Jude the Obscure

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy was quite the surprise. I'd heard mixed reviews of Hardy, so I didn't know what to expect, but I rather liked this book. I thought it had surprisingly modern ideas for a nineteenth-century novel. Jude is tricked into marriage by one girl, so it is already salacious when he starts pursuing Sue Bridehead, his true love. After his wife runs off to Australia and later seeks a divorce, he is free to marry Sue. But she is gun shy after her own failed marriage, so they live together and pose as a married couple without ever making it official. While this is nothing out of the ordinary in 2011, it seems pretty revolutionary for 1895.

And apparently many found it a little too nontraditional. The book was met with outrage when it was published, surprising Hardy, who thought of it as a moral tale. It was burned publicly and nicknamed Jude, the Obscene according to the Wikipedia article. Like many of today's accusations against books, it seems like an over-reaction. It's not giving too much away to say the couple faced many hardships due to their choices, so it was in no means an endorsement of the lifestyle.

Controversy aside, this was a pretty good read. I would definitely pick up more Hardy.