I became aware of this book not through high school English class (though one of Hardy's other novels, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, was on the list of recommendations) but because of the movie starring Christopher Eccleston and Kate Winslet. It wasn't that good a film, and neither was Return of the Native, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones. But they were only two of the many  films that have been made from Hardy's novels, so I thought there must be some reason people kept trying. They must actually be good books that for some reason don't work so well as films. I was right. I borrowed Jude the Obscure from the public library, and though the first few chapters didn't grip me (I kept reading because I wanted to find out if there was an actual ending, which the movie lacked), by the time I was a third of the way through, I could barely put it down. I believe that the reason Hardy's novels have not been the best movies is the level and method of character development. His characters are very well fleshed out, and only partially by description. Most of what we learn of the characters is through minor elements of the plot, which are easily removed when the plot needs to be condensed, but their absence leaves even the best actors with little to go on.

Neither of the lead actors looks much like the physical descriptions of their characters, but I believe they portrayed them very well, especially in light of the poor script. Actually, I can't reconcile the idea that a man as soft-hearted and gentle as Jude could have thick curly hair and a beard. I will only ever be able to imagine him as the tall and wiry, handsome yet odd-looking Chris Eccleston. Kate Winslet is much more similar to Sue, though she is blonde, and Sue was dark-haired.

Jude begins the tale as an orphan in the care of his great aunt, saying goodbye to the village teacher, who is leaving to pursue a university education. The teacher's influence leads Jude to decide he also wants a university education, so he spends all his free time learning dead languages and reading books. He is religious, hoping to become a preacher after he is educated.
Actually a fairly practical planner, he apprentices with a stonemason so he will be able to make a living in the city while trying to gain entrance to a school.
But one aspect of his education is sorely lacking: women. The dark and buxom Arabella seduces him into marriage, then later runs off when she realizes that she isn't pregnant and they are badly matched.
After she leaves, he decides it is finally time to go to the city (partially spurred by a finding at his aunt's house a picture of his cousin Sue, who lives there).
I actually gained more respect for Jude by reading the book. In the film, I thought his relationship with Arabella denoted a weak will. While he is, to some extent, a slave to his emotions, he is not a slave to his hormones. His poor decisions in his love life are due more to a misplaced sense of honor than due to weakness.

Sue has been lauded as an early feminist. She reads a lot, and believes religion is oppressive and society needs to change. Gradually, over the course of their friendship and romance, she converts Jude to her way of thinking. Although in the film they were both stuck in legal but nonexistent marriages, in the book, both got divorced and chose not to marry each other. But the Sue of the book is not the sort of feminist I would ever want to be. She is fickle in her emotions, desires to be loved even by men she has no love for, and when actually given a chance to proudly follow her beliefs, she finds she is afraid. None of that is why real-life early feminists criticised the book; their problem is that circumstances in the plot destroy her, leaving only a pious, self-flagellating (not literally) shell.

This book got so much bad publicity when it was new that Thomas Hardy decided never to write another novel. Most of this was due to its handling of sex (which was never explicit, unlike the movie, but was clearly central to the plot). The fact that Jude and Sue lived together as lovers and even had children, but never married, was very much against society at the time (and is still looked down upon by some now).
Although the author's notes (and those of his contemporaries) have discussed Sue as a type of woman who can "give herself freely" without need for commitment, she was not inclined to do so. She had no desire for sex at all, and could not understand why anyone else did. She believed that all women could go their entire lives without sex, and men only thought they couldn't because they weren't willing to try. The breakdown of her marriage was due less to the fact that she had gone into it for the wrong reasons and more to the fact that she couldn't bear the thought of having sex with her husband. She didn't even "give herself" to Jude, whom she actually loved, until they'd lived together for a year, and even then, it was only because she thought she would lose him if she didn't.
To me, this is no real change at all from the mores of the time. Critics (especially female ones) have said the same, but in the sense that Sue was not allowed to hold to her beliefs. But I think that Sue's beliefs were just as oppressive in everyday life as the standard religious ones were in a wider sense. She spoke often about "nature" and her law as opposed to social law, but she never really understood what was natural.

What really struck me, though, is that men have been oppressed longer than I thought. I've often said they are socially oppressed now, because they have fewer choices in clothing, jewelry, and hairstyle than women, and because they are not allowed to express their feelings (except anger). To some extent, they are oppressed by society's overzealous attempts to give women equal opportunity, both in education and the workforce.
But even when women were almost universally considered weak, and were limited in their possible roles, men were forced into limited roles as well. Jude was repeatedly manipulated by women, but because women were seen as weak, he thought he had to take responsibility for the consequences they forced on him. He had to do the "honorable" thing, because as a man, he should have been strong enough to prevent the consequences in the first place (even though he was, say, totally inexperienced, or mercilessly led on, or even kept drunk for several days).

Another thought that strikes me after reading this book is how ideas can be so ingrained in society that even those who rail against social norms don't even think of questioning them. Sue found religion to be foolish, but never seemed to doubt the existence of God. Jude came to believe that marriage was a meaningless social institution, but found himself agreeing to it in the end because it was the honorable thing to do. Both claimed women could be just as intelligent as men, but neither questioned whether men were emotionally stronger.

Actually, it makes me wonder what ideas the liberals today are simply accepting when we could be casting them away!