Jude the Obscure (189X)
Tale as old as time - some anonymous dude rises from the mists to greatness and to claim his fortune. Jude the Obscure asks, what happens to those other anonymous dudes who try to step up to the mantle?
At first, it seems like a boring old indictment of all the things that were annoying 19th c romanticist types: society's stupid sexual mores, drab and dismal Christianity, all those yucky things that the liberal subject likes to oppose himself to!
But when you take a step back from the tapestry, you really get the sense that while Hardy has great compassion for the underdog (the underJude), he doesn't make him innocent of the suffering he undergoes. And the moral of the story reveals itself as more complicated than "Society constricts destroys and suffocates our hero!" or "The actions of all heroes inevitably turn back to destroy himself."
Jude Fawley is the epitome of the omega-male: observe the opening chapter where he fails his job as a scarecrow to allow "his pretties" to a feast of freshly planted corn! There is no return to healthier, happier primitive nature - that way is Darwin's Battle Royale. There are no happy pagan times before the city happened (as in previous Hardy novels). There is no utopian city on the hill (Jude's first ambition is to learn himself some classics to get himself to the university!) There is no grace from above (Jude's second ambition is the clerisy). There is no hope in romantic love (Fawley decides to give up the pretense of being an omega, and go crazy in love, and this is a terrible decision). There is no solace in Enlightenment, in figuring out the Truth. There is no way forward - just that marketplace where scheming people use and abuse one another, Version 2.0 of Darwin's nature. There is only Job's suffering, minus final redemption.
It's a very strange, very angry little book, with a very small cast of characters and a dense profusion of dialogue lifted from the hero and heroines' self-directed readings.
I join Hardy to my collection of prophets of doom, who include the Frankfurt School, Weber, and David Simon of The Wire. They are all liberals jaded by radicalism, mourners of an ephemeral freedom.
At first, it seems like a boring old indictment of all the things that were annoying 19th c romanticist types: society's stupid sexual mores, drab and dismal Christianity, all those yucky things that the liberal subject likes to oppose himself to!
But when you take a step back from the tapestry, you really get the sense that while Hardy has great compassion for the underdog (the underJude), he doesn't make him innocent of the suffering he undergoes. And the moral of the story reveals itself as more complicated than "Society constricts destroys and suffocates our hero!" or "The actions of all heroes inevitably turn back to destroy himself."
Jude Fawley is the epitome of the omega-male: observe the opening chapter where he fails his job as a scarecrow to allow "his pretties" to a feast of freshly planted corn! There is no return to healthier, happier primitive nature - that way is Darwin's Battle Royale. There are no happy pagan times before the city happened (as in previous Hardy novels). There is no utopian city on the hill (Jude's first ambition is to learn himself some classics to get himself to the university!) There is no grace from above (Jude's second ambition is the clerisy). There is no hope in romantic love (Fawley decides to give up the pretense of being an omega, and go crazy in love, and this is a terrible decision). There is no solace in Enlightenment, in figuring out the Truth. There is no way forward - just that marketplace where scheming people use and abuse one another, Version 2.0 of Darwin's nature. There is only Job's suffering, minus final redemption.
It's a very strange, very angry little book, with a very small cast of characters and a dense profusion of dialogue lifted from the hero and heroines' self-directed readings.
I join Hardy to my collection of prophets of doom, who include the Frankfurt School, Weber, and David Simon of The Wire. They are all liberals jaded by radicalism, mourners of an ephemeral freedom.