Clarissa

"I asked ChatGPT to rephrase the poem at the end of letter 2 (Clarissa to Anne, long before Clarissa lost her joie de vivre). Here's the result:<br/><br/><i>Men, stop being jerks. Don't diss us for being nice and then complain when we're tough. If you want honesty, start being real yourselves. Your hypocrisy and deceit force us to play along.</i><br/><br/>Quite progressive for a book written in 1748.<br/><br/>Now as for my review of the book:<br/>It was a long read. I have read the Mahabharata (which is approximately the same length) but Clarissa seemed much much longer because the pace is rather slow. As a pioneer of Western literature, Richardson did not have many examples, and much like other early writers (Cervantes, Boccaccio) his writing style is rather long-winded. <br/>Although the book was very very long for a rather simple story, it was interesting enough. The characters are well written, and their development is well done, although they lack the sparkle of Tolstoy's. Unfortunately the epistolary novel is not my favorite genre, and I must admit that I dozed off a couple of times. <br/><br/>I highly recommend the audiobook version read by Pauline Munro.<br/><br/><b>Favorite passage:</b><br/><i>”Strange to me that those charming fountains have not been so long ago exhausted! But she is a woman. And I believe anatomists allow, </i>that women have more watry heads than men.<i>”</i>"