Tom Jones: “English women […] are no slaves”

1/ One of the readers of this blog, who prefers Richardson to Fielding, once said he thought Tom Jones was… cute. I don’t agree. Tom Jones is a comic novel, but there is nothing affected or superficial or naïve about it. Fielding doesn’t shy away from evil or misery. 

He begins the novel as a world of warmth and kindness but very quickly lets us see that humanity is not all Mr Allworthys: we see Dr Blifil scheme his brother’s way into Mr Allworthy’s family and fortunes, and we see Captain Blifil turn into a despot once he’s married to Mr Allworthy’s sister. And throughout the novel, Fielding depicts brutal husbands and tyrannical fathers.

“… He was indeed as bitter an enemy to the savage authority too often exercised by husbands and fathers, over the young and lovely of the other sex, as ever knight-errant was to the barbarous power of enchanters; nay, to say truth, I have often suspected that those very enchanters with which romance everywhere abounds were in reality no other than the husbands of those days; and matrimony itself was, perhaps, the enchanted castle in which the nymphs were said to be confined.” (B.11, ch.8)

The novel also depicts hypocrites and liars and mercenaries and trollops and thieves and rakes and manipulators and so on. Not at all a rosy view of life. Fielding may present himself as a warm and witty man, a large-hearted man, a man forgiving and tolerant of people’s moral failings, but he makes a clear distinction between foibles and callousness or cruelty. For example, Tom Jones, despite his love for Sophia, sleeps with lots of women and cannot say no to those who throw themselves at him—that’s a foible—but Fielding makes a clear distinction between him and the men who play with women’s feelings, who deliberately use women for pleasure then discard them once done. 

2/ Let me quote my friend Himadri (Argumentative Old Git) on Fielding and Richardson’s Pamela: 

“… However, for all the rumbustiousness, Fielding’s moral compass is very firmly established. His principal argument with Richardson is not, after all, that Richardson was too serious in his morals, but that he wasn’t serious enough – that allowing Pamela to be “rewarded” for her virtue with marriage with her former tormentor made virtue itself but a commodity.” 

3/ Fielding is progressive—the word is now rather tainted but I mean it in the good sense—he’s strongly in favour of marrying for love and against forced marriages or mercenary marriages.

I also like the range of female characters in Tom Jones. 

Mrs Western for example is a great character. Sophie’s aunt, she’s much more severe and cruel than Lady Russell from Persuasion, but the similarity is that she wants to persuade Sophia into a marriage with Master Blifil out of prudence—or what she perceives as prudence—not out of cruelty or a tyrannical will. There is a great contrast between her and her hot-headed brother. Fielding also gives her some great lines: 

““… While I have been endeavouring to fill her mind with maxims of prudence, you have been provoking her to reject them. English women, brother, I thank heaven, are no slaves. We are not to be locked up like the Spanish and Italian wives. We have as good a right to liberty as yourselves. We are to be convinced by reason and persuasion only, and not governed by force…”” (B.6, ch.14) 

She’s much more intelligent than Squire Western—contrast their reactions upon finding out that Sophia’s hiding at Lady Bellaston’s: 

““… Do you really imagine, brother, that the house of a woman of figure is to be attacked by warrants and brutal justices of the peace? […] Justices of peace, indeed! do you imagine any such event can arrive to a woman of figure in a civilised nation?” (B.15, ch.16) 

Lady Bellaston is also a great character, a lascivious and manipulative and enthralling woman, one who would fit right in Dangerous Liaisons. 

““Doth not your ladyship think,” says Mrs Fitzpatrick eagerly, “that it would be the best way to write immediately to my uncle, and acquaint him where my cousin is?”

The lady pondered a little upon this, and thus answered—“Why, no, madam, I think not. Di Western hath described her brother to me to be such a brute, that I cannot consent to put any woman under his power who hath escaped from it. I have heard he behaved like a monster to his own wife, for he is one of those wretches who think they have a right to tyrannise over us, and from such I shall ever esteem it the cause of my sex to rescue any woman who is so unfortunate to be under their power…”” (B.13, ch.3) 

She is scheming and deceitful, but Fielding gives her charming qualities—the only pity is that she doesn’t have a lot of room to develop, being one of the supporting characters—I wonder if Thackeray later borrowed a bit of Lady Bellaston for Becky Sharp in Vanity Fair. Lady Bellaston is more sophisticated than Lady Booby in Joseph Andrews, though that’s also a brilliant character. 

