Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Clarissa - Feb Post

Terri at Tip of the Iceberg and JoAnn at Lakeside Musing are co-hosting a Clarissa readalong if you want to join in - there's plenty of time to catch up!

The reading so far for Clarissa has been deceptively light. I'm afraid this is going to mean some heavy hitting months later in the year! That's one disadvantage to reading this on my Nook - I can't flip around easily to see how long each section is. Plus, the free public domain version I downloaded is in separate volumes, which is nice when looking at the smaller page count for each, but is again deceptive since that's only for one of nine volumes!

As for the actual letters, there wasn't much to read in February, but I think that did add to the story. Clarissa is blocked from sending or receiving letters to her friend and must find an alternate way to do so, and letter delivery would be slower then, so that adds to the realism of the reading the story this way.

One thing this month's letters made me question is how reliable a narrator is Clarissa? This is always an issue with epistolary novels. Do we believe everything our letter writers tell us? Is Clarissa's perspective true, or only true in her eyes? Is her family justified or even acting as horribly as she says, or is she writing them to be worse than they are because she's unhappy? We're told again and again of Clarissa's virtues, but that comes from her best friend. From having read Pamela, also by Richardson, I'm guessing that he wants us to take Clarissa's perspective at face value and believe her, but I tend to be more like Henry Fielding, who wrote a parady of Pamela, and want to think about what was more likely to be the case. This is probably why I prefer Fielding's writing to Richardson's, but oh well. Maybe after finishing Clarissa I will finally read Tom Jones!

10 comments:

  1. I was wondering about Clarissa's reliability, too, but will rely on your experience with Pamela and take her at face value. The addition of a new letter writer livened things up, and I think we have several more ahead in March.

    BTW, at the top of my blog there is Clarissa Group Read tab that lists a rough schedule with page numbers. There are about 60 letters (215 pages) for March.

    I'll link this post to the February Round Up:
    http://lakesidemusing.blogspot.com/2012/02/clarissa-february-post-round-up_28.html

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    1. Thanks for letting me know about that page count info! It's helpful to know how much we'll be reading each month. It looks like it will be light again at the end, which I'm sure will be frustrating because I'll just want to know how it ends! Maybe it will help teach me patience!

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  2. I adore Tom Jones as one of my favourite, and I am comparing the two a lot in my head - especially the situation of Sophia being locked in her house until she loves Blifil - which has a lot of parallels to Clarissa.

    Although I prefer Fielding, he has that lovely 'smile' as a writer, I find him warm and funny. But the way he treats the same subject is completely cartoonish compared to Richardson. Richardson is so much more in depth, layered and subtle that I think he handles the 'locked up daughter' thing better. Even if it isn't quite as fun.

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    1. Fielding is definitely cartoonish in comparison, even though I prefer him as well. I've only read his parodies, and I assume Tom Jones is in somewhat of the same style as his other works. But I'll take his humor over Richardson's preachiness. :)

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  3. Clarissa does seem awfully naive to me, and that may be what undermines her reliability. I preferred Miss Howe's voice, and was glad it was so distinct from Clarissa's!

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    1. I'm glad they are easy to tell apart. That says a lot about Richardson's writing ability.

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  4. I'm loving the different voices of Clarissa and Anna as well. I hope I can trust Clarissa's point of view! She is the beleaguered heroine so far. Love Anna. She's spunky.

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    1. I like Anna too! More than Clarissa, so far anyway.

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  5. At this point I'm prepared to trust Clarissa's reliability. The appearance of Anna was a breath of fresh air and I loved the different personalities that emerge from their letters.

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    1. Yeah, I think I just need to trust her. I think that's what Richardson intends. It just makes it more interesting to me to imagine her not quite being so trustworthy though.

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