Jude the Obscure

See, the trouble is, try as I might, I can't really get into Jude.  I should do, I know.  It's meant to be one of his all-time greats.  It's got all the great Hardy themes of people trying to avoid their destiny (and failing); a family curse (drunkenness, in this case), marriages, remarriages, divorces - everything you'd expect.  And it has the moment where the children arrange a mass suicide.  Which was moving the first time I read it. Trouble is, there's too much melodrama,. too many massive co-incidences, too much heart-rending.  And above all, it's too damn depressing. 
Anyway, the plot... You'll forgive me if I miss a turn, I know, particularly if you've read the book.

Jude is a poor boy, but a bright one.  He's a bit of a dreamer.  He dreams of going to Christminster (a barely-disguised Oxford) and learning.  But poor boys don't go to Oxford. So he gets a job as a stonemason.  He also marries Arabella, a woman who has previously made her mark on him by throwing lumps of dead pig at him.   But they split up, and he moves to Christminster where he falls in love with his cousin Sue, who works selling religious statues.  It turns out she is far more the modern, "enlightened" girl than he ever imagined, but she ends up marrying Jude's former schoolmaster.

But they fall out, Jude and Sue end up moving from town to town, divorcing and having various children who then end it all in a violent and melodramatic way.  Jude never does get to be an educated man, but ends up dying in Arabella's bed, while Arabella's off looking for her next man. 

I've missed tons out.  Sorry if I've spoilt the end.  Are there any good bits?  Probably, but I'm not really the person to ask.  It misses all the stuff I love in other Hardy - like well-drawn country workfolk, and decent scenery.  Instead it comes across as a rail against religion.