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Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure
Oct 22, 2024 8:20 AM

Author:Thomas Hardy

Jude the Obscure

'One of the most compassionate of all writers...you feel a kind of agony of helpless tenderness in the writer for all troubled souls’ The Times

Jude Fawley is a young man who longs to better himself and go to Christminster University. However, poverty forces him into a job as a stonemason and an unhappy marriage. When his wife leaves him Jude moves to Christminster determined to follow his dream. There he meets and falls for his free-spirited cousin, Sue Bridehead. They refuse to marry, much to the disapproval of the community around them. In this heartbreaking story Hardy shows the devastating effects of social prejudice and oppression.

The novel caused outrage when it was published in 1895 and, as a result, was the last novel Hardy ever wrote.

See also: The Return of the Native

Reviews

Visceral, passionate, sylvan...anti-hypocrisy, anti-repression..dealing with love, death, with young people with everything before them, dealt a cruelly stacked hand... Hardy reaches deeper, into our wildest recesses. In a safe world, he speaks to our animal side.

—— Evening Standard

To no tragic novelist do we surrender more completely at the last...one of the most compassionate of all writers...you feel a kind of agony of helpless tenderness in the writer for all troubled souls

—— The Times

Hardy may have been born in 1840 shortly after Victoria came to the throne, but he speaks to the 20th century rather than the 19th.

—— Independent

A classic outsider novel. An anthem to misery.

—— Katy Guest , The Independent

One of the big stories in English fiction this decade has been the return and triumph of Deborah Levy... You would call her example inspiring if it weren't clearly impossible to emulate

—— New Statesman

An ice-cold skewering of patriarchy, humanity and the darkness of the 20th century Europe

—— The Times

In one short and sly book after another, she writes about characters navigating swerves of history and sexuality, and the social and personal rootlessness that accompanies both

—— The Atlantic

Charged with themes spanning memory and mortality, beauty and time, it's as electrifying as it is mysterious

—— Mail on Sunday

Intelligent and supple...a dizzying tale of life across time and borders

—— Financial Times

It's clever, raw and doesn't play by any rules

—— Evening Standard

Superbly crafted, enigmatic, tantalizing... Levy defies gravity in a daring, time-bending new novel... Head-spinning and playful, her writing offers sophistication and delightful artistry

—— Kirkus (Starred review)

One of the best books I have ever read

—— Katherine Angel via Twitter

playful, consistently surprising...Levy brilliantly plumbs the divide between the self and others

—— Publishers Weekly Best Books 2019

Lalwani's prose has a balletic lightness

—— Economist

A female lead who isn't defined by a romantic story arc? Yes please. Lalwani's serious, ravishing way of writing about the secret life of Britain is just what we need

—— Times

You People is a short, complex novel that shines a light behind the smiles at your local restaurant, and asks tough questions about the nature of goodness in an unfair society

—— Sunday Telegraph BOOK OF THE WEEK

A sensitive and thought-provoking examination of an issue that is never far from the news and, as the plot accelerates, it segues into a tense and nerve-wracking thriller

—— Western Mail

Lalwani's novels are full of moments when the stories people tell about themselves and the world prove to be unreliable or open to manipulation.... observations are magical, fresh and unsettling

—— London Review of Books

If you want a book to read this summer that taps into contemporary concerns, this excellent new one from Nikita Lalwani is the one to read

—— Spectator

Lalwani explores kindness, altruism and the precariousness of interconnected lives in an economical tale that has the pace and suspense of a thriller

—— Daily Mail

Lalwani eloquently explores the prejudices, financial pressures and loneliness faced by 'outsiders' trying to survive in a hostile environment

—— The Tablet
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