Jude the Obscure (thus far)

The schoolmaster was leaving the village, and everybody seemed sorry. 

--Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy 

We writers, even we washed up ones, have a thing about first lines. 

Such as this: 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

And this: 

None of them knew the color of the sky. 

And this one: 

Call me Ishmael. 

I like that quoted above as well, from Jude the Obscure. 

Why? you ask. It's quite simple. It's hardly earth-shaking. 

Well, because it's music. And it echoes throughout the terrain of the narrative. It is the first stitch and all the rest of the garment spreads out from there. 

Why make a point of calling you Ishmael? What's in a name? 

Much.

Why did none of them know the color of the sky? 

Why were people sorry to see the schoolmaster go? 

Anyway, I'm about a third of the way into Jude the Obscure now, inspired by my recent reading of Far from the Madding Crowd to read more of Thomas Hardy. I actually read Jude some years ago (well, many years ago) but I remember very little about the story (which is not surprising, given the decaying quality of my mind). 

Jude is a much different novel from Far from the Madding Crowd, having in common only locale, that region of Wessex preferred in most of the Hardy novels. But other than that, the tone here is heavy and lacking the mischievous humor of Far from the Madding Crowd, although it does pick up a thread (there's that stitch again!) from the former--call it love and disaster😉 That's pretty clear from the quote from the Book of Esdras that Hardy places on the front page of the novel: 

Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women .... O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do this?

What! Misogyny again? 

Well blame it on Esdras. Or on the original trespass. It is in any case a thread that has been often sewn.