Jude the Obscure: Possibly the Most Depressing Book Ever

I hadn't planned on reading a third Hardy novel this year (I read Under the Greenwood Tree and A Pair of Blue Eyes practically back-to-back) but recently comedian Michael Ian Black started a podcast called Obscure in which he reads one chapter of Hardy aloud per week, interspersed with his comments. He goes off on tangents and does terrible accents for some of the characters, and I find it delightful. However, if I read along with Michael, it would take nearly a year to finish Jude, so I've read ahead. And let me tell you, Hardy deserves the reputation of my first impressions. Jude has four main characters who are all miserable, and terrible things happen to them. It is possibly one of the most depressing books I have ever read.

Here's the setup: schoolteacher Mr. Phillotson is packing up and leaving a small village in Wessex to continue studying at Christminster, a large university town (based on Oxford). Young Jude Fawley, a bright but poor pupil, is sad to see him go and vows to someday go to Christminster himself to study. As a poor boy with no resources, and being of a lower class, this is practically impossible. He lives with his great aunt who is full of dire predictions about the Fawleys, and how they should never marry, that they are essentially cursed.

Nevertheless, Jude works hard, gets hold of some Greek and Latin grammar books, and does his best to study on his own. As he grows up, he begins training as a stonemason, while still improving himself by studying late into the night. Then his plans are sidetracked one day when he is literally hit in the face (with pig offal, no less) by a sultry temptress known as Arabella.

Yes, women are the root of all evil. Jude is a strapping young man and he is distracted, as is to be expected, by the temptations of a woman. One thing leads to another and rather than the shining halls of Christminster, Jude is led down the aisle by Arabella because she has led him to believe that she is In Trouble. Eventually, their marriage turns sour and they separate. Jude vows to begin a life of chastity and study. However, he tracks down his cousin, Sue Bridehead, in whom he finds a kindred spirit. Sue everything that Arabella is not. Of course, he falls in love with Sue but can't have her.

So, the lives of Jude, Sue, Arabella, and his old schoolmaster Phillotson become entwined and tragic. I was actually sort of enjoying this book, despite the dire predictions and rumors that this book was really sad. Things weren't looking great for Jude and Sue, but I was going along with it, then BAM! About 3/4 of the way through I was absolutely blindsided by a plot twist that was so unexpected and horrible I gasped aloud. I was absolutely gobsmacked and had to stop reading (well, listening, as I was in the car with the audiobook.) It was almost 24 hours before I could pick it up again and I did not know what could possibly happen next -- how could things get worse? (They did.)

Clearly, Hardy had some very serious thoughts about the nature of marriage and love and happiness. I had read a bit about Hardy in Wikipedia and I knew that he had a very unhappy marriage; also, that Jude the Obscure was so controversial for its time, and that there was a great deal of backlash. Though Hardy lived another 30 years after the publication of Jude in 1895, he never published another novel, just plays and poems.

I cannot say that I liked Jude, but I can appreciate the writing and parts of the plot, but I don't think I can forgive Hardy for that terrible plot twist. Jude the Obscure definitely gets my vote for Most Depressing Book Ever.

There is also a film adaptation from 1996, which is out of print but there are still copies floating about. One of my library's branches has a copy so I put in a request. It is supposedly en route but now I don't know if I can bear to watch it. It does star Christopher Eccleston so it might be worth a look, but I just don't know. Here is a still from the film with Jude and Kate Winslet as cousin Sue:

The wonderful Rachel Griffiths is Arabella and Liam Cunningham is Jude's former tutor Phillotson. Who knew that the Onion Knight from Game of Thrones was in a Hardy adaptation? He is my favorite GoT character so I might take a look out of curiosity. 

Liam Cunningham as Davos Seaworth, the Onion Knight in Game of Thrones.

Should I bother watching the film version of Jude? Is it the most depressing book ever? Should I give Hardy another chance or are all of his novels just soul-crushing?

 I'm counting this as my Classic That Scares You for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

Nana by Emile Zola

Well, I didn't think it could happen, but it did.  Zola has disappointed me, in a very big way.  Nana is the twelfth book by Zola that I've completed, and the tenth in his epic Rougon-Macquart cycle, and this is the one I've liked the least, by far.  It's also the one that took me the longest.  Usually I zip through a Zola novel in a week, sometimes just a couple of days, but this one just dragged for me -- it was more than a month from start to finish, because I just couldn't get into it.

Nana is one of Zola's most famous novels, but for those who are not familiar, it's the eponymous story of a courtesan and sometime actress named Nana who becomes the most talked-about, scandalous woman in Paris.  She's kind of like a cross between Helen of Troy, Madonna and Kim Kardashian.  Men are obsessed by her, and she drives many of her lovers to financial ruin, or even worse.  Nana is an addiction, a succubus -- men are trapped by her spell, and will stop at nothing to satisfy her every whim.

Overall, I found this to be a really sordid, depressing tale.  I've read a dozen novels by Zola so far, and believe me, he is the master of writing about awful people in unpleasant situations.  However, I think this is the first book where I didn't care about a single one of the characters at all.  Usually there's someone whose story both repels and fascinates me enough to keep reading, but this book took me more than a month to finish, I was so disinterested.  Usually I'll finish a Zola book in a few days, normally not more than a week.  Nana just dragged on and on.  I hated everyone, and I thought they all deserved what was coming to them.  (I would have given up, but I kept hoping it would get better, so I finally plowed through it.)

