least gave a little part to the answer - for me at least. I read because it allows me to enter into a world, and live a life that I just wouldn't be able to otherwise. It lets us live out secret desires (like being a hobo) or shows us where our vices could lead us, or lets us release pent up emotion that we didnt know we had. Literature is just a way to live a second life, without all the disruption it would cause if it happened in our real lives.
Of course that is not the whole reason we read literature.... who knows if it would even be possible to fully answer that.
and also, when I was doing my On The Road review I TOTALLY almost went to sparknotes or something to see what they said about the book. But then I was like - NO. If I'm being too positive about it, or not being critical enough, then so be it! I will have to just live with my ignorant, unliterary opinions and be happy and if other people don't agree with me then who cares. So you're not alone in wanting your opinions to be handed to you. i guess it's just easier to not have to take credit for an idea or opinion that others may not agree with. That seems so dumb when you write it out like that. oh well! we're not alone! :)
Wow. That book was so sad. I cried so much.
But anywho - my review. So I really love this book, it is definitely at least tied with Tess. But I may actually like it more. Time will tell. (NOT Little Father Time - I lost my trust in him when he went and put that horrible horrible image into my mind that will probably never be erased.)
I feel like i need to let this book sit for a few days before I really get a lot of it. It's just sad to think that Thomas Hardy's view on life was that if you go into life naively and full of dreams - the world will crush them and leave you a sad and battered individual, and you will die alone asking for water to soothe your parched throat (and spirit??) from someone who isn't there. What happened to you Thomas Hardy?!?!?!!
I really thought it was interesting though how modern this book seems considering when it was written. The views that Jude and Sue shared (until Sue went bat-shit crazy) were so revolutionary and are views that still are only accepted by liberal thinking people. For example, it really got me thinking about marriage. It IS just a contract when you get down to it. Sue kept going on about how she was "still Richard's husband in God's eyes." But I just thought that was absolutely ridiculous. They may have been the ones to have the contract, something that she and Jude never had, but she and Jude had real, true love for eachother. And THAT is I think God's "contract" for marriage. At least that is how it is in MY view of God's eyes.
Very good. After a few days, we can discuss it more. I think letting it settle will help me see it more clearly.
A+ Thomas Hardy. As was expected. You did not disappoint.
One last thing - I was so pleased in the fact that this book did NOT diminish my love for the name Jude. If anything, it increased it. If one day I have a son, I would be honored to give him a name that is associated with this book and especially this character. Except I would hope that MY little Jude would not have all of his hopes and dreams ripped apart and shat on like his literary forebearer.
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