OMG, we had to read part of Charlotte Temple in the colonial American lit class I detested. Didn't really care for the excerpt, either. IMO, Pamela is much better. Instead of falling prey to her seducer/employer, she gets to keep her virtue despite his increasingly ridiculous advances, writes increasingly hilariously overwrought letters to her family about the experience (it's an epistolary novel), and eventually she and Mr. B. actually fall in love and get married, then spend the rest of the novel making fun of the snobby neighboring gentry who look down their noses at her servant girl origins.
Humphrey Clinker is another epistolary novel about a cranky, foolish extended family traveling around England. It's been eight years since I read it, but of the novels in my 18th century class freshman year, I remember liking it and Rob Roy the best.
while I reject eve the notion of Tristram Shandy. I simply don't have patience for the elaborate storytelling it embodies
I can understand that. Me, I'm all about elaborate, puzzle-like books--possibly my four favorites are Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Byatt's Possession, Kostova's The Historian, and Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. The more complex and allusory it is, the more I like it. :D Totally going to check out Carpentier's work now; I'm sadly not at ALL educated in LatAm lit.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-07-31 04:34 am (UTC)Humphrey Clinker is another epistolary novel about a cranky, foolish extended family traveling around England. It's been eight years since I read it, but of the novels in my 18th century class freshman year, I remember liking it and Rob Roy the best.
while I reject eve the notion of Tristram Shandy. I simply don't have patience for the elaborate storytelling it embodies
I can understand that. Me, I'm all about elaborate, puzzle-like books--possibly my four favorites are Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Byatt's Possession, Kostova's The Historian, and Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler. The more complex and allusory it is, the more I like it. :D Totally going to check out Carpentier's work now; I'm sadly not at ALL educated in LatAm lit.