Jude the obscure
Novel by Thomas HardyWikipedia
12
MENTIONS
9
EPISODES
8
PODCASTS
Search complete. 12 mentions across 9 episodes found for "Jude the obscure".
Oct 15, 2026
Angel HeartGUEST
Yeah.
Zach Langley Chi ChiHOST
There's, like, hints of it in Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy, but not until Lady Chatterley's novel do you get, like, an entire imagination of it.
Zach Langley Chi ChiHOST
But if you kind of read that book with this, you could almost, like, read it as a sequel novel to, like, see what, or like a prequel, where you could kind of imagine that, like, intense, like, class-defeating love that, like, ruins everything in its wake and then haunts society forever as literal ghosts in the house.
MaggieHOST
Mm.
JonathanHOST
Uh, The Outsider by Albert Camus.
JonathanHOST
Number 70 is Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy.
JonathanHOST
Thomas Hardy with his second edition, uh, on this list.
JonathanHOST
69, LOL, but, uh, is [laughs] Crime and Punishment.
Min Jin LeeGUEST
Um, what's another book that's in conversation with it? Oh.
Min Jin LeeGUEST
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy.
Traci ThomasHOST
Mm.
Traci ThomasHOST
I've never read that, but you love it.
Min Jin LeeGUEST
Because it's, it's very...
Min Jin LeeGUEST
Well, actually, you're a parent, so you might get upset by it.
Min Jin LeeGUEST
There, there's a, there's a very disturbing scene in Jude the Obscure.
Traci ThomasHOST
I like disturbing.
Greg WilliamsSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
You know, I've read quite a lot of the Thomas Hardy books and that, so, you know, I was doing The Hardy Way.
Keri JonesHOST
The Blackmoor Vale provided the setting for much of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Shaftesbury appears as Shaston in both Tess's story and Jude the Obscure.
Greg WilliamsSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
In, in, um, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, like Tess says when she's in Marnhull or Marlott, she looks up and she sees like the glittering rooftops.
Greg WilliamsSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Uh, and then when we're up in Shaftesbury in Park Walk, you can just see out towards the Vale, you know, see Marnhull.
Greg WilliamsSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
Interactions, social interactions, you can look at Victorian novels and say, "Oh, they're dated, they don't apply now." But if you look at like a, you know, story like Tess or like Jude, I, I think they are, you know, those interactions between people, between the characters are timeless, and I think you can still look at those sort of Hardy novels and still, you know, learn a lot, um, you know, um, that are applicable today, and I think that's one of the reasons they're fantastic.
Keri JonesHOST
And there's plenty of material for Shaftesbury to explore.
Keri JonesHOST
The town appears as Shaston in Jude the Obscure, the novel Hardy published in eighteen ninety-five.
Keri JonesHOST
Richard Phillotson, Jude's former school teacher, moves to Shaston to teach, and the town becomes an important setting for his troubled relationship with Sue Bridehead.
Ros ClarkeHOST
I can't read his novels.
Ros ClarkeHOST
I think I once read Jude the Obscure and was just scarred for life.
Rob BrewisGUEST
[laughs]
Ros ClarkeHOST
I mean, how anyone doesn't commit suicide after being friends with someone like that, I don't know.
Silas HouseGUEST
There's a lot of trains in this book, just like in Dr. Zhivago.
Silas HouseGUEST
And, you know, other big, sprawling epics, things like A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving and But the biggest model for this book for me was the writing of Thomas Hardy and the way he, you know, will use a long span of time to be with characters like in Jude the Obscure or Tess the D'Urberville, The Woodlanders.
Silas HouseGUEST
I think because these are such big issues, bigotry, love, race, orientation, all those things, it was important to have this big canvas to show the way things have changed and the way they have not changed.
Silas HouseGUEST
And I also just loved the idea of being with a couple in love from the time they're teenagers until they're in their 70s and going every step of the
Ed BiggsHOST
... of the, that enters at number 10.
Juliet HarrisHOST
The, the Jude, the film Jude the Obscure.
Juliet HarrisHOST
As the former head of classics at my secondary school said to me, "God, that was a miserable film." It's got, um, Christopher Eccleston and, uh, Kate Winslet in it.
Juliet HarrisHOST
Admittedly, the Thomas Hardy, uh, source material is miserable.
Catherine SpeakmanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
But the gravestones date from 1662 all the way through to 1897.
Catherine SpeakmanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
And if the last burial was there in 1897, we do have a record by good old Thomas Hardy in his publication, Jude the Obscure, which came from 1895, where he described it as a place where the churchyard lay nearer to the heaven than the church steeple.
Catherine SpeakmanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
So when you're standing amongst these gravestones, which also have some amazing yew trees amongst them, it's quite easy to understand that so high on the ridge that the church steeple must have actually been lower than the graves themselves, hence the graves being closer to heaven, which is such a romantic way to think about it.
Catherine SpeakmanSOUNDBITE_SPEAKER
So then you can make your way back along Love Lane or the Wooded Path.