on doughnuts, despair and jude the obscure
after a week of stress-induced dieting, plus some exercise thanks to my more active friends, (and the wonderful results thereof) i have cheated. finally.
doughnuts are really quite horrid if you stop to think what they're made of. but they're so wonderfully fun to eat. and really, who can worry about weight or any existential crises when everything in this glorious city implores us to take part in the pleasure of the holiday buzz. . . and for us jews that means food. as always.
in any case, i suspect there will be more doughnuts before the week's up. . and then no more until next year.
but for now i need to finish (although it's probably best to start at the beginning) my paper on jude the obscure. . . there's much to say and yet i'm not really sure whether there's anything new to say. i'm pretty sure i posted about this book a while ago, the first time i read it. i must say it is even more depressing on a second read, and thus i would not recommend except for those fortunate ones among us who actually lack for reasons to get down and need art to help them exercise the capacity to fall into a deep state of melancholy. for the rest of us mortals, avoid jude at all costs. in fact, this book makes me question the very legitimacy of art. as if human emotion were not already overtaxed by the inevitable challenges of living, that we need some creative work of art to help us reassert our capacity to despair, to cry, to wonder at the ludicrousness of it all. . .
in any case, i really am not sure what to say about the novel. on the one hand it's the anti-bildungsroman, jude unlearns all the ideals he had as a child as the novel progresses until he is left with only despair and an utter lack of faith in god and mankind. its also a story built on contrasts: the human vs. the divine, the individual vs. community, etc. and about unrequited love. prehaps ultimately jude the obscure is a modern tragedy. modern because the hero is not a romantic hero but a struggling individual, and because the tragedy is not death (necessarily) but alienation. so now i will get to work.
doughnuts are really quite horrid if you stop to think what they're made of. but they're so wonderfully fun to eat. and really, who can worry about weight or any existential crises when everything in this glorious city implores us to take part in the pleasure of the holiday buzz. . . and for us jews that means food. as always.
in any case, i suspect there will be more doughnuts before the week's up. . and then no more until next year.
but for now i need to finish (although it's probably best to start at the beginning) my paper on jude the obscure. . . there's much to say and yet i'm not really sure whether there's anything new to say. i'm pretty sure i posted about this book a while ago, the first time i read it. i must say it is even more depressing on a second read, and thus i would not recommend except for those fortunate ones among us who actually lack for reasons to get down and need art to help them exercise the capacity to fall into a deep state of melancholy. for the rest of us mortals, avoid jude at all costs. in fact, this book makes me question the very legitimacy of art. as if human emotion were not already overtaxed by the inevitable challenges of living, that we need some creative work of art to help us reassert our capacity to despair, to cry, to wonder at the ludicrousness of it all. . .
in any case, i really am not sure what to say about the novel. on the one hand it's the anti-bildungsroman, jude unlearns all the ideals he had as a child as the novel progresses until he is left with only despair and an utter lack of faith in god and mankind. its also a story built on contrasts: the human vs. the divine, the individual vs. community, etc. and about unrequited love. prehaps ultimately jude the obscure is a modern tragedy. modern because the hero is not a romantic hero but a struggling individual, and because the tragedy is not death (necessarily) but alienation. so now i will get to work.
posted by shoshana at 2:31 AM
4 Comments:
as if human emotion were not already overtaxed by the inevitable challenges of living, that we need some creative work of art to help us reassert our capacity to despair, to cry, to wonder at the ludicrousness of it all. . .
Interesting. I actually find depressing books quite comforting. I find that books, if they touch on elements I can relate too, can offer a brief escape from feeling utterly and completely alone in my thoughts...
I just wanted to point out that tragedies traditionally to *not* end in death. The tragedy archetype---Oedipus---ends in blindness, which is the common throughout most tragedy.
I am curious what you find so "modern" about a "struggling individual." Was Hamlet modern? (Some would actually argue that he was). Alienation is a theme that goes back all the way to Abraham. I am sure that "Jude the Obscure" has some uniquely modern aspects to it, though I curoius about what they are.
Though I completely agree with you about the depressing-book thing. I hate reading sad literature. Life's sad enough---why wallow in it? I'll take my Confederacy of Dunces or Shalom Aleichem over depressing books anyday.
hketg:
truth is i enjoy and wallow in depressing books. but jude the obscure is truly depressing (not catcher in the rye/catch 22/sylvia plath/hemingway. . . depressing) its heartwrenching and utterly unbearable.
michael:
this is true. tragedies do not have to end in death. i have no ide what i was thinking. i think, at 230 a.m. i was perhaps too tired to think at all. so i rambled instead. re the modern thing i tend to think of the romanticization of the individual as a modern phenomenon but i could well be wrong. not to say no individuals existed before, i just think we idealize the individual more today than ever before. and in america perhaps more than anywhree else (certainly more than in a country like israel, for example.)
anyway perhaps ill post more on jude the obscure once i've finished this paper.
re depressing books see my response to hketg. i like depressing books. i just dont like jude the obscure depressing books. if u choose to read it you'll know what i mean.
oh and ive been up since th elast post, practically, ie for about 24 hrs, so not making much sense, im afraid.
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