Welcome to Litsy!

(1740)

Hooray for the magic of low expectations! I'd braced myself for a tedious slog, so was pleased to find an unexpectedly engaging story of power and resistance. Pamela's obsession with Virtue doesn't resonate, but as a drama of compulsion and consent, it's surprising how much still works. Of course a lot doesn't work: Pamela is as exasperatingly twee as she is sympathetic, and the hero belongs in prison. But I was prepared for so much worse.

My #BookSpin read for September is Samuel Richardson's “Pamela“, a book I've eyed with both interest and dread. Pamela is a milestone in the development of the English novel, but it's a work of “conduct literature,“ a genre I associate with stuffy moralizing, running over 700 pages.

And so for the #DoubleSpin the BookSpin Fates have assigned a much shorter stuffless read as my reward for finishing Pamela.

Thanks for hosting, @TheAromaofBooks !

#tbrpile

18th century novel about a maid who is sexually harassed and then kidnapped by her employer but who refuses to give in to threats or bribes and eventually reforms him by her good example.

There were times I thought it dragged a bit, especially in the second half and Pamela's humble piety and gratitude were a more than a bit overdone, but it was interesting to see how things have changed and how they've stayed the same.

1740 reaction of Farmer Monkton when Pamela accuses Mr B of non consensual kissing and cuddling (and we know from the novel that she is telling the truth)

This 1740 novel was so popular that fans wrote theater & opera versions and fan fiction to carry on the story. It‘s a bit dull, moralizing, & didactic to modern eyes, but foundational in the rise of the novel. A maid fends off a rakish gentleman until her virtue alters him & they marry. “Sensibility,” an 18th C literary movement, gains moral authority here; Austen‘s 1811 novel is partly Jane‘s response to its ideas & forms.

The weakest more annoying protagonist possible to a modern female reader. Multiple attempted rapes and then page upon page of how to be a good wife deserving of her husband

P - A Perilous Undertaking
A - Along the Infinite Sea
M - Malice at the Palace
E - The Eyre Affair
L - Lillian Boxfish Takes a Walk
A - The Alpine Advocate

Fun! Thanks, @LibrarianRyan

Lately I‘ve been having trouble focusing on reading. So instead I‘ve hit a couple used book places 😜! Here‘s my haul! Really digging that 1950s cover edition of Pamela. It and a couple others in this stack are #1001Books.

#heatofjuly @Cinfhen @BarbaraBB

Pamela was not #promiscuous and hers is a tale of virtue rewarded.

#LitsyClassics #Female

This one was picked for me as a Randomized #1001books pick. It is a quiet story, not a lot is happening. But lovely writing. #classics #LitsyClassics

Be sure don't let people's telling you, you are pretty, puff you up; for you did not make yourself, and so can have no praise due to you for it. It is virtue and goodness only, that make the true beauty.

Reading this for a uni class. Liking it more than I expected, and certainly more than Moll Flanders.

Squeaking in this #epistolarynovel (possibly the first?) for today's #readjanuary challenge. Have I read this book? Indeed, I have. Do I remember anything about it? Nope. Nada. Zip. @RealLifeReading