Molly Seagrim (Tom’s first lover?) is not a badly written character either. She’s vividly drawn, a rugged and sexual and feisty woman, very different from the equally lustful Lady Bellaston. 

I’m gonna have to read and think some more before writing about Sophia, the heroine of the book. 

Tom Jones is more and more engrossing. The last third is exciting! 

Evelina: “this species of writing […] saved from contempt, and rescued from depravity”

1/ Now that I have got acquainted with the fathers of the English novel (Richardson and Fielding), it’s natural that I get to know the mother (Frances Burney, or Fanny Burney). She’s of particular interest to me also because of her influence on Jane Austen. 

Let’s look at the timeline: 

1740: Richardson’s Pamela 

1741: Fielding’s Shamela (parody of Pamela, published under a pseudonym) 

1742: Fielding’s Joseph Andrews 

1748: Richardson’s Clarissa (I know it’s important and will have to read it at some point, but 970,000 words? War and Peace is not even 600,000 words in English) 

1749: Fielding’s Tom Jones (his masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the 18th century—I will definitely read it) 

1759-1767: Sterne’s Tristram Shandy (I tried this once—will try again when I’m more used to 18th century’s English) 

1778: Burney’s Evelina (first published anonymously but soon acknowledged)

1782: Choderlos de Laclos’s Dangerous Liaisons 

1791: Cao Xueqin’s Hong lou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber or The Story of the Stone) 

1811: Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (the first draft, titled Elinor and Marianne, was written around 1795 and in the epistolary form)

1813: Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (originally titled First Impressions, written around 1796-1797) 

2/ The quote in the headline comes from Frances Burney’s Preface: 

“In the republic of letters, there is no member of such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the quill, as the humble Novelist; nor is his fate less hard in the world at large, since, among the whole class of writers, perhaps not one can be named of which the votaries are more numerous but less respectable.

Yet, while in the annals of those few of our predecessors, to whom this species of writing is indebted for being saved from contempt, and rescued from depravity, we can trace such names as Rousseau, Johnson, Marivaux, Fielding, Richardson, and Smollett, no man need blush at starting from the same post, though many, nay, most men, may sigh at finding themselves distanced.”

She also wrote: 

“… however I may feel myself enlightened by the knowledge of Johnson, charmed with the eloquence of Rousseau, softened by the pathetic powers of Richardson, and exhilarated by the wit of Fielding, and humour of Smollett, I yet presume not to attempt pursuing the same ground which they have tracked; whence, though they may have cleared the weeds, they have also culled the flowers; and, though they have rendered the path plain, they have left it barren.”

I will return to these lines when I have finished reading Evelina. But I will say that the innocent, inexperienced, rather sheltered and awkward Evelina is much livelier and more likeable than Richardson’s virtuous Pamela and Fielding’s beautiful Fanny Goodwill. Fanny Goodwill is no more than a cardboard cutout, from the beginning to the end a damsel in distress. Pamela is exceedingly irritating, a Mary Sue who constantly faints. I know you’re going to mumble that Richardson’s and Fielding’s masterpieces are something else, but all these three novels I’m comparing are first novels—Frances Burney was 26 when she got Evelina published. 

3/ Frances Burney’s influence on Jane Austen is quite obvious. Look at this passage, for example: 

“His conversation was sensible and spirited; his air, and address were open and noble; his manners gentle, attentive, and infinitely engaging; his person is all elegance, and his countenance the most animated and expressive I have ever seen.” (Vol.1, Letter 11) 

Does that not sound like something one might come across in Jane Austen? I didn’t think “That sounds like Jane Austen” when I was reading Fielding or Richardson, but now with Burney, I sometimes do. 

Evelina is lively and spirited, highly adept at capturing people’s voices and conversations. 

““I am gone, Madam, I am gone!” with a most tragical air; and he marched away at a quick pace, out of sight in a moment; but before I had time to congratulate myself, he was again at my elbow.” (Vol.1, Letter 13) 

Like Austen, Frances Burney is wickedly funny. 

When Tom (Wuthering Expectations) was reading Evelina a few years ago, he noted: 

“For its first few pages, Evelina looks like an epistolary novel, like a Samuel Richardson novel.  “I am, dear Sir, with great regard” (Letter I) etc. 

