Hi, vinteuil. Yes, I finished Clarissa. I took six months over it, with plenty of breaks in between. I'd feel a total pseud saying I enjoyed it, but I can see why it is fascinating, once you get in to it. Sir Charles Grandisson is not in paperback, and I have no intention.
Someone could make a joke about Clarissa and porcupines making rape, but I don't think that would be in very good taste. Richardson stacks the apparatus so much in Clarissa's favour, but then writes Lovelace's part with total conviction, leaving you to think he is a sexy, brave, Byronic hero, or (as I do) an unbelievably slimy upper class creep. (The social nuances are as varied as in Austen and like the sexual politics, can give the material for endless academic theses. But something that can inspire both Jane Austen, the Marquis de Sade and Les Liaisons Dangereuses must have something going for it.)
Someone could make a joke about Clarissa and porcupines making rape, but I don't think that would be in very good taste. Richardson stacks the apparatus so much in Clarissa's favour, but then writes Lovelace's part with total conviction, leaving you to think he is a sexy, brave, Byronic hero, or (as I do) an unbelievably slimy upper class creep. (The social nuances are as varied as in Austen and like the sexual politics, can give the material for endless academic theses. But something that can inspire both Jane Austen, the Marquis de Sade and Les Liaisons Dangereuses must have something going for it.)
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