Friday, March 30, 2012

Clarissa: March Letters

Wow, Clarissa has gotten repeitive! There were a lot more letters to read this month than the last two months, but they all said the same thing. Here's a summary:

Clarissa: Woe is me! My family is forcing me to marry Mr. Solmes. I won't! I won't!
Miss Howe: Your family sucks.
Clarissa's family: You must marry Mr. Solmes! You are a terrible, horrible person because you refuse to marry an old man you don't like! It must be because of Mr. Lovelace, who is evil incarnate!
Clarissa: But I don't even like Mr. Lovelace (although he's not that bad and I keep writing him). But I won't marry Mr. Solmes, I won't!
Miss Howe: Your family still sucks.

So, yeah. I'm not really enjoying this one. I feel like I'm only reading it because I would feel a sense of accomplishment at having read what is probably the longest English language novel. But do I really want to read one million words of this???? I've made it just slightly further than where I stopped last time, hoping it would pick up, but no such luck yet. Maybe I should forget the year-long event hosted by Terri at Tip of the Iceberg and JoAnn at Lakeside Musing and try the readalong Allie and Jillian and some others are doing in April and just power through. Or perhaps I should just call it quits? Why am I making myself read this? I didn't even like Pamela, one of Richardson's other unecessarily long works.

However, I know a BIG event is coming at some point. I think it might actually make me dislike the novel more, or at least the characters, but at least I know something is coming. But, what if I have to slog through 1450 pages before that happens?

On the positive side, here are two lessons I've learned from this book so far.
  1. I'm extremely thankful to have been born at a time when I'm free to choose who I marry. I love my parents and respect their opinions, but they in no way had control over who (or if) I married.
  2. Whining is annoying. And boring. Note to self: think of Clarissa when you start to complain, then stop complaining!

5 comments:

  1. Hehehe, well put, I'm finding it a slog now as well.

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    1. Thanks! I'm sorry you're finding it hard to get through as well.

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  2. LOL! I love your summary and lessons learned. I'm still enjoying the story (despite the repetitiveness), but don't like any of the characters. Reading the entire novel a single month might just kill me though. If this is too much of a slog, you can always call it quits. Like they say, life is too short to read bad books.

    Is Clarissa similar to Pamela? What did you dislike about Pamela?

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    1. Thanks! I really doubt I'll go for finishing it all in April. :)

      I enjoyed Pamela more than Clarissa. The character of Pamela is similar to Clarissa - she's constantly touted as being so moral and wonderful. It's very repetitive in nature as well. I didn't like that, and I didn't like how it was subtitled "virtue rewarded" and how that played out in the book. It seemed more like virtue punished in my opinion, and he wasn't being satirical in the subtitle. It was worth reading to be able to see the added humor and satire in Henry Fielding's works like Joseph Andrews and Shamela though, both of which I loved.

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    2. My nook edition includes Pamela along with Clarissa. I might try and read it (after a little time has elapsed, of course) just so I can appreciated Fielding. Repetitiveness must be a Richardson trademark ;-)

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