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.