Some Reflections on Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure
One evening not long ago I happened to sit down on the Tube next to a woman who was reading Thomas Hardy’s novel Jude the Obscure . Since I had been thinking about reading another book of his for a while – after picking up a collection of hardbacks from a charity shop for eight quid one day – I asked her what she thought and we had a nice chat. She was reading Jude with her book club and was clearly quite moved by it. Since I like a bit of serendipity and my choices being made up for me sometimes, Jude was the volume I plucked off my bookshelves when I got home. It is, particularly in its tumultuous second half, a remarkable book – with Hardy’s characteristically rich and lively writing allied to a keen sense for how human life and social convention wrap themselves around another with sometimes troubling consequences. Originally published in book form in 1895, Jude also speaks to a time of rapid social change, which often makes itself evident as the book reaches ...