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Sasha's Reviews > Pamela
Pamela
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Sasha's review
bookshelves: 2011, reading-through-history, unreliable-narrators, rth-lifetime
Jan 23, 2011
bookshelves: 2011, reading-through-history, unreliable-narrators, rth-lifetime
When I read classics, it's not all about just reading them. I'm also trying to discover what's made them classics. I want to know why people like them so much. And I can usually figure something out; that's why I end up with so many five star reviews. But this? This piece of shit escapes me.
The first half is entertaining enough, as the vaguely-named Mr. B---- kidnaps a servant and tries to steal her titular virtue. There are dastardly schemes and narrow escapes. He dresses up like a woman in order to sneak into her bedroom and try to rape her. He makes a good villain, as does the vile Mrs. Jewkes, his accomplice.
Around halfway through, as plots and threats have failed to pierce Pamela's iron hymen, he changes his strategy: the carrot instead of the stick, so to speak. And Richardson has laid enough clues to make us suspect the wolf can't change his ways, so there's some suspense as we wait to see what new depths he's sunk to, and whether Pamela will escape with her virtue intact. (Not that the title leaves us much in doubt.) But then...
(view spoiler) the bigger problem is how fucking tedious it is.
Don't misunderstand me here: nothing else happens. Nothing. That's it, on and on, for hundreds of awful pages. There are parts of Atlas Shrugged that are better than the latter half of this book. It sucks so hard, man. I'm so sad that I read it.
Pamela was important in its time; its characterization and use of the epistolary was groundbreaking, and it influenced great authors like Jane Austen. But it was and is also super shitty, so you don't have to read it unless you're into the history of literature - which is different from being into good literature. If you're not an academic, you don't need this in your life.
Do not read this book.
The first half is entertaining enough, as the vaguely-named Mr. B---- kidnaps a servant and tries to steal her titular virtue. There are dastardly schemes and narrow escapes. He dresses up like a woman in order to sneak into her bedroom and try to rape her. He makes a good villain, as does the vile Mrs. Jewkes, his accomplice.
Around halfway through, as plots and threats have failed to pierce Pamela's iron hymen, he changes his strategy: the carrot instead of the stick, so to speak. And Richardson has laid enough clues to make us suspect the wolf can't change his ways, so there's some suspense as we wait to see what new depths he's sunk to, and whether Pamela will escape with her virtue intact. (Not that the title leaves us much in doubt.) But then...
(view spoiler) the bigger problem is how fucking tedious it is.
Don't misunderstand me here: nothing else happens. Nothing. That's it, on and on, for hundreds of awful pages. There are parts of Atlas Shrugged that are better than the latter half of this book. It sucks so hard, man. I'm so sad that I read it.
Pamela was important in its time; its characterization and use of the epistolary was groundbreaking, and it influenced great authors like Jane Austen. But it was and is also super shitty, so you don't have to read it unless you're into the history of literature - which is different from being into good literature. If you're not an academic, you don't need this in your life.
Do not read this book.
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Reading Progress
January 22, 2011
–
Started Reading
January 23, 2011
– Shelved
January 23, 2011
– Shelved as:
2011
January 25, 2011
–
Finished Reading
July 19, 2011
– Shelved as:
reading-through-history
November 16, 2013
– Shelved as:
unreliable-narrators
January 2, 2015
– Shelved as:
rth-lifetime
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by
Ruby
(new)
Jan 24, 2011 08:55AM
I recall that the Professor in The Haunting of Hill House has Pamela, among others, in his room for the purpose of inducing sleep, if he has any trouble. :)
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Ha! I'm about a third of the way through, and I actually like it better than I thought I would. Pamela's a pretty good character: a heroine not only for women's rights, but for literature. She goes through almost as much trouble to save her secret pen-and-paper stash as she does for her virginity.
hahahaha! That does sound fun. Possibly Shirley Jackson is rolling her eyes...
Hey Ruby: about what I said about liking it better than I thought I would? Never mind.I wish there were a way I could drink so much I could retroactively black out the last day or so, so I could forget having read this terrible, terrible book.
Do roofies do that? Does anyone know where I can get roofies?
There are a few books I wish I could reach into my skull with tweezers and remove. Imajica comes to mind.
Hmm I think roofies might only succeed in blacking out today... You might forget you finished the book and read the second half again. hehe
Ha! The worst of all possible worlds.
Ruby wrote: "I recall that the Professor in The Haunting of Hill House has Pamela, among others, in his room for the purpose of inducing sleep, if he has any trouble. :)"I'm reading Haunting of Hill House right now and thought I'd come by to mention just this! Too funny!
Here's the quote:
"...at my age, an hour's reading before bedtime is essential, and I wisely brought Pamela with me. If any of you has trouble sleeping, I will read aloud to you. I never yet knew anyone who could not fall asleep with Richardson being read aloud to him."
Shirley Jackson, you're my hero.
Clap clap clap clap clap. "Pamela's iron hymen" especially made me laugh. Man, that was a terrible book. just terrible.
You nailed it my friend. Bravo! This novel is the 18th Century equivalent of Twilight.
Perfect Review. My Sentiments Exactly.
spot on mate... spot on
Laughed at "iron hymen." Reading it for a class. Damn, at least "Twilight" is amusing in its horribleness.
(heh, "Atlas Shrugged" is tied with "Sandman" and "The Lord of the Rings" as my favorite book. It's not THAT difficult. Certainly not Pamela levels of dull, aside from perhaps Galt's three year speech near the end)
Oh, I don't mean to suggest that Atlas Shrugged is difficult. Excepting that Galt speech, which to my knowledge no one - probably including Rand - has ever bothered to read anyway, it's not difficult. It's just bad.(Sorry to dis on one of your favorite books. To each her own, even if her own is totally lame.)
