Clarissa is an epistolary novel composed of 537 letters dated from January 10th through to December 18th. The plan is to read the letters around their corresponding dates.
March began with the knowledge that there was going to be an upsurge in the number of letters to read which was welcome news after a slow February. Letters there were in plenty but progress in the story - very little.
In the first part of the month most of the letters are from Clarissa to Anna describing the confrontations with various members of her family. The same ground is gone over again...and again....and again!
No wonder this book is so long!
The constant repetition was frustrating enough that at one point I felt that if this hadn't been a year long group read I would have given up. It didn't help that Clarissa often writes very long waffling sentences which when I do reach the end of them I'm left asking ' What is this girl talking about?'
We did finally hear from Mr Lovelace - outpourings of love for the angel Clarissa and gushing poetical quotes completely spoiled by his admission that revenge was his strongest motivation.
This last week was a bit livelier - lets hope it will continue through April.
Plenty of letters, but little progress in the story - exactly! I'm a week behind, so the next few letters should hold some promise... I hope ;-)
ReplyDeleteI hope so too! We still have such a long way to go and I'd like to feel more excited about it than I do now.
DeleteI agree it started to get better this last week, so hopefully that continues. I'm not sure I can last if it stays this repetitive!
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way. I don't want to give up so hopefully there'll be some action soon.
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