townesvanfaulkner

Writing Style-7.1
Originality-7.6
Plot-6.8
Literary Merit(whatever that means)-7.3
Overall-7.3

I was really surprised at how much I identified with this book. I thought that it would be more obscure, so to speak, but it’s actually pretty easy reading and a pretty simple, enjoyable story. I’m also always amazed at books that are over a century old (Jude was first published in 1895) that feel so relevant today.

I identified with this novel for two main reasons: 1) the main character, Jude Fawley, sets seemingly rather simple goals for himself and is repeatedly thwarted by unforeseen circumstances beyond his control; 2) this novel is a scathing diatribe against social conventions at the time, mainly marriage, which to my mind haven’t really changed all that much (particularly in the South).

Jude is a bright young man of simple means. Orphaned I believe, at any rate, he is being raised by an aunt who cares very little for him. He has a teacher who encourages him to make use of his above average intellect. He becomes inspired to self-teach himself “grammars”, Latin and Greek and so forth. And reads the classics voraciously to educate himself. He has the goal of going to the larger neighboring city of Christminster and going to college and perhaps becoming a minister.

But, alas, one thing after another happens to set him back in these dreams. He meets a girl and is seduced into marriage. Once he gets to Christminster he can’t get into the college. So he is left to work as a stone mason and puts his dreams aside.

He splits with his wife and then meets up with his cousin, Sue Whitehead. He falls in love with her. Gross, I know, but the reader feels pretty empathetic to their plight.

This book is kind of rough in its portrayal of the two women in Jude’s life. His first wife, Arabella, is the stereotypical gold digger who essentially tricks him into marrying her for her own financial comfort in life. And Sue, though at times a feminist, Hardy writes her to be far too whiny and moody, almost crazy, so that it detracts slightly from any feminist arguments he may be making. One feminist, anti-wedding, passage comes to mind where Sue is writing to Jude about her pending marriage to another man.

[“I have been looking at the marriage service in the prayer-book, and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-away should be required at all. According to the ceremony as there printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but I don't choose him. Somebody gives me to him, like a she-ass or she-goat, or any other domestic animal. Bless your exalted views of woman, O churchman!”]

I particularly liked some of these other passages, along the same lines:

[“I think I should begin to be afraid of you, Jude, the moment you had contracted to cherish me under a Government stamp, and I was licensed to be loved on the premises by you—Ugh, how horrible and sordid! Although, as you are, free, I trust you more than any other man in the world."]

[“Apart from ourselves, and our unhappy peculiarities, it is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving a person when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover. There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were told not to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signed contract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward, in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoid each other's society as much as possible in public, there would be more loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetings between the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seen each other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding in closets! There'd be little cooling then."]

[“And I am not so exceptional a woman as you think. Fewer women like marriage than you suppose, only they enter into it for the dignity it is assumed to confer, and the social advantages it gains them sometimes—a dignity and an advantage that I am quite willing to do without."]

[“What Arabella has been saying to me has made me feel more than ever how hopelessly vulgar an institution legal marriage is—a sort of trap to catch a man—I can't bear to think of it.”]

[As she read the four-square undertaking, never before seen by her, into which her own and Jude's names were inserted, and by which that very volatile essence, their love for each other, was supposed to be made permanent, her face seemed to grow painfully apprehensive. "Names and Surnames of the Parties"—(they were to be parties now, not lovers, she thought). "Condition"—(a horrid idea)—"Rank or Occupation"—"Age"—"Dwelling at"—"Length of Residence"—"Church or Building in which the Marriage is to be solemnized"—"District and County in which the Parties respectively dwell."

"It spoils the sentiment, doesn't it!" she said on their way home.]

These are all good, strong feminist sentiments expressed by Sue. But she does tend to grate on your nerves as the book progresses. Really it’s because she’s going a little crazy because of society’s constraints upon her.

Also, these passages point to the main point of the novel I think. It’s really a story about Jude and Sue’s relationship. Both are fragile, intellectual, free thinkers and are therefore dogged by society and their prior marriages damning their current lives.

So, this book really spoke to me, for obvious reasons for anyone that knows me well. I highly recommend it to those that don’t mind the 19th century voice. This is what Classics, with a capital C, are supposed to be; timeless and relevant well over a century later.