from the

Jil Schwartz Memorial Library here in the wilds 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 commun reader of the Victorian.

Your Mansplainer in chief, Michael Ian Black.

It is my honor and privilege to serve you in this way a quick update on my

the draggled dog jackjack he didn't make it that's's a lie. He's fine. He is fine. He's sitting by my side.

Last time, of course, he was bothered because he'd had some minor surgery and was wearing a plastic rough about his neck and he could not

make himself comfortable. The rough is gone, his wounds are healed and he is currently sitting beside me.

His ears flattened a little bit against his head because he is desiring my attention.

So when he does that and he kind of looks mournfully at me he's saying

please please give me some pets and so with my right hand I am stroking those velvety black ears of his and he's now looking at me with some knowledge

that I am speaking about him and I can't tell if it is with resentment or nonchalance that he looks at me.

But on to the matter at hand and the hand in which I am referring to is my left hand because in that hand I hold my battered copy of Jude the obscure.

Now when we last left Jude he had ripped off his protection. He had ripped off his

metaphorical clothing which is to say he he had said fuck this noise to

everything he took all his books his religious texts you know that he had

poured over loath these many years that he had devoted every spare

farthing to is that a coin a farthing a farthing I mean it's not a British

coin but you know every spare pence and he had

dug a little hole put the minute burned them because he was like I can anymore I'm done I'm a fraud I'm a hypocrite I'm not

fit to teach religion I'm not fit to study religion because I'm in love with my cousin

...