Grandma`s books- Thomas Hardy`s Jude the obscure

Art for education


Hello there!!
This is Nina, your friendly guide, back again, with bucketful of new year greetings!!

Today we start a new, and extremely useful column for the eternal learner. As each day passes, we miss many things precious, of which we are aware of, but have no time for. Books belong to one such category. People used to read a lot, before the advent of TV, mobile phones and internet. Then, those days, I was told by my grandma, an avid reader, that people were more good and kind. They were less self centered and far less selfish. My grandma also added that its not people, but the life around them that make everything a mess. So fast and less time. When I reached high school the first book grandma thrust into my eager hands was `Jude the obscure'

A book that made me cry, a book which created pangs of desperation deep within and a book which proclaimed the eternal value of education and search for knowledge.

The author
Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, the son of a stone mason, was born in Upper Bockhampton, near Dorchester, in 1840. He was admitted to the local school at the age of eight. after being qualified as an architect, he moved to London and found work with a company that specialized in church architecture. During this time he started writing poetry, and though it was sent to many publications, but they all rejected his works.

Hardy`s first novel, Desperate Memories was published in 1871. The book received almost no attention and failed in the market. Hardy`s true success stories started with the serialisation of Far From the Madding Crowd in the Cornhill Magazine in 1871. His noted works are the Return of the Native(1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge(1886), The Woodlanders(1891), The Well-Beloved(1892) and Jude the Obscure(1896)

Jude the Obscure
Jude Fawley is a rural stone mason with intellectual aspirations. Frustrated by poverty and the indifference of the academic instituions at the university of Christminster, his only chance of fulfilment seems to lie in his relationship with the unconventional, free-thinking cousin, Sue Bridehead. But life as social outcasts proves undermining, and when tragedy occurs, Sue has no resilience and Jude is left in despair.

Hardy`s portrait of Jude, the idealist and dreamer is one of the most haunting and desperate of his creations. Going through the pages of Jude the Obscure is like taking a pilgrimage through the dark alleys of human endurance for the sake of  seeking knowledge and love.

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