Mission Accomplished! (Clarissa - Samuel Richardson)

Member Name: sottovoce1982

Product:	Clarissa - Samuel Richardson
Date:	20/12/07 (124 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Surprisingly and pleasantly complex

Disadvantages: Extremely long

Clarissa OR The History of a Young Lady (1748)
By
Samuel Richardson (1689 -1761)



The heroine, Clarissa Harlowe is a young and virtuous woman who inherits an expensive house from a dead relative. A little jealous and worried about the newly acquired wealth, her family starts pressuring her to accept her rich and dreadful suitor. Clarissa does her best to dissuade her family from this idea and informs them about her wish to remain single, but they suspect that she is secretly in love with a member of the aristocracy with the name of Mr. Lovelace, who was also supposed to be in love with Clarissa's elder sister. Having secret designs against the young woman's virtue, and exploiting her bad situation with her merciless family, Mr. Lovelace tricks Clarissa into escaping with him. As her realizes how this woman is different from all the women he "conquered" before, and because the fake marriage he arranged could not change her, he finally rapes her.



Of course, this rape does not mark the end of the novel, but it is definitely one of the most superbly complex issues in the book. Despite the fact that nobody can read how the rape took place and blame the heroine for it, for she was restrained by more than one person, yet Clarissa feels guilty for it. This makes us go back to examine how she ran away with Mr. Lovelace and the question arises: was she actually deceived by his machinations, or was she so eager to go and so much in love that she blocked her mind for a second?



Mr. Lovelace is the rake whose worst evils seems to be his being, like many of the male protagonists in the eighteenth century, a jobless man. Do you remember Vicomte de Valmont from Pierre Choderlos de Laclos' Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the protagonist in John Cleland's Memoirs of a Coxcomb? They were too rich (and too lazy) to work. If you have tenants in your houses, then why bother work? Just be lovesick or rakish. This leads us to one of the most important issues in the book; namely the relationship between the upstarts, if I may call them so, and the aristocracy in that era.



Another interesting issue is making a comparison between Clarissa Harlowe and her feminist friend Miss Howe, who tried to help her, and to whom most of her letters were addressed, for she was certainly closer to the young woman than her own sister, Bella. The fact that these two young ladies defended their right to remain single in a novel written in the eighteenth century is very remarkable in itself regardless of how their struggle actually ended.



This novel is written from beginning to end in the epistolary style; i.e. in letters. This definitely adds a realistic aspect to the book, for no other form cam give so much details and still be both credible and acceptable. It is true that this novel is the longest one I have ever read, yet, for me, describing any relationship can be that long. We tend to elaborate on our feelings, doubt their existence, and examine them over and over again, and this is what makes the book so long.



<<< Adaptations >>>

Robert Bierman's 3-hour 1991 series which is based on Richardson's novel is a very good adaptation with Sean Bean as Mr. Lovelace and Saskia Wickham as the heroine, Clarissa. Bean's exceptional performance and Wickham's control of her facial features add a lot to the series, yet as is the case with most adaptations, the text remains to be more exquisitely complex. Anyway, if you are not willing to read this massive book and don't mind watching endless misery for three hours, simply because the series is faithful to the text, this adaptation is highly recommended. But, the DVD on Amazon is expensive; I advise you to rent it as I did.



<<< Reading Experience >>>

Where do I begin? This book is so huge that it looks like a box; it is 1536 pages long, 7 cm thick, with large pages and small font. However, the letters themselves are not long and you can stop reading whenever you wish, but taking a break is not a good idea because you might get sick of it and never manage to finish it. With this book in particular, concentrating on the reading task and trying to finish it as quickly as possible seems to be the best policy.



<<< Price and Book Info >>>

Price: £12.07 from Amazon
Paperback: 1536 pages
Publisher: Penguin Classics; Reprint edition (29 Aug 1985)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0140432159
ISBN-13: 978-0140432152
Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 14.4 x 6.6 cm

Summary: If you manage to finish the book, you'll find that it is actually worth reading.