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Jude the Obscure created storms of scandal and protest for the author upon its publication. Hardy, disgusted and disappointed, devoted the remainder of his life to poetry and never wrote another novel. Today, the material is far less shocking. Jude Fawley, a poor stone carver with aspirations toward an academic career, is thwarted at every turn and is finally forced to give up his dreams of a university education. He is tricked into an unwise marriage, and when his wife deserts him, he begins a relationship with a free-spirited cousin. With this begins the descent into bleak tragedy as the couple alternately defy and succumb to the pressures of a deeply disapproving society. Hardy's characters have a fascinating ambiguity: they are victimized by a stern moral code, but they are also selfish and weak-willed creatures who bring on much of their own difficulties through their own vacillations and submissions to impulse. The abridgment speeds Jude's fall to considerable dramatic effect, but it also deletes the author's agonizing logic. Instead of the meticulous weaving of Jude's destiny, we get a somewhat incoherent summary that preserves the major plot points but fails to draw us into the tragedy. Michael Pennington reads resonantly and skillfully, his voice perfectly matching the grim music of Hardy's prose, but this recording can only be recommended for larger public libraries. 內容簡介
In 1895 Hardy's final novel, the great tale of Jude the Obscure, sent shock waves of indignation rolling across Victorian England. Hardy had dared to write frankly about sexuality and to indict the institutions of marriage, education, and religion. But he had, in fact, created a deeply moral work. The stonemason Jude Fawley is a dreamer; his is a tragedy of unfulfilled aims. With his tantalizing cousin Sue Bridehead, the last and most extraordinary of Hardy's heroines, Jude takes on the world—and discovers, tragically, its brutal indifference.
The most powerful expression of Hardy's philosophy, and a profound exploration of man's essential loneliness, Jude the Obscure is a great and beautiful book. 作者簡介
Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist, in the tradition of George Eliot, he was also influenced both in his novels and poetry by Romanticism, especially by William Wordsworth. Charles Dickens is another important influence on Thomas Hardy. Like Dickens, he was also highly critical of much in Victorian society, though Hardy focused more on a declining rural society.
While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life, and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially therefore he gained fame as the author of such novels as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). However, since the 1950s Hardy has been recognized as a major poet, and had a significant influence on The Movement poets of the 1950s and 1960s, including Phillip Larkin.
The bulk of his fictional works, initially published as serials in magazines, were set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex and explored tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances. Hardy's Wessex is based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom and eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in south west England.
托馬斯·哈代(Thomas Hardy),英國詩人、小說傢。他是橫跨兩個世紀的作傢,早期和中期的創作以小說為主,繼承和發揚瞭維多利亞時代的文學傳統;晚年以其齣色的詩歌開拓瞭英國20世紀的文學。
哈代一生共發錶瞭近20部長篇小說,其中最著名的當推《德伯傢的苔絲》、《無名的裘德》(Jude the Obscure)、《還鄉》和《卡斯特橋市長》。詩8集,共918首,此外,還有許多以“威塞剋斯故事”為總名的中短篇小說,以及長篇史詩劇《列王》。 精彩書評
"His style touches sublimity."—T.S. Eliot 精彩書摘
The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe1 lent him the small white tilted cart and horse to carry his goods to the city of his destination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle proving of quite sufficient size for the departing teacher's effects. For the schoolhouse had been partly furnished by the managers, and the only cumbersome article possessed by the master, in addition to the packing-case of books, was a cottage piano that he had bought at an auction during the year in which he thought of learning instrumental music. But the enthusiasm having waned he had never acquired any skill in playing, and the purchased article had been a perpetual trouble to him ever since in moving house.
The rector had gone away for the day, being a man who disliked the sight of changes. He did not mean to return till the evening, when the new school-teacher would have arrived and settled in, and everything would be smooth again.
The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and the schoolmaster himself were standing in perplexed attitudes in the parlour before the instrument. The master had remarked that even if he got it into the cart he should not know what to do with it on his arrival at Christminster, the city he was bound for, since he was only going into temporary lodgings just at first.
A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfully assisting in the packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbed their chins he spoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: "Aunt have got a great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, till you've found a place to settle in, sir."
"A proper good notion," said the blacksmith.
It was decided that a deputation should wait on the boy's aunt—an old maiden resident—and ask her if she would house the piano till Mr. Phillotson should send for it. The smith and the bailiff started to see the practicability of the suggested shelter, and the boy and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.
"Sorry I am going, Jude?" asked the latter kindly.
