from the

Jill Schwartz Memorial Library here in the wild of Connecticut,

this is obscure the podcast in which I read Jude the obscure

out loud and comment on it as I go. I am your host. Your reader, your friend, your complainer, because that's mostly what I do about this book,

is complain about it.

Your literary bon Vivivant, your confidant, your jensequois, your vule voule vouchee a bequeoushe with moua, and I come to you on a snowy day.

Well, the snow has ceased, but the Arctic chill has remained.

Jack, my shitty little rat dog, is nestled beside me here on the reading

throne. His little body pressed up against mine for warmth. And of course, there's very little

warmth to be had from me towards him emotionally,

but physically I suppose I radiate the same amount of warmth as any human being.

But there is some chill. amount of warmth as any human being.

But there is some chill in the air now, but also between Sue and Jude, things are finally over

between them.

I mean I say that knowing that they're not, but I said it because they've now agreed,

you know, look, nothing can be done.

We're not suited. We're cousins. Our families choose badly in all things romance related. And so it's best that we just part and you know at best

we'll have a kind of casual acquaintanceship from here on out and they both agree oh that's

fine but then they've done this what 900 times so far in

this book 900 times in one form or another and it has become wearying to me and presumably to you.

And now I'm concerned that Thomas Hardy is going to start costing me listeners because of the same

runaround. You know that song Run Around Sue?

...