Posted by Lale on 10/2/2009, 12:27:20, in reply to "Re: jude the obscure"
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Summary of the book and my comments are below.
Lale
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Jude is a poor orphan living with his great aunt in Marygreen. Phillotson the schoolmaster moves to Christminster. Jude dreams of growing up, going to Christminster and studying there to become a scholar. He moves to Alfredston to earn money. Jude meets Arabella, they get married and move to Alfredston. Then Arabella moves out, moves in with her parents and they later move to Australia. Jude moves to Christminster. Jude meets Sue. Sue had already moved to London and then back to Christminster. Phillotson had moved to Lumsdon. Sue moves to Lumsdon. Jude moves to Marygreen. Sue moves to Melchester. Jude moves to Melchester. Arabella moves back to England and moves about: London, Christminster etc. Sue moves, temporarily, to a town near Shaston. Phillotson moves to Shaston. Sue marries Phillotson and she moves to Shaston. Jude meets Arabella. Jude thinks of moving to Christminster but stays in Melchester. Much coming and going between Marygreen, Melchester, Christminster and Aldbrickham. Arabella moves to Lambeth. Sue leaves her husband. She and Jude move to Aldbrickham. Phillotson and Sue are divorced. Arabella and Jude are divorced. Arabella remarries. Jude and Arabella’s son arrive from Australia. Sue and Jude start living as a married couple in Aldbrickham. Later they are forced to move away due to social pressure. They move about for two and a half years. They finally show up in Kennetbridge. Phillotson, having lost his position as a school-master, moves to Marygreen. Sue, Jude and their children move to Christminster. The children die. Sue moves out. Arabella’s father moves from Australia to Alfredston. Arabella moves in with him. Sue moves to Marygreen and remarries Phillotson. Arabella coaxes Jude to remarry him. They move out of father’s house. Jude visits Sue one last time. Sue sleeps with her husband. Jude dies.
My comments (written right after reading the book):
Obviously Jude is a very important work and no wonder it caused such furor at the time. Hardy had some quite progressive and liberal ideas and he questioned the existing social set-up the way it was never questioned before. And, as Steven pointed out, some of these topics are still current and touchy today.
It was a brave work and it brought about new concepts and it may have contributed to major changes in society. All this do not come together and make a good novel however. It would have been really cool if Hardy could have done all he did with a more natural story line, with a Sue that was not downright annoying, with dialogues that rang true and with a plot that flowed smoothly.
No matter what or how important, how ground breaking your message is, you still have to have a good story. This was not a good story.
Sue is the kind of person I would not want around after getting to know her a little bit. I could never sympathize with her. She was manipulative, selfish, inconsistent: Oh you can kiss me now, no no, one is enough, maybe I will let you kiss me again later on, but maybe not. You cannot come and visit me, oh please do come and visit me, don't visit me there, visit me here. I will marry you, I won't marry you, I will pretend I married you. I'll sleep with you, ooops, I changed my mind, I won't sleep with you. I was cruel to you. You are cruel to me. On and on and on.
Her initial superstition about marriages falling apart in their family was out of character for such an independent minded woman who challenged convention. Then, when she lost her children she completely lost her mind.
Many times in the novel, Jude got it right about Sue. He said things like "you are playing with me", "you are a flirt" etc. But he never had the courage, strength, self-confidence (?) to break it off with her and move on.
At one time he even said: "Perhaps you are making a cat’s-paw of me with Phillotson all this time. Upon my word it almost seems so - to see you sitting up there so prim!”
Sue was a capricious woman and everyone put up with her. I couldn’t. It wasn’t realistic, it went to the extreme. By the end of the book I had enough of her.
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