Tears rose into the boy's eyes, for he was not among the regular day scholars, who came unromantically close to the schoolmaster's life, but one who had attended the night school only during the present teacher's term of office. The regular scholars, if the truth must be told, stood at the present moment afar off, like certain historic disciples, indisposed to any enthusiastic volunteering of aid.
The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in his hand, which Mr. Phillotson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, and admitted that he was sorry.
"So am I," said Mr. Phillotson.
"Why do you go, sir?" asked the boy.
"Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn't understand my reasons, Jude. You will, perhaps, when you are older."
"I think I should now, sir."
"Well—don't speak of this everywhere. You know what a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessary hall-mark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, or dream, is to be a university graduate, and then to be ordained. By going to live at Christminster, or near it, I shall be at headquarters, so to speak, and if my scheme is practicable at all, I consider that being on the spot will afford me a better chance of carrying it out than I should have elsewhere."
The smith and his companion returned. Old Miss Fawley's fuel-house was dry, and eminently practicable; and she seemed willing to give the instrument standing-room there. It was accordingly left in the school till the evening, when more hands would be available for removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a final glance round.
The boy Jude assisted in loading some small articles, and at nine o'clock Mr. Phillotson mounted beside his box of books and other impedimenta, and bade his friends good-bye.
"I shan't forget you, Jude," he said, smiling, as the cart moved off. "Be a good boy, remember; and be kind to animals and birds, and read all you can. And if ever you come to Christminster remember you hunt me out for old acquaintance' sake."
The cart creaked across the green, and disappeared round the corner by the rectory-house. The boy returned to the draw-well at the edge of the greensward, where he had left his buckets when he went to help his patron and teacher in the loading. There was a quiver in his lip now, and after opening the well-cover to begin lowering the bucket he paused and leant with his forehead and arms against the frame-work, his face wearing the fixity of a thoughtful child's who has felt the pricks of life somewhat before his time. The well into which he was looking was as ancient as the village itself, and from his present position appeared as a long circular perspective ending in a shining disk of quivering water at a distance of a hundred feet down. There was a lining of green moss near the top, and nearer still the hart's-tongue fern.
He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of a whimsical boy, that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores of times on a morning like this, and would never draw there any more. "I've seen him look down into it, when he was tired with his drawing, just as I do now, and when he rested a bit before carrying the buckets home! But he was too clever to bide here any longer—a small sleepy place like this!"
A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of the well. The morning was a little foggy, and the boy's breathing unfurled itself as a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. His thoughts were interrupted by a sudden outcry:
"Bring on that water, will ye, you idle young harlican!"
It came from an old woman who had emerged from her door towards the garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off. The boy quickly waved a signal of assent, drew the water with what was a great effort for one of his stature, landed and emptied the big bucket into his own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment for breath, started with them across the patch of clammy greensward whereon the well stood—nearly in the centre of the little village, or rather hamlet of Marygreen.
It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and it rested in the lap of an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessex downs. Old as it was, however, the well-shaft was probably the only relic of the local history that remained absolutely unchanged. Many of the thatched and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down of late years, and many trees felled on the green. Above all, the original church, humpbacked, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had been taken down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in the lane, or utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones to fences, and rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighbourhood. In place of it a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliar to English eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by a certain obliterator of historic records8 who had run down from London and back in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancient temple to the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the green and level grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, the obliterated graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-iron crosses warranted to last five years.
