Jude the Obscure: A Review

Thomas Hardy viscerally drags us through Victorian class struggle and the cross of an earnest, but gullible man

One may have some familiarity with Thomas Hardy and his best-known work “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” which was published in 1891. Hardy, a British author and poet from Dorset, known for his rich prose, fatalist and comedic themes, firmly cements himself as one of England’s finest writers, offering a rich window into the pitfalls and—ultimately—the senselessness of intellectual idolatry. This obsession, displayed within the book’s protagonist is juxtaposed with a shallow and cynical high society which barres all others from entering the halls of its excellence.

The aptly titled ‘obscure’ protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a young man born into poverty but possessed by dreams of academic ascension in the nearby spired town of Christminster (Oxford). After his schoolmaster Mr. Philloston leaves for a job in this city, Jude becomes so enamored with Christminster, and the prestige it promises that he becomes a stonecutter in order to become a peripheral part of the city. He supplements his lack of education by studying meticulously the areas which are befitting of a Christminster man—biblical languages like Greek and Latin, patristic texts, and philosophy, and becomes fiercely proficient in these subjects. Unfortunately, he is derailed in this pursuit time and time again, first by circumstances out of his control, then again of his own making. Love is involved.

Without spoiling the larger tragedy that unfolds, Jude discovers, in vain, that not only will he never be accepted into the colleges, but that he, as a suffering academic, is not as novel or interesting as he once believed. This realization betrays, quite strikingly, that Jude, though many times an earnest truth seeker, is moreso enamored with the appearance of intellectualism, rather than the wisdom which accompanies it.

“Yet he sometimes felt that by caring for books he was not escaping commonplace nor gaining rare ideas, every working man being of that taste now.”

One can’t but help notice the parallels to Hardy’s own lived experience; a son of a stone mason and aspiring student of Latin and music, growing up without the means to pursue them. At 16, Hardy was apprenticed to an architect instead of pursuing a university education due to lack of money. In this new capacity, he would have no doubt been exposed to the stone-walled, Gothic churches and lecture halls of Oxford, where the separation between himself and that which he was unable to attain was acutely recognized.

“Knowing not a human being here, he began to be impressed with the isolation of his own personality, as with a self-spectre, the sensation being that of one who walked, but could not make himself seen or heard. He drew his breath pensively, and seeming thus almost his own ghost, gave his thoughts to the other ghostly presences with which the nooks were haunted”

While it is tempting to empathize with Jude’s aims—his desire for recognition and love, no matter the form it took, and to pity him for the terrible tragedies that befall him, one can’t help but feel he is gullible beyond belief, propelled violently into chapters of his life by loose, cartoonish desires which, though hardly pragmatic, animate his entire existence.

For its rich prose, blistering tragedy, beautiful character renditions, and prescient warnings to those that aspire today (academic or otherwise) I cannot recommend this read enough.