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.