I was also really disappointed by the writing.  Most of the time Zola writes really tight plotlines; this one seemed all over the place, lacking in focus. It started out in a theater, where a new production of a play is about to premiere.  Nana is described as not being able to act or sing, but somehow, her presence is so electrifying, people can't stop watching her.  Then the story shifts to Nana's sideline as a prostitute -- she's still turning tricks on the side, since she can't support herself as an actress.  There are subsequent chapters about Nana's love affair with a count, and how she essentially ruins his life.  The only chapter I actually liked is one where Nana and her entourage attend the races at Longchamps, which was very interesting and well-written (I've had a soft spot for horse racing ever since I read all the Dick Francis mysteries years ago.)  Finally, the last chapter was just wretched.

Another thing that really bothered me was an unpleasant sub-plot about Nana and her love affair with an abusive boyfriend.  It was really painful to read, and it just didn't seem to fit the character.  Even though she's vile, Nana is mostly a strong personality, strong enough to dominate men and bend them to her will, yet this horrible actor slaps her around and she seems to enjoy it.  I'm no expert on women in abusive relationships, but it just didn't make sense to me.  Plus, there are constant references to Nana's genitalia, and how she's using her sexuality to control men -- I just got tired of reading about it.  Zola has written some books that were very shocking for their time, but this one must have been the epitome of the racy French novel.  I got the feeling that Zola was writing some of it just for shock value.

I should really go and research more about the background of this book to get more of the metaphors.  (I usually go back and read the introduction until after I've finished a book, since I hate spoilers.)  I've heard this book is really a scathing satire about the decline of Paris during the time period, but I just don't care enough to find out.  If this were my first experience reading Zola, I don't think I'd ever read another one of his books again, ever.  I still own copies of three other Zola novels -- The Dream, The Debacle, and Money, and I'm really hoping that they're better than this one.

I am counting this as my Classic in Translation for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

Not the actual cover of the edition I read.
That one is just too disturbing.

Warning:  Do not read The Jungle, if you are like me and typically read books while while eating.  Period.  End of story.  It will put you off your lunch, seriously.  Possibly for a long time.

That is not to say that The Jungle is not worth reading.  It's one of those books that I've had on the TBR shelf for more than three years now, since I received the Big Box of Penguins from the nice people at Penguin Classics.   It is one of those books, also, that I didn't want to read so much as I wanted to have read it, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, this is the story of Jurgis Rudkis, a Lithiuanian immigrant who lives in Chicago in the early 1900s.  The book begins at his wedding to Ona.  It starts out with a big party, and basically, their lives go downhill from there.  Not only do they go into debt for this big wedding, they're barely eking out an existence working in the famous Chicago stockyards, in a neighborhood known as Packingtown, which is one of the nastiest, filthiest places in literature.  This book was written as an indictment of the terrible conditions in which poor people lived and worked at the time, especially immigrants, who came to America thinking they'd have all these great opportunities.  In fact, conditions were probably worse for them than back in the old country.  I've read a lot of immigrant stories, but this is probably the first one I can remember in which the immigrants should have stayed home.

Jurgis came to America with his father, his future bride, her stepmother Elzbieta, and various extended family members and children, including Marija, Ona's cousin.  Thing start out badly when they arrive  in the slums of Chicago's Packingtown, and get worse when they're tricked into spending their savings a terrible house.  They're working hard under horrible working conditions, but illnesses, layoffs, and bad weather create a situation that goes from bad to worse.  And I do mean seriously worse.  Have you read Germinal or The Grapes of Wrath?  Those books are cheerful compared to The Jungle, which has my vote for Most Depressing Book of All Time.

And Sinclair does not shy away from the messy details.  He goes into great detail about the horrible sanitation of the stockyards, the disease and filth and disgusting working conditions.  It's amazing to believe that anyone survived eating food that came out of there -- and even scarier to think of how it must have been to work there.  There was so much corruption, and so few rights for the workers, it's just shocking.

But this book isn't just about how bad the sanitation and working conditions of the stockyards; it's also about how few rights workers had, how companies took advantage of immigrants, and about the shocking corruption, both with the big corporations and in Chicago politics.  Having lived in Chicago for ten years, this sheds new light for me.  (I will never think of the name for the Chicago Bulls basketball team in quite the same way again). 

The edition that I actually read.  It's a really nice edition, except for the cover artwork.

It was an interesting book, yet horrifying.  I can't say I'd recommend it for the writing or character development; even the plot is not that great.  I'm quite sure this book is considered important for its impact than for its literary merit.  In a way, the terrible lives of these people in Packingtown are so over-the-top, it's unbelievable.  They were less human to me, more caricatures --  it's like Sinclair thought to himself while writing, how can get this get worse?  It really lacked the great writing of Steinbeck and the riveting characters of Zola; if you haven't read anything by Zola, he is the absolute master of creating people whose lives are on incredible downward spirals.  Also, the ending of the book is really unresolved -- it just ends with this big rant about Socialism, and we never find out what happens to Jurgis and the rest of the family.

So.  I'm very proud to have finally finished it -- that's five books off my TBR Pile Challenge for this year.  My goal was one book every month, so I'm a little behind, but not terribly.  I've already started reading The Sisters, a biography of the Mitfords, which I already know will be a really fun read.  I know I'm supposed to be starting Moby-Dick, but I really need a break to before starting another book I've been dreading.  How's everyone else doing on their TBR Pile Challenge?  Are they books you love, or just books you really wanted to have crossed off your list?  And are there any books even more depressing than The Jungle?