Mini review: Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy
Woke up this morning thinking about Jude the Obscure for no obvious reason, a book I read 20 years ago (also an excellent film starring Jude Law and Kate Winslett).
Would you like to read about sympathetic, progressive, working class characters undergoing increasingly terrible things, and then, when you think they can endure no more, read the most harrowing, heart-rending scene in literature? BOY have I got a book for you.
Like, cannot trigger warn without Big Honking Spoilers, but this book is deeply upsetting, in a 'massive critique of the patriarchy, classism, and wealth disparity' kind of a way.
Personally, I strongly enjoy sympathetic characters going through depressing things. This is a great book. Thomas Hardy's most depressing book, and all of his books are SEVERELY DEPRESSING. But I would only recommend reading if you're in a mentally healthy state, or confident that deeply harrowing literature will not>
>push you over the edge.
Other than that, the premise is a bright young man with dreams of going to Oxbridge has them dashed in various classist ways. He also falls in love with a bright young woman he cannot marry for various reasons - not least that she does not believe in marriage. They love each other anyway. It goes downhill from there.
OK, now I've told you about the saddest book I ever read, maybe I can go back to sleep.
Dr Ro Smith