Woo-hoo! Guess what I did yesterday? Finished Clarissa! It only took me just over three years, but by gumbo, I did it. It is appropriate that the bookmark I used for this book has turtles on it. To celebrate I visited the chiropractor this morning and he popped out all the kinks I got from reading the book. 1,499 pages. No other book will ever seem so long.
Before I leave Clarissa, I have to tell you about how she spends her days. You see, I found out at the end that she kept an account book and her friend Miss Howe came into possession of it after Clarissa’s death. Mr. Belford asked Miss Howe for a character sketch of her friend and an attempt at an explanation on how one so young (Clarissa was only 19) could achieve such heights of virtue. Clarissa’s daily schedule runs thus:
- Six hours for sleep, no more, but oftentimes less.
- Three hours upon rising in the morning for dressing, studying, and writing letters.
- Two hours throughout the day dedicated to domestic management that includes going over the housekeeper’s bills on behalf of her mother.
- Five hours a day dedicated to needlework, drawing, music, etc., during which she also had visits from friends and neighbors.
- Two hours a day for meals.
- One hour a day for dinner time conversation.
- One hour a day to make visits to the neighborhood poor.
- The four hours remaining she used as a sort of fund in case her time spent doing any of her other things ran over.
Sundays of course were spent at church and making other devotions. Of course during the book she did not stick to such a schedule, extenuating circumstances and all that.
The book was originally published in separate volumes and at the end Richardson has a “postscript” in which he feels compelled to justify the length of the book. He says he has received complaints and there must have been reviews in the paper as well. He says the book is not a “mere novel or romance,” and those who think the first part of the book too long and too slow when Clarissa is still with her family just don’t understand. The first part of the book is the “foundation of the whole.” He goes on:
The letters and conversations, where the story makes the slowest progress, are presumed to be characteristic. They give occasion likewise to suggest many interesting personalities, in which a good deal of the instruction essential to a work of this nature is conveyed. And it will, moreover, be remembered that the author at his first setting out, apprised the reader, that the story was to be looked upon as the vehicle only to the instruction.
So take that critics!
Richardson in his postscript is also made to justify killing off Clarissa. He got lots of letters from people saying that he absolutely could not kill the girl. But, Richardson says, he wanted his book to be true to life and while the good people living and the bad people dying would have been poetic justice, real life is not like that. In real life good people suffer and bad people get away with things. What matters is that the good use their suffering to become even more virtuous and pious and they shall receive their reward in heaven.
For all the time it took to get through this book I did enjoy it. I did not think I would for a while there when every time I sat down with it I felt like I was wrestling my way through. I am glad I stuck with it.
Woohoo! That’s quite an accomplishment. I have to say I probably will not read it, but it was fun to follow along with you. π
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Well done for the dogged reading of that HUGE book.
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What an achievement! You make me want to embark on ‘Clarissa’, just so that I can have the pleasure of finishing it several years from now. π
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Yay–Didn’t it sometimes feel as though you would never get here?! But now aren’t you going to feel just a little bereft not to see this sitting in your reading basket? And as much as I love needlework, I’m not sure I could do five straight hours of it a day, though I would certainly accomplish more than I do now! Where was her reading time? In with the studying? Congrats on finishing–so now which big book is next? π
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Congratulations! That’s wonderful. I’m glad you enjoyed it, in spite of having some doubts along the way. Doesn’t it sound like Richardson is doing his best NOT to make people want to read the book? I mean, I understand 18C readers would have responded differently, but to claim that the story is merely a vehicle for the instruction and think that that will justify anything??
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Congratulations! And good for you for sticking with it (I’m not sure I could have.) I love the list of how she spends her days. I’d like to have a little more than six hours of sleep a night (although I often don’t get it), but I’d give my eyeteeth to have five whole hours a day dedicated to needlework, drawing, music, etc. (although, of course, instead of needlework and drawing, it would be reading and writing). Oh, and Richardson was right, of course. So often, the worst people in the world don’t seem to suffer at all, while those with hearts of gold seem to have one bad thing after another heaped on them.
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Wow – congratulations! I definitely would never have made it, so I admire your tenacity.
Now, of course, I can’t help but wonder what imposing tome you’ll try next … ? π
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Congratulations! Next: War and Peace! π
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Daphne, I am glad you enjoyed following along with my Clarissa adventure. I don’t blame you if you never read the book!
Dark Orpheus, dogged reading is right. Thanks. I feel like I should get a special badge of honor or inducted into some special club or something π
Victoria, LOL. If I had known at the outset that it would take this long to read it, I probably would has passed.
Danielle, I thought I’d be 100 years old before I finished the darn book. I must say I suddenly have lots of room in my basket. Lucky for me I had books in progress piled up next to the basket. It took three of them to fill the place of Clarissa. As for her day, she spent time in the morning reading and when she had visitors during her five hours I belief they would sometimes take turns reading aloud while the others worked. I still have Proust on the go and Gaddis is pretty hefty.
Dorothy, thanks. Yes, you are right, Richardson is not very good at self-marketing and promotion. He should have talked it up as being realistic and peopled with fully developed characters, a novel like no other!
Emily, there were times when I thought I wasn’t going to stick with it. It would be heavenly to have five hours a day for reading and writing. If I’d had that I could have finished the book faster! I admire Richardson for his statement on why he killed Clarissa, though there is still plenty of worldly justice for Lovelace and a number of his cohorts who meet their ends before the book is over.
biblioatrist, once begun I was not going to let the book win, though I did regret not getting the abridged version at times! I’m going to get back to Proust, but after a bit of a breather, I will undertake Anna Karenina I think, a book that no longers seems that big.
Sylvia, thanks! It is quite a relief. War and Peace is definitely in my future, just not my immediate one π
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First, congratulations!
Second, you are in a club – the club of people who have read Clarissa. Welcome to the club. Annual dues are very reasonable.
Since the first thing anyone wants after finishing a 1500 page book is to read more about it, I would like to recommend Judith Pascoe’s “Before I Read Clarissa I Was Nobody: Aspirational Reading and Samuel Richardson’s Great Novel”, which is here (PDF). Pascoe writes about her love of the book, and her experience teaching it. She’s a wonderful advocate for the monster. It ends with a list of some of the other members of the club.
The article is recommended to everyone, not just Stefanie. It’s a model of enthusiastic writing.
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Congratulations! What an achievement, what a beast of a book! I wonder whether it would be possible to publish such a book in the climate of the twentieth century – I should think the answer would be a resounding no! But that’s not necessarily a good thing – I wonder how much we have lost to short attention spans, celebrity mania and accessibility.
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Amateur Reader, thanks! Glad to hear the dues to the club are reasonable π Thanks for the link, it wasn’t working, the pdf has something wrong with it says Adobe, but it is also available here for anyone else who may be interested. I am looking forward to reading it throughout the week!
litlove, thank you. I suppose it could be published as a historical romance series but the moral lessons would have to go and then it would need to be spiced up quite a lot. Clarissa’s bosom would need to do lot of heaving π
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Congratulations of finishing Clarissa! I can’t believe you’ve actually made me interested in this novel. It has always been a novel associated with the period and has never before interested me.
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jenclair, I am glad I managed to make Clarissa sound interesting. While the book is very good, the experience of reading it is what is most unforgettable.
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