Clarissa: The Affair is Over

I have finished reading Clarissa. The last 200 pages were a total slog. As Jeff put it, thinking you have "only" 200 pages left is like driving the 1800 km from Vancouver to Calgary and thinking that you have "only" 300 km to go.


Granted, once Clarissa dies, the narrative slows down. Her death has its own odd momentum. Clarissa lets herself waste away, gradually getting weaker and weaker. While the heroine gets weaker, the suspense increases; you keep reading thinking that she's going to die any page now, and there are a couple of false alarms. Once she does die, Lovelace writes a mad letter demanding that Clarissa's body be cut open and her heart preserved in a jar for him. It's rather gruesome, but an apt continuation of the theme of bodily violation. Clarissa's will addresses this as well, stipulating that her body is not to be opened (autopsied?) in any way. Even past death she's concerned with maintaining bodily integrity.


And here it is in all its flagged glory. I still have to go through them all and make notes. What was I thinking?

Clarissa to pg. 653. Plus, something funny.

In this post: Self-recrimination and a funny Clarissa story.

My progress through the novel has been unacceptably slow. I thought that tracking my progress on this blog would keep me honest and diligent; instead, it's made me less likely to post.

When I last posted, Clarissa was still at home. She has since been tricked away, through a strategem involving a bribed servant, by the rake Lovelace. Her family believes that she left of her own accord and therefore have given her up for ruined. Clarissa still corresponds with her best friend and Lovelace with his; these letters form the bulk of the middle of the novel. After staying a farm house for a week or so, Lovelace finally persuades Clarissa to go to London and stay at what he claims is a reputable house, but in reality is two houses linked by a passage, one facing the street and one facing the back garden. Clarissa takes up residence in the inner house; the outer house is a brothel.

The novel drags in the middle. One Clarissa gets to the Sinclair house, she's completely in Lovelace's control, though she does not know it. Some letters in this section describes events that have no direct relation to the central plot. At this point, Lovelace manages to get at some of Clarissa's letters, so one of his letters is a summary and commentary on her letters. There's even an interesting cross-cutting (to use a film term) of letters at one point in which the "editor" of the entire book interrupts a Lovelace letter to insert Clarissa's point of view of the same incident from one of her letters, and then resumes with Lovelace's original letter. There is much overlap in the events described in both letters (since Lovelace is also staying at the house—albeit in another room), but Richardson keeps it interesting because the two warring factions interpret events differently.

Previously, I had flagged the page where the rape occurs, which is not until the page 800's. I can see that flag while I read, and it's a clear indication of how far I have to go before I get to the most difficult section, and also how little I've actually read.

And now the story: I attended Prof. Bruce Stovel's memorial service on Thursday, where I admit I wept for the first 30 minutes. Many stories were shared, including one that was read out from an e-mail. The former student wrote about taking a novel class with Bruce, in which they were reading Clarissa. One day Bruce realized that the edition that they were reading gives away the ending in the blurb (I have that edition). He was incensed, and at the beginning of class, told his students that those lucky enough to be early and on time for class would get to see something unusual. Bruce then proceeded to punt the heavy book. To everyone's shock, it sailed across the room and landed, appropriately, in the garbage can. When Bruce went to fish it out, the class saw that the book had split in half due to the force of the kick.

I've flung a library book across the room before (angry at Marilyn Butler's blantant misreading of a passage in Emma) but I have never been enraged enough to kick a book for its paratextual failings. I'm going to miss that man.

Clarissa, post the third

Blame the holidays, blame the lethargy, but I'm only up to page 332 even though it's after Christmas. There must be much catching up in the next few days, and then I'll reward myself with dim sum and a New Year's Eve party (all in the same day... can you stand it?).

Clarissa is still living as a virtual prisoner at home because she refuses to marry the "odious" man her family wants her to. I wouldn't either—Solmes is portrayed as mean-spirited, uneducated, physically repulsive and ungenerous. The family believes that Clarissa secretly prefers the immoral rake Lovelace, who they hate. Clarissa has been secretly corresponding with both Lovelace and her best friend Anna Howe, detailing the constraints her family puts on her, including their search of her room and closet for any letters and their confiscation of her pens, ink, and paper.

And finally, the dread I noted in my previous Clarissa post is still present, but at least the plot (such as it is) has developed enough to carry me along over the waves of trepidation. I know that it gets much worse for the eponymous heroine before it gets marginally better (in the last 350 pages), so I'm trying to steel myself. Perhaps the holidays wasn't the best time to re-read a long, emotionally taxing, tragic novel about abduction and rape.

Clarissa: p. 1-136

Or, for Nat, 9 mm.

Briefly, the novel, published 1747-48, is about a young woman who is tricked into running away from her overbearing family, is raped, and then dies. Clarissa is an epistolary novel, that is, a novel composed entirely of letters written between characters, a common literary genre in the 18th century.

The first section describes the deterioration of Clarissa's relationship with her family, who are trying to force her to marry a rich man whom she finds repulsive, physically and morally. The novel begins in media res, though there is some useful summary of antecedent action. Structurally, I'm struck by Mrs. Harlowe's three visits to Clarissa's set of rooms (taking place in increasingly intimate spaces—her library and then her closet) where she tries to persuade her to marry the odious Mr. Solmes. There's a stage-y confrontation in a parlour which Clarissa directs and then escapes (as if into the wings), and a gradual curtailing of her personal space—the places in the house where she can go.

I've also noticed the gradual introduction of Lovelace's voice into the text. At first, Clarissa only paraphrases one of his letters in a letter to her best friend, Anna Howe, and in a later letter she quotes a few sentences from another letter. Also, Clarissa occasionally quotes a snippet or two of Lovelace's conversation which she remembers. This seems to be foreshadowing Lovelace's appearance as a letter writer in the novel. He will eventually dominate the letter writing, not only writing the longest letters and the most frequently, but also by intercepting Clarissa's letters and forging letters from both Clarissa and Anna.

There also seems to be something at work regarding the theme of freedom and independence. Clarissa frequently declares that her heart is free (her family suspects she secretly loves Lovelace). I think there's a connection between her free heart and her economic independence, which stems from a small estate left to her by her grandfather. I just can't figure out if it is indeed a simple correlation (Clarissa's independence of heart = indpendence of fortune) or a misunderstanding of how a woman's public worth is measured not in dollars but in reputation and virtue. Clarissa's heart may be free, but if it is not seen to be so (and it's not), then she will never fully escape the plots and snares of her family.

And finally, I cannot shake the sense of dread I have when re-reading this novel. Knowing all the bad things that are going to happen makes me less eager to get into the book.

The Clarissa Project: The Beginning

(Yes, that's a post-it note, for comparison)

The first chapter of my dissertation concerns Samuel Richardson's doorstop of a novel, Clarissa, which is 1499 pages long and, if Wikipedia is to be trusted, likely the longest novel ever written in English.


I did not have to reread Clarissa for my exams because I know it well enough to speak about it generally (and parts of it quite specifically). However, now that I'm (supposed to be) writing my first chapter, I need to read it again. The last (and first) time I read it was during my Master's degree five years ago. I did flag it when I first read it but alas, I took the flags out, thinking that I would never read Richardson again. Little did I know that the seminar paper that I wrote for my Rise of the Eighteenth-Century Novel class would eventually be the basis for my PhD dissertation. That'll teach me to look for closure in anything academic.

And so, for the second time in five years, I will be reading Clarissa over Christmas break. I will keep all and sundry appraised of my progress, including any plot developments and frustrations. Alas, at 6x9x2.5 inches, it's a little too big to be flung across the room in a fit of anger.

Anyone out there want to join me?