[…] Evelina herself finally takes over in Letter VIII (only twelve pages into my Norton edition – now there’s a difference from Richardson – shorter letters) and the rhetorical mode changes, quickly, until the letters do not sound much like letters at all.  They are full of scenes, dialogue, characters, jokes, the usual novelistic stuff.  Maybe like a journal, but not really.  More like, you know, a novel. 

[…] One of Burney’s innovations is to merely gesture toward the conventions of the epistolary novel, keeping the interiority and moral reflection but dumping most of the rest of the epistolarity, unless she wants it for plotty reasons.” 

As an epistolary novel, Pamela is quite awkward—it starts as a correspondence and then becomes a journal because Pamela is detained by her lustful employer and cannot send letters—compared to Dangerous Liaisons, it doesn’t quite have the perfect construction (after all, Richardson was trying something new) and the realism (where does Pamela find the time to write all this stuff? and in secret?). But Tom is right that Evelina is even less of an epistolary novel than Pamela—it is indeed full of scenes, dialogue, characters, the novelistic stuff—I would probably say that Evelina is like a bridge between epistolary novels and Jane Austen’s comedies of manners. 

Joseph Andrews and other books, or The development of the novel

Hello friends, fans, and foes, I have just returned from Berlin. Joseph Andrews and Parson Adams were my companions on the work trip. Let’s jot down some thoughts. 

1/ The English novel is said to have two founders in the 18th century: Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding. As my friend Tom (Wuthering Expectations) explained, there were two major tracks: Richardson – Fanny Burney – Jane Austen – etc. and Fielding – Smollett – Dickens – etc. This divide seems to fit Himadri’s brushstroke metaphor: the Richardson novelists paint with small brushstrokes and focus on subtle things; the Fielding writers use broad brushstrokes and vivid colours, and have great vigour. 

As I’m interested in tradition and influence, I read Joseph Andrews and think of 19th century literature and find that the novelist closest to Fielding seems to be Thackeray. Just compare. Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot… don’t particularly sound like Fielding. But if you look at Fielding and Thackeray, both Joseph Andrews and Vanity Fair are not very visual; both novels are not rich in metaphor; both novels have a warm, good-humoured narrator who constantly addresses the reader. Even Dickens feels further apart: he is visual (who doesn’t remember the fog in Bleak House?), and his novels abound in metaphors. 

I love Vanity Fair, I’m enjoying Joseph Andrews. Both have vitality.

Then if you look back chronologically, Joseph Andrews owes its existence to two novels: Pamela and Don Quixote. Its starting point is to parody Richardson’s novel, as Fielding himself has done in Shamela: Joseph Andrews is a brother of Pamela and, like her, has to defend his chastity from an older employer. Joseph Andrews rejects Lady Booby and thus loses his job, because he only loves Fanny. 

But that’s only the starting point. Joseph Andrews grows into something else, and even without the acknowledgement on the title page (“written in imitation of the manner of Cervantes, author of Don Quixote”), the influence would still be obvious. I’m gonna have to revisit the Fielding section in Fighting Windmills, the book about the greatness and influence of Don Quixote (how annoying to borrow books from the library and not have them right at hand for a quick check). Fielding takes from Don Quixote not only the form of the picaresque novel, he also includes interpolated tales, has a comic vision of life, and creates a quixotic character—Parson Adams is not a madman like Don Quixote, but he is naïve and absent-minded and idealistic, and he too is a combination of goodness and ridiculousness. 

(Isn’t it cool that many 18th century writers loved and took something from Don Quixote? I’m gonna have to read The Female Quixote, Tristram Shandy, and Humphry Clinker). 

Unlike Cervantes, Fielding doesn’t play with multiple narrators and unreliable narrators, but he expands the role of the narrator—like another character—something Thackeray later also does in Vanity Fair. 

2/ Pamela came out in 1740. Joseph Andrews, 1742. 

If we compare them to the works of 19th century novelists such as Dickens, Flaubert, Tolstoy, George Eliot, and so on, they appear a bit primitive, in both character development and the novel form. I’m not denigrating Richardson and Fielding—their masterpieces are said to be Clarissa and Tom Jones—I’m saying that at this point they were developing the novel and trying new stuff so there were a few things they didn’t quite figure out till presumably later on. Pamela for example uses the epistolary form in a very clumsy, awkward way. Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, perhaps the most well-constructed of epistolary novels, was published in 1782. 

