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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. 内容简介
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. 作者简介
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.
托马斯·哈代(Thomas Hardy),英国诗人、小说家。他是横跨两个世纪的作家,早期和中期的创作以小说为主,继承和发扬了维多利亚时代的文学传统;晚年以其出色的诗歌开拓了英国20世纪的文学。
哈代一生共发表了近20部长篇小说,其中最著名的当推《德伯家的苔丝》、《无名的裘德》(Jude the Obscure)、《还乡》和《卡斯特桥市长》。诗8集,共918首,此外,还有许多以“威塞克斯故事”为总名的中短篇小说,以及长篇史诗剧《列王》。 精彩书评
"His style touches sublimity."—T.S. Eliot 精彩书摘
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.
晨昏交错:维多利亚时代乡村的挽歌与人性的挣扎 作者:[此处留空,因为我们不能提及原书作者] 这是一部描绘了十九世纪后半叶英格兰南部乡村社会肌理的恢弘叙事诗,它以细腻入微的笔触,刻画了那个时代里,知识的渴望、阶级的壁垒,以及被传统与命运无情碾压的个体灵魂的挣扎与沉沦。 本书并非一部单纯的田园牧歌,而是对维多利亚时代社会结构深处腐朽与僵化的有力批判。故事背景设定在多塞特郡那些看似宁静却暗流涌动的乡村地带,这里的土地承载着历史的重量,而生活其中的人们,则被无形的枷锁紧紧束缚。 第一部分:知识的渴望与早熟的理性 故事的开篇,我们将跟随一位出身卑微却拥有惊人天赋与阅读热情的青年展开旅程。他对于知识的渴求,如同干涸的土地渴望甘霖,超越了他所处的社会阶层所允许的范畴。在那个时代,教育往往是上流社会的特权,对于农场工人或手艺人的孩子而言,严肃的阅读和深入的思考,往往被视为一种危险的、不切实际的幻想。 这位主人公,凭借着早慧的头脑和近乎禁欲的自律,努力在自我教育的道路上蹒跚前行。他渴望通过书籍搭建一座通往更广阔世界的桥梁,去理解那些构成社会运转的复杂法则——法律、哲学,以及那些关于“文明”的定义。然而,每一次对知识的深入探索,都伴随着对自身社会地位的清晰认知,这种认知如同一根冰冷的铁链,时刻提醒着他,无论他读了多少莎士比亚或斯宾诺莎,他依然只是乡间泥土中的一粒尘埃。 第二部分:土地的契约与人性的盲区 故事的核心冲突之一,在于传统农业社区中根深蒂固的宗法制度与新兴的、更加现代化的土地管理理念之间的碰撞。我们目睹了乡村地主、代理人与佃农之间复杂而微妙的关系网。土地不仅仅是生产资料,它更是身份、权力和历史记忆的载体。 在主人公早期的生活中,他被卷入了一桩涉及土地继承和遗嘱执行的复杂事务中。这不仅仅是一场法律程序的展示,更是对人性在面对巨大利益时如何扭曲的深刻揭示。书中细致地描绘了法律条文的冰冷与乡村人情世故的混沌之间的张力。那些被委托处理法律事务的律师和文书,他们的专业性与其道德操守形成了鲜明的对比。他们精通法律的字面含义,却常常忽视了法律背后的公平与正义,将复杂的语言作为保护既得利益者的工具。 通过这些事件,作者冷静地审视了“私有财产”的概念在当时的社会语境下的复杂性,以及普通民众在面对法律机器时的无助。 第三部分:爱情、误解与命运的嘲弄 在这片沉闷的土地上,主人公的感情生活成为另一条充满荆棘的道路。他所爱慕的女性,往往代表着他所向往的、受过良好教育的上流社会。这种爱情,从一开始就注定是跨越鸿沟的尝试,充满了不切实际的浪漫主义色彩和对现实阻力的低估。 书中对维多利亚时代女性的处境也有着深刻的描绘。无论她们是受过教育的贵族小姐,还是同样在体力劳动中挣扎的乡村女性,她们的命运都深受父权社会和经济依赖的制约。主人公对爱情的理想化视角,与现实中女性在婚姻市场中的经济考量、社会规范的要求产生了尖锐的冲突。 每一次真挚的表白,每一次热烈的承诺,似乎都在不经意间触动了时代背景下的禁忌或引发了无法弥补的误解。作者通过这些关系中的失败,揭示了沟通的脆弱性——当两个人使用相同的语言,却生活在完全不同的社会认知体系中时,真诚的意图如何被扭曲成致命的伤害。 第四部分:技艺的传承与工业时代的阴影 除了法律和爱情,本书还通过主人公早期所从事的工艺性职业——例如木工或石匠学徒,探讨了传统手工艺在工业化浪潮冲击下的衰落。手工技艺的精湛与耐性,被快速、标准化的工厂生产所取代,这不仅是经济模式的转变,更是对一种生活哲学和审美标准的颠覆。 主人公在实践中所学到的耐心、对材料的理解以及对“完美”的追求,与外部世界对“效率”和“利润”的狂热追求形成了鲜明对照。这种职业上的不确定性,进一步加剧了他内心的焦虑感——他发现,即便他付出了所有的努力和专注,他所珍视的价值体系正在被时代的洪流无情地冲垮。 尾声:在世俗的荒原中寻找立足之地 随着一系列社会和个人悲剧的累积,这位充满天赋的青年最终发现,他所珍视的理性、知识和道德原则,在冷酷的维多利亚式社会结构面前,显得如此苍白无力。他试图通过正当的途径去争取尊严和幸福,却一次次被阶级的偏见、法律的漏洞和人性的自私所阻碍。 这部作品以一种近乎残酷的诚实,描绘了一个追求卓越的个体,如何在那个固化且充满偏见的社会中,被逼入绝境的轨迹。它探讨的主题超越了简单的个人命运,它关乎教育的局限、法律的公正性,以及个体自由在强大的社会惯性面前,所能坚持的微弱光芒。它是一曲关于失落的理想主义的挽歌,提醒着读者,即便在最文明的表象之下,也可能隐藏着最深沉的残酷与不公。 (约1500字)