Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded (1740)

Richardson's kind of hard, because you hear two simultaneous things about him: that his novels Pamela and Clarissa were extremely influential on the development of the English novel, so you want to read them, but also...that they're excruciatingly dull with embarrassing gender politics. So you don't. I mean, a long, didactic eighteenth century novel is a hard sell for anyone.

For a long time I'd avoided him, but, for reasons that at present escape me, I decided to dive into Pamela, which at least is shorter: a mere six hundred fifty pages to Clarissa's thirteen hundred. Moderation! But for god's sake, people, there's a new Pynchon novel out, and I'm reading this? Hell's bells!

Do people generally know the plot of this novel by osmosis? Or do I just come from a weird family? Well: it's an epistolary novel, mostly consisting of letters from Pamela to her old and insanely virtuous parents (I mean, it is until it isn't: that structure actually kind of disappears pretty quickly, and then it's more or less like journal entries). She's a poor girl in service as a maid to a noblewoman, and when she dies, her dissipated son inherits her and the other servants. Really? Is that how that works? Kinda sounds more like slavery to me. Well, at any rate, said son--only known as "Mister B_____" or, if you're Pamela, "my master"--takes a fancy to our heroine and as such tries to wear her down to seduce and/or rape her, most notably by isolating her on his country estate with no hope of escape, and goddamn, obviously, a poor woman in eighteenth century Britain is going to fare poorly against a rich man, but kidnapping like that has to be not just psychopathic, but at least theoretically illegal. And yet, it isn't even brought up as a strike against B. I mean, the attempted rape is, but the abduction's barely even mentioned, and COME ON! But anyway, she spends a lot of time resisting him, until finally she gets to leave, and then I guess she figures she's resisted him enough and he figures he's tried to rape her enough and he should be more virtuous, so they get married. I dunno: if this is meant to be teaching young people about social mores, I'm just really not sure how helpful it's going to be to anyone. It kind of reminds me of the "romantic" rebuffments that knights have to suffer before they can love ladies in Charlotte Lennox's Female Quixote, but that stuff is meant to be silly.

Well but anyway, so that's about it, and it may surprise you to learn that all this is actually a lot more gripping than you'd think. In spite of everything, Pamela comes across as surprising resourceful and independent, and, I mean, it would be hard to call this a "feminist" novel, but it IS about a poor serving woman successfully rebuffing a rich aristocrat, so, I mean, that's not nothing. At one point she declares "But, to be sure, I must be forward, bold, saucy, and what not!" That seems empowering to me. Also, the best passage in the book: the context is that Pamela's using having a garden as a pretext for smuggling messages out, and she's giving a status report to B's servant, the menacing Mrs. Jewkes:

Here, said I, (having a bean in my hand,) is one of them; but it has not stirred. No, to be sure, said she, and turned upon me a most wicked jest, unbecoming the mouth of a woman, about planting, etc.

"Planting, etc." I literally lolled. Eighteenth century dirty jokes ftw!

So, you know, well played, Sam, more or less! I can see why eighteenth century people were super into this!

Um.

Well.

Kind of.

You see, the above is indeed a more or less complete plot description of the book, but also, the couple gets married or at least afianced about halfway through the narrative, and from there on...woof. Is the second half of Pamela the single worst thing I've ever read? It's certainly in the conversation!

Say what you will about the sexual politics of the novel, but, while our hero is resisting ol' B, there is definitely actually, you know, drama and conflict! Quite clearly delineated! The second half, nope. No conflict for us. What is there? Well, there's a hell of a lot of B, Pamela (who instantly loses whatever character interest she had had), and random side characters endlessly reiterating how noble and virtuous our central couple is. Believe me when I tell you: the two of them never have sex. They just sit there and talk at each other about what hot shit they are.

Here's how good B is: "No light frothy jests drop from his lips; no alarming railleries; no offensive expressions, nor insulting airs, reproach or wound the ears of your happy, thrice happy daughter."  My feeling is that a marriage can't survive without the odd alarming raillery. In any event, how goddamn boring does that sound?

What else? Well, there's a little interlude where B's sister is super mad that he would marry a commoner. She comes to visit while B's out and harangues Pamela for a while, to very little effect. Why? We know B's just going to come home and everything's going to be straightened out. This is not drama. Though there IS one part I "liked" (and I'm not going to quote it; you can check for yourself if you doubt my characterizations) where the sister is like, "how about if I married a stable groom? What about THAT, huh?" And his response is, "obviously, that's different, because when a nobleman marries a poor girl, he exalts her, whereas when a poor dude marries a rich woman, it degrades her. Duh! And also: if he's her husband, it means her master is a guy from a lower socioeconomic class than she is! Just think how fucked up that would be!" I mean, the sentiment isn't surprising, but it sounds kind of insane when you lay it out there.

The other thing you realize in the latter half is what an absolutely unbearable tyrant and fucking prig B is. Sounds awful to say, but I kinda think Pam woulda been better off getting raped in the first half: at least then he'd get bored soon enough, and she wouldn't have to spend her entire LIFE with him. He has a number of, ah "injunctions" as they're repeatedly called, to his new wife, and I KINDA think they should've been made explicit before they signed the marriage contract. EG:

I have often observed, in married folks, that, in a little while, the lady grows careless in her dress; which, to me, looks as if she would take no pains to secure the affection she had gained; and shews a slight to her husband, that she had not to her lover. Now, you must know, this has always given me great offence; and I should not forgive it, even in my Pamela: though she would have this excuse for herself, that thousands could not make, That she looks lovely in every thing. So, my dear, I shall expect of you always to be dressed by dinner-time, except something extraordinary happens; and this, whether you are to go abroad, or stay at home.

Don't worry; the threat is only implicit! Jesus christ, you're marrying a serial killer. Also, do you know what the Young People of today are doing? DO YOU KNOW?!?

This, dear sir, said I, is a most obliging injunction; and I most heartily thank you for it, and will always take care to obey it.—Why, my dear, said he, you may better do this than half your sex; because they too generally act in such a manner, as if they seemed to think it the privilege of birth and fortune, to turn day into night, and night into day, and are seldom stirring till it is time to sit down to dinner; and so all the good old family rules are reversed: For they breakfast, when they should dine; dine, when they should sup; and sup, when they should go to bed; and, by the help of dear quadrille, sometimes go to bed when they should rise.

This is just, to quote Lionel Trilling, a series of irritable mental gestures on Richardson's part. He sounds just unbearable on every level. I will not lie.

And look, maybe you think this sounds entertaining in a train-wreck-y way, so allow me to assure you, it is not. If you wanna read this, you're just going to have to suffer. I hate to put it so bluntly, but it is what it is. But DO YOU HAVE THE WHEREWITHAL to read Pamela in Her Exalted Condition, Richardson's own sequel which I didn't know existed until today? Well, you're wrong. You don't. No living human is. It sounds like death itself. Also, it's not even available on Gutenberg, and if you want a physical copy, your only choice is a scholarly edition that'll run you into triple digits. THANK GOODNESS.