Jude.

Long back, I read a book at the wrong age. I remember being fascinated, and baffled at my fascination with something I could barely understand. I caught the spirit, but not the flesh, I could catch the mood of the symphony, but couldn’t hum a single bar. I was much, much too young, just about thirteen, when I first read Jude the Obscure.
I remember the time when I was first fascinated by the gorgeous depression that Thomas Hardy’s works bring. Whenever I think of Hardy, and in particular, Jude the Obscure, I think of a richly carved sculpture, remniscient of Rodin’s Gates of Hell, with each individual carving evocative of some pain, sorrow or suffering. Jude, in particular, seems to draw and envelope you in its own mist of sorrow, a strange, dense mist, heavy, but not stifling, thin, but impenetrable.
The other thing that strikes me about Hardy is how his characters are always slightly larger than life. They are real, no doubt, with their fair share (and often, more than that) of human faults and failings. But Hardy takes a character rand elevates his or her suffering to a grand, almost orchestral level. Personal struggle takes the tone of universal crusade, enemies become adversaries, and lovers become soul mates. And characters, mere human characters, become demigods. Nowhere is this more prominent than in Jude.
But I was thirteen, and though I can understand the novel on the basis of the other works by Hardy that I have subsequently read, I am yet to comprehend Jude for itself, in it entirety. That is why I bought a second-hand copy of Jude the other day. I remember how I felt when I read it, now I want to figure out why.