PulpLit.net

Reflections on Pamela

Awhile ago I mentioned in passing Pamela, a book with which most English majors are intimately familiar. However, most non-English majors can attest to the fact that they?ve never hear of it. And why have they never heard of it? Because no-one reads it unless they?re grinding they?re way through a little something called the canon of English literature.

Courtesy of dictionary.com, we can read that a ?canon? is defined as ?a bunch of really boring stuff which nobody would read unless they were forced to.? And for those of you who can?t get past that last joke because the sentence ends with a preposition, let me just say that 1) nobody but grad students like you give a damn about that anymore, and 2) even Strunk & White say it?s okay.

Continuing: if I have a thesis for this particular blog entry, then it would be that no undergraduates every read this 592 page tome cover to cover. I certainly didn?t. I read the first 100 pages, and maybe the last twenty. And do you want to know why? Because by about page 50 the book became horribly repetitious, unimaginative, unbelievable, and of course, frightfully boring.

There are so many extraordinarily good books out there that I cannot believe I was forced to pretend to read this one. It makes me angry. I could have been discovering Wuthering Heights or Tess of the D?Urbervilles that much earlier, but no, I was spending my time reading Pamela. Don't think it could be that bad? Hey, don' take my word for it; the whole thing is available online. I dare you to read it. If anyone makes it to the end, I?ll post an audio clip of me eating my own hat.

So, what is my point, beyond that Pamela is boring? Just this: there is some complex foul thing at work here.

Professors and Grad students are very learned folks. They have read an awful lot of books, and will tell you that Pamela is interesting on many levels. For instance, it?s one of the first novels, which can be analyzed (why was it successful?). It was a big blockbuster, which says something (what type of person would read it?). Also, it?s an epistolary novel, and there was a very good send up of it called Shamela which will inevitably come up.

So, there is some stuff from which to write a bullshit paper. And by bullshit paper, I think you know what I mean. A paper whose thesis is thin, proves a point that no-one cares about, and which is read with as much zeal by the poor grad student who has to slog through it as the student who was forced to write it. What a painful waste of time.

Professors and grad students do have favorite books that they enjoy reading, which they include in non-survey courses. These books too have enough complexity to write a paper on. But, here?s the thing. Sometimes, I?m sure, it is the more cerebral and erudite things that spark an interest in some particular piece of prose. But sometimes, I am convinced, they just like it.

For instance: I had a young professor who seemed to hate Catholicism. Coincidently, he seemed to like Ben Johnson an awful lot. Now, it doesn?t take a proverbial English major to construct a scenario around this. He seemed to be an avowed atheist, and managed to bring out from every Johnson play an attack on God and Catholicism.

I?m convinced that he didn?t pick Johnson because of his marvelously complex plot constructions. Rather, the young academic felt a kinship, and like the malicious intent of the lesser known Elizabethan playwright, and then managed to construct complex and academic arguments as to why Johnson?s plays have merit.

The point is thought that at least this young Professor enjoyed what he was reading, albeit perhaps not for the reasons that he avowed. I don?t think anyone likes Pamela.