I need to decide what to read next: The Phantom of the Opera or Jude the Obscure

[StColumbofNavron]

Relevant information

• I do like a bleak tale
• I have loved (as much as one can) Tess and Return of the Native
• I like Gothic
• I want something all encompassing (I've been reading a lot of light, breezy fiction lately that was fine but didn't sweep me up)
• a GoodReads review compared the Phantom to Heathcliff which almost swung it for me as I adore Wuthering Heights

So which shall I opt for?

I actually am already aware of the 'moment' in Jude or certainly the phrase and its implication. I was not aware of Tess at all. I actually could not speak for about an hour after I finished that. I do agree with Remus. Alec and Angel were both despicable in their own way, but for me Angel is the real villain of the piece.

Jude the Obscure is a classic – one of those books everybody ought to try and read at least once (like Great Expectations or Pride and Prejudice). Weirdly, I've never found Hardy that depressing. I think it's because he wasn't a particularly unhappy man himself. His view of life was utterly bleak (he was a follower of Schopenhauer), but he seems to have enjoyed it nonetheless. In his autobiography Goodbye to All That, Graves describes meeting Hardy, who was in his 80s at the time, and finding him quite bright and chatty. Other very depressing writers (Joseph Conrad, Samuel Beckett and Philip Larkin spring to mind) are more depressing to read because they were themselves depressives. And when the author is a depressive it kind of seeps into the work.

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie I just adore Elinor! Romeo's a good shout. But the bloody nurse goes first.
Catherine Earnshaw.

Nellie friggin Dean - what a bloody shit stirrer!

EVERYONE in W Heights.

@StColumbofNavron

Just looked up my review from 2021, it was strongly worded

Jude

@RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie Sebastian Flyte.

For a slap?

Lily Bart - House Of Mirth

Paul Morel - Sons And Lovers

All of the above.

Julia in Brideshead too.

I actually don’t think it is necessary to read Jude. What about Far from the Madding Crowd? Or Ethan Frome if you like bleak.

@Gremlinsateit I’ve started Jude now. Doesn’t Far From the Madding Crowd end well in the end, I’m sure I’ve seen an adaptation?!

Jude has just met Arabella and she has decided she MUST have him.

Because once read you can never unread it and because of that you will be different forever. It's a stunning book in the hit you over the head with a mallet sense.

I read JTO when I fitted that description perfectly.

I read it again in my 30s. Still incredibly bleak. Still loved it.

Jude is brilliant. I read it when I was about fifteen and actually felt guilty on Jude’s behalf when I went to Oxford. And come on, everyone — it does have its lighter moments, like buxom barmaid Arabella throwing the pig’s puzzle at Jude.

@ErosandAgape it is one way to woo a man

It has never failed me yet.😀

When I was a teenager I could read it as a stunning work of literature, but with motherhood I don’t have that distance anymore, and I no longer see any value in being hit over the head with mallets.

I meant that Far from the Madding Crowd is an alternative Hardy (and the ending is quite complex imo), or Ethan Frome for bleakness. Oh, and The Fortunes of Richard Mahony is a terrific book if you’re after gloom :)

Update: I’m 26% through. Sue has arrived, I’m ambivalent to her at this point. Jude is mooching and really trying hard to get into the colleges.

I have never read it. Good luck StColumb.
Why is Jude called obscure?! Does he talk in riddles?!* *

Amen, sister.

Answers on a postcard, please

too menny bleak bits in Jude the Obscure for me.

Is it because he has high expectations but actually is fairly unremarkable???