Clarissa - Samuel Richardson

So I'm 200 pages in, with another 1,300 to go and I have a feeling this is going to be just as painful as I imagined. To give myself goals and benchmarks I decided to check in every 200 pages or so and give a brief summary, while I eat copious amounts of chocolate as a reward.

So basically, there's a rumor regarding some foul play and unjust treatment of a suitor circulating about the Harlowe family. Anna Howe decides to get to the bottom of these rumors and so begins the longest correspondence in history. It seems there has been a suitor of Clarissa's older sister, but she rejected him and after a nanosecond during which he caught a glimpse of Clarissa, he decided that actually Clarissa was the better deal after all, much to the chagrin of the older sister. Clarissa thinks this guy, Mr. Lovelace, is a bit of a rake and having much higher matrimonial ambitions for herself, puts him off and except for the original encouragement of the family would have nothing further to do with him. But Mr. Lovelace's continual courtship of Clarissa is too much to bear for the older sister, who drags the older brother into the matter challenging Mr. Lovelace to a duel and forever sullying Mr. Lovelace presence and ambitions toward the Harlowe family. (Side note: Mr. Lovelace is a rake and a no-good womanizer...)

The family somehow instead finds what they deem to be a suitable match for Clarissa, a Mr. Solmes, who is completely and utterly repugnant to Clarissa. She has begged confinement to a nunnery or certain death over any union with Mr. Solmes, who nevertheless doggedly/lethargically pursues her. How can one be both dogged and lethargic? Well despite constant, never-ending refusals he waits in the guest room unperturbed as the linen for Clarissa's trousseau is procured. Yet, the family does all of the intense courtship, which involves imprisonment in her room, seizure of all correspondence and a never ending stream of family disapproval and disavowal unless she concedes to their will. 

Finally after resisting Mr. Lovelace for 200 pages...it seems like he is looking like her best option. If she is still banished to her room 200 pages from now writing letters secretly to her dear friend Miss. Howe...I think I might have a break down. This book could use a little more action and a little less endless discussion. 

Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady - Fanny Burney

Evelina is a young woman, well educated yet sheltered from the ways of the world. She is raised in rural seclusion, the unacknowledged but legitimate daughter of a dissipated English aristocrat. When she is seventeen she is allowed to spend time in London and there quickly finds herself immersed in the world of the English aristocracy, frequenting balls, becoming familiar with lords and visiting all the fashionable establishments. When her poor cousins insist on her spending time with them she is then exposed to a completely different world occupying the same topography but further away from her previous existence than a foreign country. This leads to some humorous moments (it seems there were more prostitutes wandering the Covey gardens then I had previously thought, something Jane Austin never mentions.)

Told through a series of letters, this book was much better than I was anticipating. Evelina seemed like an adorable younger sister that still has a lot of growing up to do, but her faults are from inexperience rather from lack of trying. She is altogether too malleable and could have done with a little more backbone on occasion, but all in all she was a worthy protagonist. I think if anything the moments of "satire" were a little too much. In this sense Evelina was a foil for the satire to take place around her while she went about her business of being a reliable, estimable heroine. The satire, I guess, was most evident in a couple characters never ending desire to make fun of the aristocracy with endless jokes, pranks and melodrama. I could have done with a bit less/none of it...

 After my second book now told through the exchange of letters maybe I'll finally be brave enough to attempt Clarissa (all million, zillion pages of it.)