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Summary: Jude: The Emotional Rollercoaster
Review: I never thought something could upset me this much. Jude the Obscure, in my opinion, was Hardy's greatest reguardless of what anyone says. You never know what to expect in this story. One minute everything's perfect, the next tragedy. Read the book. See the movie.
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Summary: Jude the Obscure: Sublimity itself
Review: How does one really describe this masterpiece?The heart-throbbing beauty and pain and sadness is beyond description.If only we were all Hardy,and we could do justice to this climax of creativity and passion.My heart ached for Jude...that poor lost soul whose longings and desires and over and over again aborted.The shocking reality of this work and all the characters is masterful.Jude the Obscure is a hand blindly groping for meaningfulness in our chaotic world,and we feel that it succeeds.
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Summary: Gripping and moving - a beautiful story that invokes sadness
Review: "Jude the Obscure" is a rare find! Jude Fawley is a kind, decent man who falls prey to that which many of us do - love and the blind faith in that which we desire. The story is incredibly well told. The manner in which the children are found dead seems to reach out from the book and grip the reader with heart-wrenching sadness. I found myself sobbing at the incredible grief and distress this child must have felt he caused his parents. As a result, he takes his own, as well as his siblings, lives. The note he leaves behind grabbed my heart. I read this book while on vacation, and although it is not what one would consider a conventional "beach read", I found myself unable to put it down. I even named my cat Jude after reading this because Jude Fawley is truly one of the most beautiful and kind people ever depicted in literature. An animal rights activist before his time, Jude was rewarded with the kindness and sensitivity he so freely gave to others.
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Summary: SAD
Review: I had to put the book down 3/4 of the way through. It was so...........SAD. Finally, I finished. AT the same time that I was really intrigued, I was really glad it was over. I haven't read Hardy for so long. It was a welcome return.
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Summary: Hardy's sublime take on human suffering.
Review: One of Hardy's later works, "Jude the Obscure" displays the author's sure hand in depicting Man's capacity for suffering. This is tragedy writ large, and all the more perversely compelling for it. While not as well known as Hardy's "Tess" or "The Mayor of Casterbridge", it's probably his best book; a work that will haunt the reader long after.
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Summary: "Jude": little to appreciate
Review: As a Hardy fan, I turned to "Jude" with high expectations--and was very disappointed. I saw in his work the same recylcing of elements in other works (particularly "Tess" and "Return of the Native"). If Hardy wanted to come out and condemn religion, he should have done so, instead of his little forays and hasty retreats. So read "Jude" if you must, but to see Hardy at his best I recommend "Mayor of Castorbridge" instead.
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Summary: Sadness is easy
Review: The thing with sadness is its so easy to write about. Jude the Obscure is no exception to this unyeilding rule of literature. This heartfelt tragic romance, which attacks many of the untouchable conventions and establishments of its day, is so painful to read that it can't be put down. Jude's endeavour's, destined from the beginning for doom, are the pathes of man searching for some sort of solace in two of his most prized passions, learning and love. Yet for some reason these two goals, which we are taught never to give up on, desert him. Hardy approaches the institutions of religion and scholarship with such a deep resentment by creating an ironic character who desires both, while Hardy himself seems to despise them. Hardy also manages to create an incredible woman in Sue. Sue's passion for her beliefs instill in Jude a passion for her. Her intelligence is something that should be rivaled today. Sue and Jude are the players in a wretched game of love. It questions the fact whether love in fact binds us all
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Summary: Jude the Obscure is a beautiful book about human nature.
Review: Thomas Hardy, in Jude the Obscure creates a character who is important, not only because Jude is struggling for a better life, but because he is human. Jude often becomes sidetraked from his true goal, but often begins to fight as soon as he realizes what he has done. The story is beautifully well written, with characters the reader can sink their teeth into. Hardy is a master of the human condition, he understands the underlying principles of life and portrays them vividly so that we all can learn important lessons from reading his work
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Summary: The ultimate in heart-wrenching tragedy. Perfection.
Review: During a rather animated dinner conversation about the varied definition of "family" today, my English friend suggested that I must obviously love the works of Hardy, "Jude the Obscure", in particular. No, I was not familiar with his work. As I recalled later, he did brief me on the plot, but the wine must have diluted its message, for it in no way diluted my tragic mourning at the novel's end. Steadfast ambition, good intentions gone awry, true love overwhelming, and eventually destroying all. This work is so sweetly pure in perfection that I have no expectation to ever come that close to it again in a literary experience. I read somewhere that it would be pure joy to read Hardy's novels in the same sequence that he wrote them. Unfortunately for me, I read "Jude" first. And although all his novels are hauntingly, achingly beautiful (I have to pace myself and read them only every so often or I would surely die of heartache), they only come close to "Jude"'s power. After I read the last line of "Jude", I closed the book, closed my eyes, and desired nothing stronger that to travel to England, sit at Hardy's graveside and ask "What kind of man are you to have been able to do that with mere words?" And to thank him for doing so
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Summary: A compelling and excellent novel of human nature
Review: The issues of marriage, children, passions and revelations of the ordinary dominate this detailed and gripping novel.
Hardy's tragic novel leads the reader along the lives of the main character, Jude, and his lover, Sue so well that it's a small wonder that this book hadn't been made into a feature film before this year. This is a book of longing for dreams, but finding only stark reality again and again. Though this point may not be a happy one, Hardy's concern for his characters and their settings make this book impossible for the reader to set down for any length of time. A must read.
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