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3.18 AVERAGE
3.18 AVERAGE
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
My goodness! Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady is a masterpiece. It did take me a very long time, but even with all the time I wasn’t reading this, Clarissa was always in the back of my mind. I had to catch up on some literature to better understand the references Samuel Richardson compared this tragedy to, like The Romance of Tristan and Iseult.
Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady is known as one of the longest English novel, with 1534 pages. Samuel Richardson has done a massive feat, for this large tome is written in only letters. The series of letters are written in a double yet separate correspondence. One set of letters are between Clarissa and her best friend Anne. Samuel views them as “virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other and writing upon the most interesting subjects.” Absolutely love their friendship. The second main correspondence is between two gentlemen of free lives: “one of them glorying in this talent for stratagem and invention, and communicating to the other in confidence all the secret purposes of an intriguing head, and resolute heart.” Throughout it all, there are other letters in-between giving the reader how the whole community who knows Clarissa their feelings, perceptive, and their opinions on such an important matter.
Set in the mid-18th century, we mostly follow Clarissa and her desperate pleas to allow herself the ability to refuse any man she deems she could and would not love, turns into a far bigger explosive of lies, perils, and risks that Clarissa could never begin to imagine. Samuel Richardson wrote this large tome to be read as a cautionary tale; “to caution parents against undue exertion of their natural authority over their children in the great article of marriage: and children against preferring a man of pleasure to a man of probity, upon that dangerous but too commonly received notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband”
Mr. Richardson made me feel so many emotions: frustration (a lot), anger, disbelief, disgust, hope and almost everything in-between. He also made me laugh and cry. This epistolary was so real and the tension building through-out was amazing. I could pick this book back up knowing right where I left off when I been absent from it for months. As I was reading I couldn’t help but noticed Samuel Richardson was an inspiration to many other writers throughout the years. One of them, for me, is Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility character, Willoughby. To me he seemed to be inspired by one of the free “gentleman” in the novel.
Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady is known as one of the longest English novel, with 1534 pages. Samuel Richardson has done a massive feat, for this large tome is written in only letters. The series of letters are written in a double yet separate correspondence. One set of letters are between Clarissa and her best friend Anne. Samuel views them as “virtue and honor, bearing an inviolable friendship for each other and writing upon the most interesting subjects.” Absolutely love their friendship. The second main correspondence is between two gentlemen of free lives: “one of them glorying in this talent for stratagem and invention, and communicating to the other in confidence all the secret purposes of an intriguing head, and resolute heart.” Throughout it all, there are other letters in-between giving the reader how the whole community who knows Clarissa their feelings, perceptive, and their opinions on such an important matter.
Set in the mid-18th century, we mostly follow Clarissa and her desperate pleas to allow herself the ability to refuse any man she deems she could and would not love, turns into a far bigger explosive of lies, perils, and risks that Clarissa could never begin to imagine. Samuel Richardson wrote this large tome to be read as a cautionary tale; “to caution parents against undue exertion of their natural authority over their children in the great article of marriage: and children against preferring a man of pleasure to a man of probity, upon that dangerous but too commonly received notion, that a reformed rake makes the best husband”
Mr. Richardson made me feel so many emotions: frustration (a lot), anger, disbelief, disgust, hope and almost everything in-between. He also made me laugh and cry. This epistolary was so real and the tension building through-out was amazing. I could pick this book back up knowing right where I left off when I been absent from it for months. As I was reading I couldn’t help but noticed Samuel Richardson was an inspiration to many other writers throughout the years. One of them, for me, is Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility character, Willoughby. To me he seemed to be inspired by one of the free “gentleman” in the novel.
Ok to be truthful, I didn’t finish this. It’s not bad, nor badly written, but unlike Pamela I found this tedious. So little action took place throughout much of this book that I found it difficult to stop myself from skimming the pages.
This would have been a really good book had it been edited down to a tidy 300-400 pages. It was 2200 pages on my ebook reader and I read it in 6 months, but with a good editor, it would be as much fun as Pride and Prejudice. Right now it's a slog in a lot of places.
challenging
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Woo! I finally finished rereading it! - January 1st 2024
Review from Aug 2021:
Both the best and worst thing I have ever read. I usually only give five stars to books that fulfil two criteria; that I would gladly read it multiple times and that my life changed in some way by reading it. Clarissa has been the thorn in my side and the joy in my step for seven months. Richardson is undoubtedly a remarkable talent with his intricate prose and his rich (and I would vouch to say, rarely matched) characterisations. But the book is let down by its intimidating length.
I wouldn’t mind the length so much if it wasn’t often so repetitive, and sometimes downright tedious and boring. I think this would be much better as a novel of 800-900 pages. Towards the end of the novel, Richardson fails to allow his already quite obvious imagery to take the lead and, with a clumsy fist, hammers in an abundance of moral lectures he has already well laboured throughout the rest of the novel.
The contrast between angelic Clarissa and the Beelzebub Lovelace is both delightfully amusing and horror-inspiring to read. The religious zeal is one of the things that made this book so interesting for me, but even for a student of 18th-century evangelical Christian movements, sometimes I just wanted Richardson to shut up and let the story happen.
Overall, I think the story is a beautifully bitter tragedy and next time I will politely skip over Richardson’s droning…
Review from Aug 2021:
Both the best and worst thing I have ever read. I usually only give five stars to books that fulfil two criteria; that I would gladly read it multiple times and that my life changed in some way by reading it. Clarissa has been the thorn in my side and the joy in my step for seven months. Richardson is undoubtedly a remarkable talent with his intricate prose and his rich (and I would vouch to say, rarely matched) characterisations. But the book is let down by its intimidating length.
I wouldn’t mind the length so much if it wasn’t often so repetitive, and sometimes downright tedious and boring. I think this would be much better as a novel of 800-900 pages. Towards the end of the novel, Richardson fails to allow his already quite obvious imagery to take the lead and, with a clumsy fist, hammers in an abundance of moral lectures he has already well laboured throughout the rest of the novel.
The contrast between angelic Clarissa and the Beelzebub Lovelace is both delightfully amusing and horror-inspiring to read. The religious zeal is one of the things that made this book so interesting for me, but even for a student of 18th-century evangelical Christian movements, sometimes I just wanted Richardson to shut up and let the story happen.
Overall, I think the story is a beautifully bitter tragedy and next time I will politely skip over Richardson’s droning…
slow-paced
read 60 pages of this god forsaken book why is it so LONG!? i’m claiming this as a book for the year because i feel like i endured a lot
slow-paced
Ugh, sorry guys. I got about 1/3 through this and had to invoke "skimming rights"... but since this is a 1500 page repetitive monstrosity I ended up just skipping to the wikipedia summary. I'm glad I did. Do not waste your time!