Another A level text, but I loved this on re-read after it must be 40 years. The complicated love story between Jude & Sue was so convoluted at times as they fought to defy/comply with convention could seem a bit daft, but Hardy contextualised it brilliantly as the prose walked through the conventions themselves.
I don’t know when it was published but it seemed very modern and proto-Lawrence. The sex is pretty explicit for what I thought was a 19th century novel.
Is there a better love story in modern literature? I can’t think of one immediately. Maybe the appeal is limited to people who don’t like a social convention.
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