I've been working my way through Pamela, and aiming for about 50 pages a day. This is not terribly fast, but I can only take so much of her. It's very repetitive, every detail is described ad nauseam, and Pamela is so humble and grateful that she makes Esther Summerson from Bleak House look like a Mean Girl. I am really wondering how Richardson is going to stretch this out for another 500 pages or so...meanwhile, I balance Pamela with On the Road, which I'm enjoying. The thing that always surprises me (pleasantly) about Jack Kerouac is that he seems to like just about everybody. Everything is interesting. On the negative side of the scale, women exist mostly to look pretty and cook a bit. Everybody complains about C. S. Lewis' sexism, and everybody loves Kerouac, but guess which one was the waaaay more sexist of the two? I mean, fine, that's what the culture was, I can live with it, but let's not castigate some people and let others off for the same thing.
Ooh, speaking of which, I came across a blog post today. Hm, I want to quote the entire last paragraph, but I haven't asked for permission (since I only just now thought of it). So I will just give you the link and tell you to read the last paragraph even if you don't read the whole thing. It's a pretty specific audience he's speaking to, but that last bit can be usefully read by any serious reader. This is from George Handley's blog, Home Waters. Which I have not read except for this one post, but I should; after all we had the same major.
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