“What’s your favorite book of all time?” I ask Geri. She doesn’t answer; I’m not sure she will—it’s hard to know how much she’s able to absorb and remember. I’ve been visiting her daily in hospice during what we both know are her final weeks. Sometimes she’s able to talk, her pain under control and her mind unclouded, but often she loses her bearings, halts mid-sentence, fumbles for words. Then we sit together companionably, and I try to fill the silence with small talk.

A few days later, as if I’ve just posed the question, she says, “Jude the Obscure.”

“Hmm?” I ask. Now I’m the confused one. 

“Jude the Obscure,” she repeats. “It’s my favorite book.”

Reading is one of two passions Geri and I have shared during our five-year friendship; gardening is the other. We pass books back and forth, seek to delight each other with hitherto unread titles and authors. She introduces me to Ann Packer and revives my appreciation for Anne Tyler; I offer her Carol Shields and Tessa Hadley. She doesn’t share my fervor for Virginia Woolf, and I’m unimpressed with Reynolds Price, but we agree on Alice Munro. We call ourselves a book club of two and anticipate each spirited discussion and critique.

We’re both devotees of certain classics, but while Jane Austen or George Eliot might come up by way of comparison or reference, they aren’t a big part of our dialogue. So when she names Thomas Hardy’s Jude, I’m surprised. I recall Tess and Far from the Madding Crowd as compelling tales, but I found Hardy’s prose dense, lumbering. Several of his novels have been adapted as movies, and I’m content with directors’ and screenwriters’ interpretations and casting—like Alan Bates as The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Geri leaves hospice and goes home, where I pay a few brief visits before she breaks contact with friends, draws family close. Her hard-fought battle with ovarian cancer lost, she dies as she wanted to, with her daughter and two-year-old grandson by her side. I read Jude as homage.

Some 19th-century novels are taught as morality tales, sermons about the wages of sin, especially sexual sin, especially the sins of adulterous women. Anna Karenina and Emma Bovary are unflinching exemplars for young women tempted to stray from their husbands’ hearths. Ethan Frome punishes both of its feckless fornicators; Jude the Obscure punishes everyone.

Jude, poor Jude, is the victim of a cruel class-ridden society whose barriers stand in the way of his attempts to better himself. But Jude creates his own demise, doomed from the first hint of hormonal murmurings. He’s defenseless against the first female he encounters, the alluring Arabella, who practices making dimples as part of her campaign to win him. Then there’s Sue, Jude’s cousin and soulmate, intelligent and caring but asexual. The juxtaposition of voluptuous and virginal torments him.

I think about Geri as I read, imagine our discussion, both fractious and stimulating, questions we would pose to one another. Is Arabella a malicious manipulator or is she just trying to get ahead in the only way possible for a poor young woman? Do you sympathize with Jude or blame him for making a muddle of everything? We’d have been split on that one, Geri always more generous and understanding, while I’m quick to condemn the male of the species. 

Why this book, I want to ask her. What would that tell me? Do we gain insights into people’s psyches when we know their preferences? There can be multiple motivations behind any response. One could cite a book that shows them in a flattering light—look at me: erudite, iconoclastic, sensitive, quirky. Or we identify with a character or milieu. Perhaps the novel stirs fond memories. Quizzes tell what our choices (of books, movies, songs, places, colors, birds, candy bars) say about us. Most of it simplistic and superficial: Pride and Prejudice makes you a romantic; To Kill a Mockingbird means you believe in justice. My husband reads and rereads In Cold Blood—does that make him a psychopath or a psychiatrist?

There may be no hidden pathology behind Geri’s love for Jude the Obscure, dark tragedy or suppressed sadness. She may have drawn into the world of these complex and all-too-human characters, nourished by Hardy’s prose. She may have recalled it with a warm buzz of satisfaction, the kind you get after a memorable meal. And maybe if I’d asked her another day she’d have chosen another book.

Alice Lowe writes about life and language, food and family. Her essays have been published in more than eighty literary journals, this past year in Bacopa, Change Seven, Epiphany, Burningword, (mac)ro(mic), New World Writing, and Sport Literate. She recently won an essay contest at Eat, Darling, Eat, and her work has been cited twice in Best American Essays “Notables.” Alice also has authored essays and reviews on Virginia Woolf’s life and work and is a regular contributor at Blogging Woolf.org. She lives in San Diego, California, and posts her work at www.aliceloweblogs.wordpress.com.