I must confess to having never actually read any 18th century novel, but I feel that I would do well to wade through "Tristram Shandy", "Shamela", "Melmoth The Wanderer", "The Monk", "The Castle Of Otranto" and many others. Conversely, I recommend that all wise readers shun "Pamela".
But what, sirs, is your opinion?
― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 16:57 (twenty years ago)
Destroy: Pamela fer sure. The eighteenth century may have been agog for epic-length epistolary soap-operatic drivel, but that doesn't make it good. Reading it is like an eternity spent in hell.
― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:12 (twenty years ago)
Other keepers: Tom Jones, Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, Moll Flanders... especially Moll Flanders.
The wit of the age is really in the drama, rather than the emerging novel.
― SRH (Skrik), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 17:45 (twenty years ago)
Destroy: Clarissa. Lovelace is one of my favorite characters in all literature, but he's trapped under mountains of the most repetitive, tedious prose imaginable. And Clarissa is irritating as hell--kind of like an 18th-century Diane Chambers.
― Gail S, Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:09 (twenty years ago)
― SRH (Skrik), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 19:17 (twenty years ago)
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 20:13 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Tuesday, 4 January 2005 20:30 (twenty years ago)
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 06:58 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 07:10 (twenty years ago)
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 08:07 (twenty years ago)
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 10:36 (twenty years ago)
― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 14:00 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Wednesday, 5 January 2005 14:06 (twenty years ago)
I did not manage to finish Tristram Shandy, or come anywhere near. I have never attempted any of the others neither.
The Vicar must surely read Melmoth The Wanderer - but hang on: isn't that a C19 novel?
― the finefox, Thursday, 6 January 2005 11:42 (twenty years ago)
― the finefox, Thursday, 6 January 2005 11:43 (twenty years ago)
you've not read pamela. when you do, i'd be interested to know how excited you'd be to get out of bed on a below-zero ohio winter morning and discuss it.
― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 6 January 2005 12:25 (twenty years ago)
This got me some strange looks in the reading room. I know I really should read Clarissa, but really, I daren't.
― SRH (Skrik), Thursday, 6 January 2005 16:30 (twenty years ago)
― Ken L (Ken L), Thursday, 6 January 2005 16:54 (twenty years ago)
oh no, I shamed by I English am.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 6 January 2005 23:40 (twenty years ago)
it's the kind of book I talk about, but I've never read it.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 6 January 2005 23:43 (twenty years ago)
Norwich can be cold, also. Early on long gone November mornings I would cycle across town beneath the dark blue skies, past the lighted moving and halting buses and the old housing stock of the provincial suburbs, and still be looking forward to the imminent intellectual engagement. It is true, though, that we never studied Samuel Richardson.
― the bellefox, Monday, 10 January 2005 14:29 (twenty years ago)
― the finefox, Monday, 10 January 2005 16:27 (twenty years ago)
Destory!!
― the finefox, Monday, 10 January 2005 16:40 (twenty years ago)
― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Tuesday, 11 January 2005 02:04 (twenty years ago)