As for Joseph Andrews, I will quote my friend Himadri (Argumentative Old Git): 

“… despite many fine things, Joseph Andrews does, it must be admitted, have its longueurs. In the later Tom Jones, the better qualities of Joseph Andrews are consistently in view, and the flaws entirely absent. For one thing, Fielding, when he came to writing Tom Jones, realised that the kind of novel he was attempting required an interesting plot: otherwise, the final chapters would merely provide resolution for a plot that the reader has long lost interest in, and become merely tedious; and the rest of the novel would become merely a sequence of more or less unrelated set pieces.” 

(The piece as a whole, I should say, is positive about Joseph Andrews—I just picked out the negative bit, as journalists do).

The thing I find strange and fascinating is that Don Quixote (Part 1: 1605; Part 2: 1615) does not at all appear primitive in comparison. Of course, the descriptions are a bit basic. Of course, writers didn’t quite see colours in the 17th century. Of course, the supporting characters aren’t very complex. But if you consider its form and techniques, Don Quixote is spectacularly innovative and ingenious, especially in Part 2—look at the multiple narrators and the concept of the unreliable narrator, look at the dazzling layers of lies and fantasy, look at the meta aspect. Next to Don Quixote, even masterpieces such as Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary come across as conventional. 

3/ Yesterday I came across The Daily Telegraph’s 1899 list of “100 Best Novels in the World”. 

I’m sure you all would have lots of opinions about the list. See for yourself. I’m just gonna make some brief comments. 

First of all, “the world” naturally means the West. This is to be expected—the list is from 1899—even the majority of “greatest novels of all time” lists today ignore non-Western novels, especially those written before the 20th century. On this particular list of 100 best novels, only 10 are in a language other than English (I know). 

Tolstoy’s on the list—only Anna Karenina, not War and Peace—Dostoyevsky isn’t. But we shouldn’t be so harsh on it. At this point, Crime and Punishment was available, but The Brothers Karamazov wasn’t translated until 1912. 

The list has Dumas, Hugo, Balzac, and Eugène Sue (who’s this?) but not Flaubert or Zola. Madame Bovary was available in 2 English translations at this point.  

The most shocking part is the exclusion of Don Quixote—what’s wrong with these people?

If we ignore all the stuff about “foreign languages” and translations, it is in many ways still a curious list. The Dickens novels on the list are Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Dombey and Son, and Oliver Twist—not Bleak House, not Little Dorrit, not Great Expectations. I’m not surprised that they name Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility for Jane Austen, rather than Emma or Mansfield Park, but to name Scenes of Clerical Life rather than Middlemarch as the George Eliot novel is absurd. The same about the three Thackeray novels not including Vanity Fair. Richardson isn’t on the list (I guess even in the 19th century, people didn’t read the over 950,000-word-long Clarissa), but Fielding is: Tom Jones and Joseph Andrews. Melville isn’t included, which does not surprise me, but even Henry James is absent. Charlotte Bronte is on the list with two novels—Jane Eyre and Shirley—but Emily, the genius of the family, isn’t. 

A rather odd list. See for yourself. But now we see that Joseph Andrews had a very good reputation in 1899. I don’t think most people now, even those who read classic literature, know about Joseph Andrews—those who know about classic literature would mostly be familiar with Tom Jones. 

Recent reads: Primo Levi, Flannery, Pamela, Shamela

In September, I read Moments of Reprieve, my third Primo Levi book after If This Is a Man (aka Survival in Auschwitz) and The Truce (aka The Reawakening). Wonderful writer. Primo Levi writes about the people he knew at Auschwitz—the moments of reprieve—he’s got a gift for portraiture and for images. Certain images get imprinted on one’s mind: a man playing the violin in the camp (at which point the listeners, for a brief moment, have a vision of a better world), the guided tour for Hitlerjugend, the “revenge” of the inmates through “bacteriological warfare”, etc. 

The last chapter, about Rumkowski, is thought-provoking.

The most moving chapter in the book is the one about Lorenzo, which is reminiscent of Vasily Grossman’s idea in Life and Fate about “senseless kindness”. Among my favourite writers, I especially like the temperament of Vasily Grossman and Primo Levi, men who have seen some of the worst horrors of the 20th century and yet still believe in salvation and goodness.  

