-
Jude the Obscure
- Narrated by: Neville Jason
- Length: 17 hrs and 23 mins
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Publisher's summary
Sexually innocent Jude Fawley is trapped into marriage by seductive Arabella Donn, but their union is an unhappy one and Arabella leaves him. Jude's welcome freedom allows him to pursue his obsession with his pretty cousin Sue Bridehead, a brilliant, charismatic free-thinker who would be his ideal soul mate if not for her aversion to physical love. When Jude and Sue decide to lead their lives outside marriage they bring down on themselves all the force of a repressive society. This fearless and outspoken story caused a furor on its publication, and was Hardy's last novel.
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Story
Rosalie Vanderpoel, the daughter of an American multimillionaire marries an impoverished English baronet and goes to live in England. She all but loses contact with her family in America. Years later her younger sister Bettina, beautiful, intelligent and extremely rich, goes to England to find what has happened to her sister. She finds Rosalie shabby and dispirited, cowed by her husband's ill-treatment. Bettina sets about to rectify matters.
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More than Lovely
- By jTacy67 on 01-17-18
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Scenes of Clerical Life
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, through vignettes of his life, portrays a character who is hard to like and easy to ridicule. Many people do ridicule as well as slander and despise him, until his suffering shocks them into fellowship and sympathy.
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The first work...from a very old soul
- By Theodoc on 04-07-21
By: George Eliot
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Silas Marner
- By: George Eliot
- Narrated by: Andrew Sachs
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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For 15 years the weaver Silas Marner has plied his loom near the village of Raveloe, alone and unjustly in exile, cut off from faith and human love, he cares only for his hoard of golden guineas. But two events occur that will change his life forever; his gold disappears and a golden-haired baby girl appears. But where did she come from and who really stole the gold? This moving tale sees Silas eventually redeemed and restored to life by the unlikely means of his love for the orphan child Eppie.
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amazing
- By Ramon on 06-04-12
By: George Eliot
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The Jewel of Seven Stars
- By: Bram Stoker
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The warning was inscribed on the entrance of the hidden tomb, forgotten for millennia in the sands of mystic Egypt. Then the archaeologists and grave robbers came in search of the fabled Jewel of Seven Stars, which they found clutched in the hand of the mummy. Few heeded the ancient warning, until all who came in contact with the Jewel began to die in a mysterious and violent way, with the marks of a strangler around their neck.
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Mother of all Mummy-Stories
- By Dorothea on 03-15-08
By: Bram Stoker
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Ethan Frome
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 3 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Ethan Frome, a poor, downtrodden New England farmer, is trapped in a loveless marriage to his invalid wife, Zeena.When Zeena's young cousin Mattie arrives to help care for her, Ethan is immediately taken by Mattie's warm, vivacious personality. They fall desperately in love as he realizes how much is missing from his life and marriage.
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Slow is smooth and smooth is Fast until it isn't
- By Darwin8u on 05-29-13
By: Edith Wharton
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Howards End
- By: E. M. Forster
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 11 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Howards End is a beautifully subtle tale of two very different families brought together by an unusual event. The Schlegels are intellectuals, devotees of art and literature. The Wilcoxes are practical and materialistic, leading lives of "telegrams and anger". When the elder Mrs. Wilcox dies and her family discovers she has left their country home - Howards End - to one of the Schlegel sisters, a crisis between the two families is precipitated that takes years to resolve.
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Fantastic Narration in Delightful Story
- By Wren on 05-05-18
By: E. M. Forster
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Ghosts: Edith Wharton's Gothic Tales
- By: Edith Wharton
- Narrated by: Alison Larkin, Jonathan Epstein, Corinna May, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Beneath the brilliance that was behind The Age of Innocence and Ethan Frome was a dark side. A dark side which produced magnificent tales of the unseen influences in our lives, such as "Mr. Jones", "The Eyes", "Kerfol", "The Ladie's Maid's Bell", and "The Looking Glass".
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Ghastly Shadows of the Feminine Condition
- By Diane on 10-16-12
By: Edith Wharton
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What listeners say about Jude the Obscure
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-19-23
Incredibly tragic but fascinating
The reader really brings this classic text to life. One of the best audio book performances I’ve listened to!
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- Friend in NYC
- 10-25-19
Sad indictment against marriage
This is another gripping but tragic Thomas Hardy novel. This one is quite heavy-handed. The writing style changes as Jude grows up and his views and experiences change. Its not my favorite Hardy novel but it is definitely worth the read. I don't want to discuss the story because it is full of surprises and I would be a spoiler if I talked about it. Just buy it and listen to it. You won't regret it (unless you are engaged to be married.)
