Customer Reviews

Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady

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1 star:		(5)

 

 

Samuel Richardson's massive 1747-8 novel, "Clarissa," is not only the longest novel I've ever read, but one of the best and most complex. Much like Richardson's first novel, "Pamela," "Clarissa" deals with the torments of a virtuous young lady abducted by a rake/libertine (in modern parlance, a rapist) who submits the heroine to a series of trials. Unlike Pamela, a lower class maiden, Clarissa is a member of an established and wealthy family. This change in social situation allows Richardson to explore a host of new issues, with the primary goal of moral didacticism remaining intact between the two.

Clarissa Harlowe, the most beautiful and exemplary of her sex, is being imposed upon by her implacable family to marry one Mr. Solmes, a man of no mean fortune, but whose ethics, especially with regard to his own family, are suspect. Simultaneously, Clarissa's sister, Arabella, has just rejected a proposal from one Robert Lovelace, the heir of a nobleman, educated and refined, but known for his libertinism - his tendency and enjoyment of seducing young women and then abandoning them. Lovelace falls in love, or in lust, with Clarissa, and after he and Clarissa's brother James, heir to the Harlowe fortune, engage in a near fatal duel, Clarissa's continued correspondence with Lovelace becomes a major thorn in the side of the Harlowes' plans for Clarissa. The Harlowes continue to urge the addresses of Mr. Solmes while vilifying Lovelace - Clarissa not approving of either - and when her family's insitence becomes insupportable to Clarissa, the utterly demonic Lovelace takes advantage, whisking her away from a seemingly inevitable union with Solmes. Thus begins an absolutely terrifying journey for Clarissa through the darkness of humanity, as Lovelace plots and executes his seduction of the 'divine' Clarissa.

An epistolary novel, "Clarissa" is written in the form of a series of letters spanning nine months, principally between Clarissa and her best friend and iconoclast, Anna Howe, and between Lovelace and a fellow libertine, John Belford. Richardson's 'to the moment' style of writing gives a minute account of everything that happens to the main characters almost as it happens, giving the novel a highly dramatic sense of urgency. The four major correspondents, as well as others, also give the novel a well-developed sense of perspective, as we get not only the events, but biased opinions and readings of all the other characters, making the events at times difficult to follow, but at the same time, marvelously rich and complex.

Some of the most interesting facets of this novel are its interactions with the law, primarily inheritance law, the contrast between history and story, and at the forefront, the debate over gender roles in marriage. Almost of a piece with the novel's legal issues, Richardson examines the vagueries of semantics - what do words mean? How are words regarded and used differently by men and women? Richardson also confronts the way we read and interpret 'truth' - in a book composed of letters, subjectively written and read, where can we look to for 'truth'?

Among the characters in the novel, by far the most captivating and challenging in "Clarissa" is the aforementioned Anna Howe. The ways she clashes with tradition and propriety throughout the novel are entertaining, and very much reminiscent of the eponymous heroine of Defoe's "Moll Flanders." An amazing and influential novel to say the least, anyone with a few weeks on their hands who is interested in the history of the novel in English should pick up and give "Clarissa" some serious attention, stat!

The UNABRIDGED Clarissa (Penguin ed.) is a powerful, moving eighteenth-century English masterpiece, the first great psychological novel. Its length may seem daunting and it does take at least six weeks to read, but you will be rewarded by finding yourself immersed in the minds of Clarissa and Lovelace. You will feel as though you are living in their world, facing their moral dilemmas, deciding on courses of action, predicting consequences. However, if you accidentally pick up the Sherburn ABRIDGEMENT of Clarissa, you will NOT be able to savor Richardson's famous "writing to the moment." If you doubt me, take a look at Mary Anne Doody and Florian Stuber's article, "Clarissa Censored," in the journal Modern Language Studies (1988). The abridgement is a travesty of Richardson's greatest novel.

Once you've read this book, you can barely read anything written in England post-1750 without finding and feeling Richardson's influence. An English epic, a sometimes infuriatingly detailed exploration of men and women under pressure, a masterfully crafted depiction of bewilderment, betrayal, and the kind of religious ecstasy that's difficult to read. Don't miss Letter 246. Stay with this book, even if it takes you weeks (it took me 7)--it's well worth it, a one-of-a-kind reading experience.

This book is one of my favorites...I picked it at random from a library shelf, and found myself engrossed from the first pages. Although the repetition and length got rather old at times, the story itself never got old. I cannot express the total involvement that I experienced with Clarissa. I would like to disagree with one of the other reviewers, who said that Clarissa's values have no place in our society, because I hold the same values as Clarissa, which perhaps is why I identified so closely with her. Anyway, I can count on the fingers of one hand the times that I have cried over a movie, and I cannot think of any occasion when I have cried over a book...except Clarissa.

What a group of despicable characters! By page 500, I was hoping every character would be put to the rack. By page 1000, I was hoping for a mass hanging. By page 1500, I was willing to grant clemency to a few.

Dozens of times I nearly relegated this book to the pile of books to be sent to an enemy - BUT - each time would pick it up again because I had to know if my hopes would be realized.

Should you read Clarissa? By all means; if for no other reason than to serve as penance for all past sins of omission or commission wreaked on others.