I like your question about classics. It's something I wonder all the time. I wouldn't say that people read this in college because it's a classic. They read it because it gives you a great sense of the time period and its values (awful values by today's standards). It's more of a history lesson than a novel at this point.
Fair enough - and much as I hate this book, I find myself citing it fairly often. Like, its influence on Jane Austen is pretty clear; I feel like it enhances my understanding of Austen to know she liked this.
I hated it too, believe me. That's a really interesting observation about Austen. I've only read P&P, so I can't make a general opinion about all her books. :)
Don't blame your failure as a reader on Richardson's writing. I'm sure you don't mean harm, but it gets me so upset that your highly dismissive review of Pamela is the first one on this site. It turns people off from the novel. Pamela is a HIGHLY sophisticated novel, but only if you judge it using the right criteria. Samuel Johnson said of Richardson, that "if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." I'm too annoyed to even write a thorough critique...
Sam, the sentiment sucks.
Danny, perhaps you should leave your own review; if enough people like it, it will probably be first in the "default" sorting of reviews. (After one's friends' reviews, of course.)
I don't quite understand why you found it necessary to end your review with "Do Not Read This Book" - I don't see that as the duty of the reviewer.
Wow dude, it is just super fuckin fascinating to hear all about what you think reviews should be like. Please tell me so much more.
Thank you for your highly dismissive review and your warning at the end. Reviews like yours are why I often read them before the book itself.
Ha! Well, I'm very happy to help. That's like ten thousand hours I spared you.
Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "Danny, perhaps you should leave your own review; if enough people like it, it will probably be first in the "default" sorting of reviews. (After one's friends' reviews, of course.)"Hi, Susanna -- I have written many reviews, most of which I write to help me keep track of certain aspects of the text. Anyway, I noticed that the reviews that get ranked among the first are almost never the best; they're simply the most radical or "cutesy" or easy to understand (like Alex's). When I see which reviews get ranked first or second or third, I'm often reminded of Tocqueville and his idea of the tyranny of the majority. Oh, Well. C'est la vie. Alex--you're such a troll. Eric and Lady Wesley are right to call you out on not being a strong reviewer. but w/e I don't care
He's actually got a point - cute or clever reviews often are the most top-ranked ones, and it is kindof annoying. I've fixed the problem by being right, but I can see how I might get lumped in there by someone who, for example, is wrong about this dumb book.
Alex wrote: "He's actually got a point - cute or clever reviews often are the most top-ranked ones, and it is kindof annoying. I've fixed the problem by being right, but I can see how I might get lumped in ther..."The fascinating thing about Richardson, Alex, is that he was the first to chart human psychology and interiority with an unprecedented degree of comprehensiveness--this gave novelists after him a language in which to imagine and embody the elusive vagaries and fluctuations of the human heart and mind. He is foundational in a tradition that goes straight through Austen and then to Henry James. E M Forster notes the similarities between James and Richardson in Aspects of the Novel. Austen couldn't stomach Pamela, like you, but she adored the much more insipid Sir Charles Grandison. Richardson's masterpiece is Clarissa. Pamela is just him doing some warm-up stretches. In my opinion, Clarissa is one of the greatest novels ever written--definitely up there with Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, In Search of Lost Time, Madame Bovary, Moby Dick, Dangerous Liaisons, etc. Europe was once obsessed with Richardson; he was a continental obsession. People these days find his prudish "ideology" too repulsive to stomach; but what's fascinating in Richardson is the way that ideology is at odds with subtextual currents running through the novels. (Thus, for instance, Pamela's resistance is fetishized and eroticized in a novel that purports to eschew lasciviousness of any kind.) The novel is poised grotesquely between the pornographic and the prudish--but in highly sophisticated ways, too. I could go on for a long time about Richardson--too long perhaps. I doubt I'd change your mind but when you write about him my main impression is that you're paying attention to things Richardson doesn't care about as a writer and ignoring the narrative dimensions that he's monomaniachly obsessed with; it's a recipe for "missing out" on what the book's actually "about." The more interested one is in "psychology" and the ambiguities of "motivation," the more one is likely to like Richardson. I see you like Daisy Miller (I love it, too). James's late novels--Wings, Golden Bowl, Ambassadors--subordinate plot to psychology; does this bother you in James, by chance? If it's plot you're looking for, try Defoe or Fielding--if you're looking in 18th-century Britain.
Oh! So that's what it feels like to be mansplained to! Interesting!
Haha. Ok, Alex... There's something about you that annoys me intensely. Perhaps it's mutual. Take care.
Absolutely perfect summation and review. Unfortunately, I am into the history of literature. At least the repetitious tedium of Don Quixote was sometimes funny and definitely had things happening. Ugh.
I haven't read this novel (nor do I intend to), but last year, I was in the UK, and the National Theatre staged When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, a modernization of Pamela, starring Cate Blanchett and Stephen Dillane. Even better, I got a rush ticket for only £10. What could go wrong? Well, I'm not a squeamish person, but I nearly left the theater before the interval. It was nothing but 2+ hours of disconnected S&M vignettes. So, what I'm saying is that even in a modern context, with two very fine actors, Pamela is unbearable, I guess.
I know some people are doing a read through of Richardson's Clarissa this year online. But there's just something about pre-Austen novels I've never been able to get into. I don't know what it is, because Austen and everything that came after her in the 19th century is my spirit animal. Oh well, bless Jane.
I completely agree, but I'm still glad I read it. it raises a lot of important issues and I feel like I could write a dissertation on "how far we've come as a society or don't be like Mr.B and almost everyone else in this book." Three stars for me, but my god was I done with their mutual curtseys every two sentences.
