Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Sasha writes:

So far, I have found Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy to be rather dry. The writing is beautiful, Hardy’s prose is elegant and well crafted, but the plot is slow and the characters not easy to relate to.
The novel is the story of Jude, a young man living in the countryside of a fictional place called Wessex. Jude lives in a small town with his aunt, but is quite bright and dreams of going to the nearby city of Christminster to go to school.
The majority of the first part of the book is a description of the town Jude grows up in and the books he reads growing up.
Then he gets a job in a nearby town, and moves there. He walks back and forth between the new town and the town he grew up in often in order to visit his aunt.
One day during his commute he meets a girl named Arabella and they begin a courtship and get married. When this happens, Jude gives up his dream of becoming a scholar and settles down with Arabella.
So far, I am finding there to be very little about the novel that inspires me to continue reading. There is very little action, and what action there is, is slow and drawn out. I do not find that the characters easy to like or even really easy to feel anything for and that is making it very hard to become engaged in the novel.
I think that it is going to be a challenge to finish this novel before the school year ends. I would not recommend it unless you happen to like novels that move slowly but offer very detailed description of scenery.