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A review by wille44
Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
1.5
The further into the past you go to read something, the more you are required to suspend your current notion of a novel and its contemporary structure and purpose, and a work such as Clarissa demands a tremendous amount of contextualization to be enjoyed or merely appreciated by a modern reader. Richardson's magnum opus stands as a landmark in the history of the novel, written at a time when the novel itself was considered a base form of entertainment, and was the vanguard of popularizing and legitimizing the art form as worthy of close reading to discern truth, the progenitor of the novel as a vehicle of saying something important about people and society.
This message Richardson imparts is surprisingly evergreen, which is that an overexertion of familial control over a woman will make her life worse, not better, and that the concept (popular in the 1700s) that a licentious man could be "cured" of his promiscuity by marriage to a good woman was a ridiculous one. The novel is epistolary in form, a product of its time that is an awkward way to construct a narrative, effective in delivering heartfelt internal feelings and thoughts but useless when any action or corporeal movement must take place.
Nonetheless, Richardson's letters are well written, his usage of subtext, delivering the real meat of the characters personalities through what they do not say, is the highlight of the entire novel, he crafts a deeply flawed, deeply wronged main character, Clarissa, but unfortunately her suitor/captor is something of a mustache twirling villain throughout. The novel is a scathing look at the restrictions placed on women of the era as far as marriage and courtship go, they are herded and sold off like cattle, and the consistent wrongs done to Clarissa, throughout what is a very long book, grow deeply wearying to continue reading about.
Additionally, due in large part to the epistolary format but also to Richardson's deep love of circling the same topics to drive his point home, the characters go back and forth discussing the same thing for hundreds of pages at a time. To historically contextualize, the book was written in installments and was massively popular, Richardson had an audience, and a message he intended to deliver, and spared no words to make sure he richly hammered home his grievances and warnings, usually through events being addressed over and over again. At the time this was a beloved method, as it gave readers the maximum amount of time with these characters and their philosophical and moral struggles, the likes of which they had not really seen in novel form prior to Richardson's output.
All that being said, today this is no longer a bold new approach, nor the way we read novels any more. As such Clarissa extends outward for an interminable amount of time, and even if one enjoys the yearnings and sufferings and remonstrations within, even the staunchest enjoyer will tire long before the book concludes. Clarissa is more interesting as a historical artifact than a novel, and is worth reading about, but not worth reading in its entirety.
This message Richardson imparts is surprisingly evergreen, which is that an overexertion of familial control over a woman will make her life worse, not better, and that the concept (popular in the 1700s) that a licentious man could be "cured" of his promiscuity by marriage to a good woman was a ridiculous one. The novel is epistolary in form, a product of its time that is an awkward way to construct a narrative, effective in delivering heartfelt internal feelings and thoughts but useless when any action or corporeal movement must take place.
Nonetheless, Richardson's letters are well written, his usage of subtext, delivering the real meat of the characters personalities through what they do not say, is the highlight of the entire novel, he crafts a deeply flawed, deeply wronged main character, Clarissa, but unfortunately her suitor/captor is something of a mustache twirling villain throughout. The novel is a scathing look at the restrictions placed on women of the era as far as marriage and courtship go, they are herded and sold off like cattle, and the consistent wrongs done to Clarissa, throughout what is a very long book, grow deeply wearying to continue reading about.
Additionally, due in large part to the epistolary format but also to Richardson's deep love of circling the same topics to drive his point home, the characters go back and forth discussing the same thing for hundreds of pages at a time. To historically contextualize, the book was written in installments and was massively popular, Richardson had an audience, and a message he intended to deliver, and spared no words to make sure he richly hammered home his grievances and warnings, usually through events being addressed over and over again. At the time this was a beloved method, as it gave readers the maximum amount of time with these characters and their philosophical and moral struggles, the likes of which they had not really seen in novel form prior to Richardson's output.
All that being said, today this is no longer a bold new approach, nor the way we read novels any more. As such Clarissa extends outward for an interminable amount of time, and even if one enjoys the yearnings and sufferings and remonstrations within, even the staunchest enjoyer will tire long before the book concludes. Clarissa is more interesting as a historical artifact than a novel, and is worth reading about, but not worth reading in its entirety.