Damn. What was I thinking? Right after reading the very depressing The Idiot by Dostoyevsky, I chose to read next the very depressing Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. At least the characters in this one don't act insane, although they don't always behave rationally.
For instance, the title character nurtures unrealistic expectations of rising from his lower class background to become a scholar at university, although he has had no formal scholastic training and has not enough money to afford the tuition. Then he follows his lust instead of his brain to enter into an unsuitable marriage. When his wife leaves him to go to Australia with her family, he conceives a hopeless love for his cousin Sue, although they are close kin and he is married. I could go on and on with the unfortunate choices Jude makes in his tumble-down life. His cousin also makes some poor choices, beginning when she impulsively marries a much older man who is physically repulsive to her. She soon deserts her husband to live with Jude, although they can't marry. I won't detail the subsequent progression of events, but rest assured, nobody lives happily ever after.
Jude's story bears many resemblances to Tess's story in Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles, but Tess proves to be a much more sympathetic character and her story has a pathos that this one lacks.
This novel created a furor when it was published because of its unfavorable view of the institution of marriage. Hardy was also critical of a society which doomed the unhappily married to stay together based on religious belief. It is an extremely well done novel but, fair warning, it is depressing.
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