...you'll probably appreciate (and perhaps even enjoy)this novel. As other reviewers have noted, it is impossible to read many novels post-1750 without acknowledging the impact that Richardson's novel has had on English literature.

It should be noted that the abridged version is indeed unacceptable for the simple reason that it attempts to purge letters or portions of letters that do not "advance" the plot. Clarissa is not at all about "plot", and if you read it for that purpose you will probably give up long before the conclusion of its 1,500 pages. (I think Samuel Johnson had something to say about that, too...). The unabridged version allows you to form a more nuanced view of many of the characters (including Clarissa herself). If you read the abridged version, prepare to be disappointed at the one-dimensional characterizations.

The (unabridged) novel is, aside from its literary significance, good but not great. If it was a 300 or 400 page novel, I would absolutely encourage people to read the novel. Since it is 1500 pages in length, however, it is really not worth the time that is required to plod through it. If you ARE an English student, by all means spend a summer reading the unabridged version. (You'll probably end up having to read it for class, anyway...I did). For everyone, else, though the unabridged version is just not worth the time, and the abridged version is a poor subsitute.

On first seeing this novel one is intially amazed at its length. This may be disconcerting at first, but it undoubtedly adds to the richness of the work;which is full of conflict, drama, beautifully written (and convincing dialogue)and of course well delineated characters. The characters are in fact so well delineated they eventually assume a life of their own, and seem to act out their roles almost independant of their creator. This is a splendid example of how effective the epistolary form could be, in moments of tension and inner conflict. Richardson probes his characters minds until the reader knows them inside out. A powerful and tragic work it deeply influenced succsessive authors well into the 19th century, and can still do so today

Oh Clarissa, Clarissa, Clarissa...where to begin. Besides pointing out the great length of this work, it would be wise to say that if you're looking for a quick, fast-moving read, choose something else right now! It has been said by various literary critics that one must read Clarissa for the sentiment, not the story. I read it because I liked Pamela (Richardson's first major work) and truthfully, because I had the time to do so. Though perhaps many readers would wish for a truncated version of the book ,I found the length of the book to be in harmony with the style it is written in. Though Richardson tries at various times to clip a few letters for the sake of not irritating the reader, the letters themselves act as a mode of insight into the character's personalities and foibles. Each character's identity becomes discernable throughout the epistolary, adding a much richer and mellifluous effect for the reader.
Though the story deals with the ideologies of 18th century English society, the story delves deeper into a moral scheme where intentions rather than effects are the primary focus. Richardson takes his readers, through the character of Lovelace, into a tricky labyrinth of multi-varied designs. Lovelace, usually thought of as a villian, portrays the yearning that this society secretly engaged in behind closed doors, but shuddered to even consider in the public eye. Lovelace, all polite manners and graces on the surface, is seething with disquiet in his angst driven soul. All is topsy-turvy in reality and he barely can contian himself. Clarissa, his foil, is the ultimate ideal in every expressible way...ie...in terms of her character, person, soul. Of course in reality the ideal never exists, and as such Clarissa, "the earthly angel" makes haste to the otherworld, where she unfortunately, belongs.
If you're looking for a happier (and much shorter) version of pretty much the same story, read Pamela.

I have to confess to reading this novel partly out of guilt, since I kept coming across references to it elsewhere. While I did enjoy it, it was largely this literary conscience that kept me going. It is indeed a superb novel, and you can read the other reviews to see why, but it is very slow and I think I'm not the only one who found it quite a slog, or got frustrated from time to time by Clarissa's unspeakable virtuousness (although her distraught state after the rape is portrayed most movingly).

As a comparison, read Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses, one of my favourite novels and one which makes one wonder why the epistolary form was abandoned. A beautifully structured, enthralling study of sexual intrigue in eighteenth-century France, it is far more exciting and the characterisation is extraordinary, exploring both good and vicious characters with great depth and achieving the rare feat of making characters at both ends of the scale human, realistic and sympathetic. One of the main differences, apart from the driven plot of Les Liaisons against the thoughtful consideration of what in Clarissa is, classically, basically an expansion of one incident, is that Laclos explored human depravity with such rigorous honesty and fascinated sympathy that he caused a great scandal and got himself banned; Richardson, on the other hand, always had an eye out for the moral lesson (he gives everyone their just deserts at the end in quite a scrupulous manner) and to my mind his portrayal of human nature is less believable, and certainly less interesting. Clarissa would have been far more likeable for a few faults (even Melanie in Gone with the Wind makes a sarcastic comment once), and the interaction with Lovelace would perhaps, I feel, have been deeper and more tragic if she had lowered her standards and communicated with him more.

Clarissa is a densely woven, lovingly detailed novel with a plot that can be summed up in one sentence, and I think that whether it appeals to you depends very much on whether or not this is to your taste. I certainly found it of great interest in relation to other literature and will no doubt dip into it again, but I couldn't face a re-read. One problem with boasting about having finished it is that even though it was much harder work than War and Peace (and twice as long), most people won't have heard of it!

A wonderful book! Using letters to tell the story was fascinating and kept my interest piqued. I became so engrossed over time, I felt I was living the story...The characters were very well defined in description and in their writing style. The length of the book was a bonus to keep me there. This book was a wonderfully emotional experience for me. I would recommend it to anyone who loves to read the classics of this period.