(Today marks one year since the Simchat Torah Massacre, or the October 7 atrocities). 

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Is Flannery O’Connor the best writer of bigotry? She must at least be one of the best at depicting and dissecting it. 

In October, I read “Everything that Rises Must Converge” and “Greenleaf” from her second short story collection, but I’m also thinking of “The Artificial Nigger” and “The Displaced Person” from A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories. There’s something cold, uncompromising, even harsh about Flannery O’Connor, but she is so good, so striking—she hits you right in the face. Some writers (Tolstoy, Chekhov, Cao Xueqin, Carson McCullers…) depict their characters with love and compassion; some others (Flannery O’Connor, Flaubert, Ibsen…) dissect them. 

Over the past 2 years or so, I’ve discovered a few short story writers: Isaac Bashevis Singer, Isaac Babel, Alice Munro, etc. and Flannery O’Connor is the most striking one, much more interesting than Alice Munro. She’s got a distinct voice, she picks strong images, and her stories are “the axe for the frozen see within us.” 

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Speaking of “the axe, etc.”, I went to the Kafka exhibition in Oxford. Finally got to see the original manuscripts and drawings! 

Last year, on my work trip to Prague, I visited the Kafka Museum and realised, in disappointment, that most of the originals were in Oxford or in Germany. 

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I read and gave up, nearly halfway through, on Pamela. How many times is the wench going to faint? And she goes on and on and on about her virtue.

Is there a Richardson vs Fielding split (like Tolstoy vs Dostoyevsky)? I seem to be Team Fielding. I know I cannot say till I’ve read Tom Jones and Clarissa, but Shamela is a hoot, and I’m now having a blast with Joseph Andrews.

Funnily enough, I’ve noted that both of these works are spin-offs from Pamela, but Joseph Andrews accompanies Pamela rather than Shamela. 

Pamela: “what can the abject poor do against the mighty rich, when they are determined to oppress?”

1/ My first blog post about Pamela, I know, wasn’t very enthusiastic. Around page 100 is when the novel becomes more interesting: Samuel Richardson breaks the epistolary form with the appearance of a narrator and the perspective of other characters; we also hear Mr B’s voice for the first time that is not reported by Pamela. The story at this point also becomes more gripping. The horror! The deception! Pamela is only 15. And helpless. 

For the first 100 pages, Pamela writes letters to her parents about how her master Mr B, after the old lady’s death, has been trying to take her virtue, which she’d rather die than lose. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what we now call sexual harassment at the workplace. Around page 100 is when sexual harassment turns into an abduction. 

2/ Pamela, considering that it’s the 18th century, has some surprisingly progressive views that I assume are shared by the author: 

“… for my part, I cannot forbear smiling at the absurdity of persons even of the first quality, who value themselves upon their ancestors’ merits, rather than their own. For is it not as much as to say, they are conscious they have no other?” (Letter 23) 

“… I will only sit down with this sad reflection – That power and riches never want tools to promote their vilest ends…” (Journal) 

“But, O sir! my soul is of equal importance with the soul of a princess, though in quality I am but upon a foot with the meanest slave.” (Journal, but this is from a letter to Mr Williams, the clergyman). 

I’ve read that Pamela was shocking and scandalous at the time not because of the sexual harassment and abduction, but because it ended with the servant marrying her master. 

(I barely know the 18th century though, I have to explore more). 

3/ Pamela makes me think of some other characters: Cécile from Dangerous Liaisons, Fanny Price from Mansfield Park, the titular character of Jane Eyre, Esther Summerson from Bleak House. And the women in Spanish Golden Age literature.

The comparison with Cécile is obvious, especially when they’re the same age. Cécile is more human and more likeable. 

The comparison with Jane Eyre is also obvious: a maid is socially lower than a governess, but they’re both employees and their employers fancy them and treat them abominably, in different ways. Charlotte Bronte even mentions Pamela in her book. 