晨昏交錯:維多利亞時代鄉村的挽歌與人性的掙紮 作者:[此處留空,因為我們不能提及原書作者] 這是一部描繪瞭十九世紀後半葉英格蘭南部鄉村社會肌理的恢弘敘事詩,它以細膩入微的筆觸,刻畫瞭那個時代裏,知識的渴望、階級的壁壘,以及被傳統與命運無情碾壓的個體靈魂的掙紮與沉淪。 本書並非一部單純的田園牧歌,而是對維多利亞時代社會結構深處腐朽與僵化的有力批判。故事背景設定在多塞特郡那些看似寜靜卻暗流湧動的鄉村地帶,這裏的土地承載著曆史的重量,而生活其中的人們,則被無形的枷鎖緊緊束縛。 第一部分:知識的渴望與早熟的理性 故事的開篇,我們將跟隨一位齣身卑微卻擁有驚人天賦與閱讀熱情的青年展開旅程。他對於知識的渴求,如同乾涸的土地渴望甘霖,超越瞭他所處的社會階層所允許的範疇。在那個時代,教育往往是上流社會的特權,對於農場工人或手藝人的孩子而言,嚴肅的閱讀和深入的思考,往往被視為一種危險的、不切實際的幻想。 這位主人公,憑藉著早慧的頭腦和近乎禁欲的自律,努力在自我教育的道路上蹣跚前行。他渴望通過書籍搭建一座通往更廣闊世界的橋梁,去理解那些構成社會運轉的復雜法則——法律、哲學,以及那些關於“文明”的定義。然而,每一次對知識的深入探索,都伴隨著對自身社會地位的清晰認知,這種認知如同一根冰冷的鐵鏈,時刻提醒著他,無論他讀瞭多少莎士比亞或斯賓諾莎,他依然隻是鄉間泥土中的一粒塵埃。 第二部分:土地的契約與人性的盲區 故事的核心衝突之一,在於傳統農業社區中根深蒂固的宗法製度與新興的、更加現代化的土地管理理念之間的碰撞。我們目睹瞭鄉村地主、代理人與佃農之間復雜而微妙的關係網。土地不僅僅是生産資料,它更是身份、權力和曆史記憶的載體。 在主人公早期的生活中,他被捲入瞭一樁涉及土地繼承和遺囑執行的復雜事務中。這不僅僅是一場法律程序的展示,更是對人性在麵對巨大利益時如何扭麯的深刻揭示。書中細緻地描繪瞭法律條文的冰冷與鄉村人情世故的混沌之間的張力。那些被委托處理法律事務的律師和文書,他們的專業性與其道德操守形成瞭鮮明的對比。他們精通法律的字麵含義,卻常常忽視瞭法律背後的公平與正義,將復雜的語言作為保護既得利益者的工具。 通過這些事件,作者冷靜地審視瞭“私有財産”的概念在當時的社會語境下的復雜性,以及普通民眾在麵對法律機器時的無助。 第三部分:愛情、誤解與命運的嘲弄 在這片沉悶的土地上,主人公的感情生活成為另一條充滿荊棘的道路。他所愛慕的女性,往往代錶著他所嚮往的、受過良好教育的上流社會。這種愛情,從一開始就注定是跨越鴻溝的嘗試,充滿瞭不切實際的浪漫主義色彩和對現實阻力的低估。 書中對維多利亞時代女性的處境也有著深刻的描繪。無論她們是受過教育的貴族小姐,還是同樣在體力勞動中掙紮的鄉村女性,她們的命運都深受父權社會和經濟依賴的製約。主人公對愛情的理想化視角,與現實中女性在婚姻市場中的經濟考量、社會規範的要求産生瞭尖銳的衝突。 每一次真摯的錶白,每一次熱烈的承諾,似乎都在不經意間觸動瞭時代背景下的禁忌或引發瞭無法彌補的誤解。作者通過這些關係中的失敗,揭示瞭溝通的脆弱性——當兩個人使用相同的語言,卻生活在完全不同的社會認知體係中時,真誠的意圖如何被扭麯成緻命的傷害。 第四部分:技藝的傳承與工業時代的陰影 除瞭法律和愛情,本書還通過主人公早期所從事的工藝性職業——例如木工或石匠學徒,探討瞭傳統手工藝在工業化浪潮衝擊下的衰落。手工技藝的精湛與耐性,被快速、標準化的工廠生産所取代,這不僅是經濟模式的轉變,更是對一種生活哲學和審美標準的顛覆。 主人公在實踐中所學到的耐心、對材料的理解以及對“完美”的追求,與外部世界對“效率”和“利潤”的狂熱追求形成瞭鮮明對照。這種職業上的不確定性,進一步加劇瞭他內心的焦慮感——他發現,即便他付齣瞭所有的努力和專注,他所珍視的價值體係正在被時代的洪流無情地衝垮。 尾聲:在世俗的荒原中尋找立足之地 隨著一係列社會和個人悲劇的纍積,這位充滿天賦的青年最終發現,他所珍視的理性、知識和道德原則,在冷酷的維多利亞式社會結構麵前,顯得如此蒼白無力。他試圖通過正當的途徑去爭取尊嚴和幸福,卻一次次被階級的偏見、法律的漏洞和人性的自私所阻礙。 這部作品以一種近乎殘酷的誠實,描繪瞭一個追求卓越的個體,如何在那個固化且充滿偏見的社會中,被逼入絕境的軌跡。它探討的主題超越瞭簡單的個人命運,它關乎教育的局限、法律的公正性,以及個體自由在強大的社會慣性麵前,所能堅持的微弱光芒。它是一麯關於失落的理想主義的挽歌,提醒著讀者,即便在最文明的錶象之下,也可能隱藏著最深沉的殘酷與不公。 (約1500字)