Mind Transformation 355

355
Speaking Club. T. Hardy “Jude the Obscure.”
So now I can make a distinction. The style of Hardy is quite different from the style of Fitzgerald. The former is obviously more realistic, and I see a lot of familiar playing with language, so I would say that Hardy is closer to me in terms of looking at the world than any other English writer whom I discovered before (from those whom I’ve read in original). This Jude has almost the same set of mind as I had in the beginning of my 20s. Although he reads a lot in order to become the “university man”, his way of thinking and level of self-awareness seems to be very close to what I had when I first realized what actual reading looks like. Of course, I didn’t read in Latin or Greek as Jude did, but my attitude towards reading, and more broadly to the world itself, was almost the same. I don’t mean only thinking, but also feeling. This boy abandoned everything for reading and still couldn’t feed his curiosity. The same was with me, and all these passages have brought me back to my past.
There are many peculiarities in Hardy’s language, which I can’t describe with certainty, though they affected my mind, feelings, senses, etc quite strongly. I know that all of this can be considered in a different way and I can find tons of weaknesses in his writing, which may diminish my first impression, but now I want to see only astonishing things. I’ve already read more than 100 pages despite the fact that I was at speaking club spending lots of time there. So, the club—
There were two new people—a girl and a boy. I think the former may come next time, whereas the latter won’t. I need to think about making these settings more attractive. I certainly need to think more about the speaking club and eventually make it working. I wonder if it’s possible to come back to the old scheme and attract people who are really engaged in learning. Or they won’t show up till I write a real English book? 

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