Pamela makes me think about Fanny and Esther because they’re all morally good characters who are not very popular among readers—I often see readers whine that Fanny is priggish, uptight, self-righteous, and boring; that Esther is passive, submissive, cloying, too modest, too good. Very odd. I have always defended Fanny and Esther and will continue defending them till death. Both are more interesting and more likeable than Pamela—not that likeability is particularly important for literature—Fanny loves nature and poetry, and she is insightful; Esther is funny and a strange, excellent writer. Pamela is not funny. She was getting on my nerves—I read Spanish Golden Age literature and said I was so done with the theme of a woman’s honour—here it is again, only that Richardson uses the word “virtue” instead. In the edition on Gutenberg, the word “virtue” pops up 86 times in the novel, not counting the title; “virtuous” 33 times; “honest” or “honesty” 158 times; “innocent” 66 times and “innocence” 76 times. 

(Did Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte find Pamela irritating? I wonder).

But we—I mean I—shouldn’t be so harsh on Pamela. After all, she is 15 and lives in 18th century England, and she gets this from her parents: 

“… we fear—yes, my dear child, we fear—you should be too grateful, and reward him with that jewel, your virtue, which no riches, nor favour, nor any thing in this life, can make up to you.” (Letter 2) 

With such (insufferable) parents, of course she would turn out like that. 

One can’t help feeling sympathy for Pamela when the dark plot against her unfolds—she is betrayed, abducted, held against her will, completely helpless with no one to turn to. I also appreciate that Pamela is not stupid and the novel is not an idiot plot (one that is “kept in motion solely by virtue of the fact that everybody involved is an idiot”).

But after a while, I have to say that Pamela gets on my nerves again: she faints, she weeps, she professes her virtue and innocence. It is one note. It’s more interesting when Mr B (the master) sends some letters and then shows up, as we get out of Pamela’s head and get another perspective—the character of Mr B puzzles me—but Pamela continues doing my head in. 

Should I continue? Tell me if I should continue. I’m on page 220 (out of about 550). 

Reading Pamela, thinking about Dangerous Liaisons

Samuel Richardson’s Pamela is foundational for the epistolary form. Not the first epistolary novel ever written, but the one to start the craze in the 18th century. Isn’t it interesting to read foundational texts? You read the first modern novel (Don Quixote) and realise it is indeed a contender for the title of greatest novel ever written. You read the first detective novel (The Moonstone) and feel amazed that Wilkie Collins already figured out all the elements of a detective story: locked room, “inside job”, red herrings, professional investigator, large number of false suspects, “least likely suspect”, reconstruction of the crime, plot twist, etc. But then you read Pamela and discover that at this point, in 1740, Richardson didn’t quite know what he was doing, or what could be done with the epistolary novel. 

I can’t help thinking of Dangerous Liaisons (1782), perhaps the most cleverly constructed of epistolary novels.

First of all, Dangerous Liaisons has a range of writers and a range of voices, and some of the characters (Merteuil and Valmont) also adopt different voices for different people, whereas Richardson’s novel mostly has Pamela, and a bit of her parents. I read Dangerous Liaisons and think it has to be an epistolary novel, or at least the form is perfect for it; I read Pamela and think that for a large part, it could just be a standard first-person narrative. Perhaps I’m talking nonsense, as usual, because I’m on page 89 and the book is about 550 pages, but I did leaf through the book. 

Dangerous Liaisons is also more captivating for two other reasons: there are multiple things going on at the same time, and before the reader gets impatient with the slow development of the Valmont – Tourvel plot, Laclos gives us the Prévan plot and grabs our attention again; it is always more interesting when a character may be hiding something, lying to others or lying to themselves, than when a character – narrator is a virtuous girl, a Mary Sue such as Pamela. 

(Frankly, Pamela gets on my nerves). 

As I have recently explained to a friend who didn’t particularly care for the book, I love Dangerous Liaisons because it deals with human complexity and contradictions, because it explores the way people deceive others and deceive themselves, because it’s not always certain whether the characters are telling the truth or playing a role or, whilst joking or being ironic, revealing something about themselves. These are the subjects that interest me in literature. I also like the way Laclos deals with longing, sexual desire, and love. 

Another thing I’ve noted is that Laclos includes the dates (it’s clear that he carefully plans everything), whereas Richardson doesn’t. How much time passes between the letters? How often does Pamela write? How long does it take for the parents to reply? What’s the gap? As Laclos includes the dates, you think about the actions that are happening around the same time; you think about the silence, the gap; you think about the letters that get delayed and perhaps the consequences; you think about the time that an action or a scheme takes, and so on and so forth. 

Such a well-constructed novel, Dangerous Liaisons. 

Let’s hope I later have something interesting to say about Pamela.