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- C. E. Vandenelzen
- 12-30-18
One of the best books ever written!
Masterfully, performed! The reader enhances the understanding of the characters. Hardy is one of the most talented writers to have ever scratched the page, and Jude is his opus.
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- Larry G Camp
- 08-27-15
What was the point in writing this book?
Would you try another book from Thomas Hardy and/or Neville Jason?
i previously read The Woodlanders and enjoyed it. This book however was devoid of any main characters who were likable or one could say sane. I keep waiting for anyone to "break through" and show a redeeming quality or to display sound judgment. Didn't happen.
Would you ever listen to anything by Thomas Hardy again?
I'm moving on.
What does Neville Jason bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Good job!
Could you see Jude the Obscure being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
Please no.
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3 people found this helpful
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Overall
- prasanthedward
- 07-25-19
Tragic and beautiful
Hardy is really sneering at tradition and conventionality and deploring elitism and misguided morality and the human need to find a reason for every calamity where none actually exists.
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- Tad Davis
- 03-03-14
Left reeling
Well, that were a grim'un, to be sure. Jude, a decent man with ambitions to become a scholar, doesn't stand a chance in Hardy's cold universe. Let down by everyone he chooses as a mentor (one of them doesn't last long enough for a round trip from one village to the next); spurned by the university he longs to enter; and used and confused by the women in his life, he keeps trying to draw a smaller circle in the sand after each fresh assault, but ultimately he loses, and by then he doesn't care, and then he dies.
The women in his life are used and confused in turn, not so much by Jude as by the terrible straitjacket women were forced into. The love of his life, Sue, is particularly confused: she combines an open, somewhat flirtatious manner with a pathological aversion to sex that left me wondering if she'd been abused as a child. (Or better to say, since she's not real: wondering if Hardy intentionally set her character up to convey that.) She does finally overcome her aversion, to the extent of having children with Jude, but it's a fragile adjustment. And even the best-adjusted person would have trouble keeping their sanity when confronted by the major tragedy in this book of tragedies: an event that strikes suddenly and brutally in a few swift paragraphs and leaves the characters - and the reader - reeling.
Neville Jason has not been one of my favorite narrators in the past, but I'm warming up to him. Part of the pleasure of his performance here is the skill he shows in voicing the many characters, with their many accents and moods. There is humor here at times, and Jason brings it out in the voices of Arabella and other "country folk," who have no intellectual ambitions and are more willing to go with the flow. His characterization of Sue, to me, was somewhat less successful than his Jude; but his Jude is so brilliantly done, so exceptional in the way it conveys Jude's gentleness, rage, and despair, that I'm willing to give him five stars for the whole thing. I'll definitely make an effort, in the future, to listen to more of his readings.
Listen to it, by all means, but don't listen to it if you're depressed or even just having a bad day. It will exercise your compassion to the breaking point.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Lauren
- 03-23-17
Another good, tragic Hardy Novel
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would the themes of being trapped outside of a dream are still relevant today.
What did you like best about this story?
He teaches about life lessons and the characters are memorable and relateable.
What does Neville Jason bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Speed.
If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?
And you thought your life was miserable...
Any additional comments?
Great reader (and I am picky). Enjoyable story.
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2 people found this helpful
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- inbar
- 06-10-21
If you’re looking for a Bildungsroman tragic book…..
I think this book is for classic lovers at heart.
It was read in British English which made it a bit difficult in the beginning, if you’d rather have an American accent find another version. Also, it was slow. I listened to it at a 1.6x times faster…
Tragic, a little boring at times, and yet: a Tom Hardy classic.
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- Merlin
- 08-21-18
Hardy at his best--and at his worst
I found the first three quarters of this novel excellent. Hardy is a great novelist, a wonderful observer of nature and and people, and full of profound reflection. He also constructs great stories. I have to say, though, that I found the last quarter of the book a bit disappointing. Sue and Jude behave so foolishly, especially Sue, and they become downright annoying. Also, when the gloom descends in a Hardy novel, it blots put any light; so things become very grim indeed. For all that, I'm glad I re-read the book. It was better than I remember it. The narrator is excellent.
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- Aaron C. Jones
- 10-24-24
Classic story. Great narration.
First read this book in high school as a sophomore. Read it a few times since then. This was first listen and the narrator really changed my views on the characters by adding his take on them. Sue especially. I was sympathetic with her in reading the novel. After this interpretation-not so much.
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