50 book challenge. Book 5.
Mar. 3rd, 2007 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deliriumcrowRight, so now that I'm almost finished with the next book, let's post about the last one, shall we? **Sigh** I'm so not good with this keeping up with posts thing ...
So yes. Pamela. Samuel Richardson wrote it, and he should not have done. Please bear in mind here that I actually *like* old literature, otherwise I would not have minored in litereature and filled my major with so much *really* old literature.
Ok, so I guess for the most part I like old literature that lacks morals. Rochester, Cleland, Chaucer, Milton when he's just talking about Satan ... umm, I'm sure it says nothing good that the first of those is almost pornography, and the second one blatantly is. Chaucer is barely batter sometimes, and Boccacio ... never mind Ovid ... Point is, I like old books, but apparently only the dirty ones. Pamela is not.
It is, however, overwrought and full of moralising, and I spent every day that I forced myself through the pages wondering why, why, WHY I hated myself that badly. So did Kat, who never finished it. Granted I look at this from the persective of a gorl who is good rather than that of a good girl, and that might skew my perceptions a bit, but it read like a very poorly written harlequin novel, rape scene and all. It seemed like titilation packaged in defense of norals, which stank of hypocracy, and I awnted to drown the girl myself.
I did, however, mark every page where she mentioned her clothes. Blasted costumer in me would not shut up about that ...
By the last hundred pages, I actually found myself looking forward to reading, not due to any shift in writing abilities on Mr Richatdson's part, but because he'd *finally* reached his bloody point, adn spent god knows how long going over them. And over them. And OVER THEM AGAIN. The point, however, sems to have been a description of how oen is suppsoed to behave in society based on degree of station, roles between men and women, roles within families, how a wealthy wife aught treat her servants and how approach the issue of household funds including alms to the poor and sick teneants, gifts to servants and for what ocasions, appropriate dress in public, and other such useful information for 18th century living.
I then read the 50 page Shamela (Fielding), which barely qualifies as its own book and so is listed here. Shamela was the reason I had to read Pamela, because I wanted to see the spoof, and had to read the original in order to understand it.
I had expected to like it, especially as I was not wholly convinced of the purity of Pamela's character. Well, not until the cery end, anyway. In the last hundred pages I actually liked her, and this sort of coloured my interpretation of Fielding's work. The introfuction didn't much help. He seems not much to like women, particularly not those of lower classes (monetary in this case, not my ususal inherent human qualities definition), who could obviously have nothing in mind aside from gain and greed. Oh yes, and whoring, can't forget that. I had expected Shamela to be a little more of an accurate portrayal if such a thing can exist in literature (particulrly satire), but in truth I just felt like I was reading Jovinian vs Jerome again. Which is also a deeply inaccurate way to learn the feelings of people at the time, because Jerome wasn't even writing things he believed, and possinly neither was Fielding, and I haven't time enough to figure out which it us just now. Also, all my arguments have fallen apart in the face of two cats not quite fitting into my lap.
Next up -- Hosue of Leaves. It's creepy, so far. Yes, I'm finally more than 20 pages in, and I've had a rather hard time putting it down. Somewhere around page 350 I think?
So yes. Pamela. Samuel Richardson wrote it, and he should not have done. Please bear in mind here that I actually *like* old literature, otherwise I would not have minored in litereature and filled my major with so much *really* old literature.
Ok, so I guess for the most part I like old literature that lacks morals. Rochester, Cleland, Chaucer, Milton when he's just talking about Satan ... umm, I'm sure it says nothing good that the first of those is almost pornography, and the second one blatantly is. Chaucer is barely batter sometimes, and Boccacio ... never mind Ovid ... Point is, I like old books, but apparently only the dirty ones. Pamela is not.
It is, however, overwrought and full of moralising, and I spent every day that I forced myself through the pages wondering why, why, WHY I hated myself that badly. So did Kat, who never finished it. Granted I look at this from the persective of a gorl who is good rather than that of a good girl, and that might skew my perceptions a bit, but it read like a very poorly written harlequin novel, rape scene and all. It seemed like titilation packaged in defense of norals, which stank of hypocracy, and I awnted to drown the girl myself.
I did, however, mark every page where she mentioned her clothes. Blasted costumer in me would not shut up about that ...
By the last hundred pages, I actually found myself looking forward to reading, not due to any shift in writing abilities on Mr Richatdson's part, but because he'd *finally* reached his bloody point, adn spent god knows how long going over them. And over them. And OVER THEM AGAIN. The point, however, sems to have been a description of how oen is suppsoed to behave in society based on degree of station, roles between men and women, roles within families, how a wealthy wife aught treat her servants and how approach the issue of household funds including alms to the poor and sick teneants, gifts to servants and for what ocasions, appropriate dress in public, and other such useful information for 18th century living.
I then read the 50 page Shamela (Fielding), which barely qualifies as its own book and so is listed here. Shamela was the reason I had to read Pamela, because I wanted to see the spoof, and had to read the original in order to understand it.
I had expected to like it, especially as I was not wholly convinced of the purity of Pamela's character. Well, not until the cery end, anyway. In the last hundred pages I actually liked her, and this sort of coloured my interpretation of Fielding's work. The introfuction didn't much help. He seems not much to like women, particularly not those of lower classes (monetary in this case, not my ususal inherent human qualities definition), who could obviously have nothing in mind aside from gain and greed. Oh yes, and whoring, can't forget that. I had expected Shamela to be a little more of an accurate portrayal if such a thing can exist in literature (particulrly satire), but in truth I just felt like I was reading Jovinian vs Jerome again. Which is also a deeply inaccurate way to learn the feelings of people at the time, because Jerome wasn't even writing things he believed, and possinly neither was Fielding, and I haven't time enough to figure out which it us just now. Also, all my arguments have fallen apart in the face of two cats not quite fitting into my lap.
Next up -- Hosue of Leaves. It's creepy, so far. Yes, I'm finally more than 20 pages in, and I've had a rather hard time putting it down. Somewhere around page 350 I think?
