Reviews for Capitals of Capital A History of International Financial Centres, 1780-2005

The average rating for Capitals of Capital A History of International Financial Centres, 1780-2005 based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-04-01 00:00:00 Evan Swain Final Update. Spoilers. Well, do you want to know what happens in the end? Lovelace fights a duel with Clarissa’s cousin. And, much to his surprise, he loses. And then dies. His last words are “Happy now??” or something to that effect. His friend Belford gets religion, Anna Howe gets married, and Clarissa’s family, including her shitty uncles, stay miserable until they die. This one will stay with me, but not for the reasons I expected it would. Richardson’s massive novel was intended to be instructional. He wanted to show me (or rather my 18th century counterparts) how to act and be, and although I knew I wouldn’t relate to Clarissa’s exact situation, I did expect the novel to contain a little more ‘news you can use.’ But in addition to the many Questionable Lessons and a few nice observations about humanity in general, here are my main takeaways. I doubt they are what Richardson had in mind. 1.A woman should never leave her house, or even step into the backyard, without cab fare. 2.Always bolt your door at night. Go ahead and prop a chair up against it, too. 3.That person you’re talking to might be an imposter, paid by someone who is trying to rape you. Ask to see ID. 4.When you’re a writer and you also print your own stuff, you’re likely to run a little long. I suppose some of Richardson’s finer points are evergreen. I was frequently called to ponder the question of whether ‘every woman is a rake in her heart.’ (Yes, of course we are, duh.) You could argue that Clarissa’s protestations against revenge killing Lovelace (‘If God will allow him time for repentance, why should you deny it him?’) apply to our modern death penalty debate. Both men and women were pretty equally terrified of marriage in this story, and some of their concerns are still heard today…especially Lovelace’s. [1] But Richardson certainly fails in his attempt to scare me away from vice and lead me towards the example set by virtuous Clarissa. I can admire Clarissa’s fortitude and not much else – and because, despite various critical interpretations of her death as being necessary to subvert the male power structure or whatever, it’s clear Clarissa could have saved her life with a sandwich, even her fortitude lets me down in the end. Richardson was interested in what happens when a paragon of purity and right-thinking, through no fault of her own, is deprived of her ‘virtue.’ If I am interested in that question, (and I’m not sure I am), my interest is in the potential for girl-power plot twists, and not in Richardson's moralizing. I’m also not riveted by whether, after the rape, she’s able to ‘take control of the narrative’ or resist others’ interpretations of her, or whatever else the modern scholars have come up with. Some of these writing-for-tenure ideas are fun, but they cannot provide the heat I’d get from actually caring about the plot. [2] No matter. Richardson’s characters do the heavy lifting that his plot and his sermonizing can’t. They’re so good that they save him from himself. I’ve talked about my love for Anna Howe, but I’m actually quite fond of all of his characters. Even Clarissa’s mean sister. Even Lovelace. Critics have referred to the ‘divided’ nature of Clarissa, in that Richardson is writing in support of a societal power structure, while at the same time he shows us how destructive that framework can be. In other words, women should all behave like Clarissa – but, whoops, look at all the bad stuff that happens to our role model. I would argue that Richardson’s ‘divisions’ go even further than that. The novel’s real characters, the ones who run away with the story, subvert Richardson’s moral pedantry. There’s no better example of this than Lovelace. Despite his bad actions and his refusal to reform, Lovelace won the hearts of so many readers that Richardson had to insert extra material in his third edition to make his villain less sympathetic. The quibbles, the contradictions, the minor debates – in its length and its richness, this novel is like several years-worth of a good television show. There’s plenty to chew on. Personally, I’m interested in the questions it raises about forgiveness. Can we ever repair our mistakes? On earth, if not in heaven? Clarissa makes much of having ample time to repent before she dies, but that ponderous bore never sinned. (I know: I was there the whole time.) The rest of us do sin, though –- including every other character in this novel. It’s been noted that hard-heartedness is the most common –- and commonly lamented –- crime in this book, but when Richardson goes to dole out rewards and punishments, he can be as ‘implacable’ as his worst villain. (That’d be Clarissa’s brother, if you were curious.)[3] Most of his characters receive little grace from each other, and it’s unclear if they’ll get any from God. What does it take to be forgiven? And will I ever forgive Richardson for hooking me with his imaginary friends and then, when he had me in his clutches, boring and nagging me half to death? Maybe I’ll read it one more time and decide. *** [1.] “Such a one as I, Jack, needed only, till now, to shake the stateliest tree, and the mellowed fruit dropped into my mouth.” (That’s right: I’m footnoting this motherfucker.) [2] Although next time I do something like this, I need to just spoil the ending for myself and read the critical stuff alongside the text. Reading it afterwards is like eating a spoonful of salt and pepper after you’ve finished your meal. [3] The major characters tend to escape some of what they have coming for them, but the minor ones all race a reckoning at the end. Here’s what happens to two of the prostitutes who helped Lovelace contain Clarissa. “Sally died of a fever and surfeit got by a debauch; and the other about a month after, by a violent cold, occasioned through carelessness in a salivation.” That sounds bad, right? I don’t know what that means but it sounds...problematic. Update 12/18. 20,000 characters left in this, our new Goodreads home. That ought to be enough, right? This update is gratuitous and I feel bad about it but I’m doing it anyway. (Actually, that describes the entirety of my Clarissa project). Excerpts from Essays I Read Last Night, Annotated, Primarily with Emoticons Richardson’s most ardent and prolific reader, Dorothy Bradshaigh, wrote him letter after letter that described the experience of reading Clarissa in terms of the pain that it inflicted on her. [And here I thought I was original.] Once Lady Bradshaigh and Richardson met and dispelled the mystery of identity, the erotic elements in their correspondence that had seemed to thrive on intrigue found an added home in tokens: Richardson’s volumes and portraits of one another. Once again, Lady Bradshaigh used books as proxy for Richardson in order to tease him…Lady Bradshaigh wrote to Richardson in response to finding an edition of Pamela that Richardson had sent…”Upon opening the box, I felt a strange confused sort of blush…” [This is actually pretty hot, in a lit crit sort of way.] …one of Clarissa’s most notorious readers, the Marquis de Sade, praised “l’immortel Richardson”… [OH MY GOD. Of course he did.] By ruining Clarissa, the Harlowes…also try to dismantle and transmute one symbolic system, based on integrated forms that cannot be negotiated (ornaments), into another symbolic system, based on visible and tangible elements (graphic tokens) that can be exchanged and thus combined into new patterns of significance. [If you can make me understand this I will draw you a picture of Richardson having dinner with the Marquis de Sade and I will drop it in the mail.] All quotes from Clarissa’s Cruelty, by Jayne Elizabeth Lewis, or Lady Bradshaigh Reads and Writes Clarissa: the Marginal Notes in Her First Edition, by Janice Broder.

Review # 2 was written on 2020-06-22 00:00:00 Mikhail Zhilenkov Well, so the chapter is closed on Clarissa. What a long winded novel ! I doubt I will reread this anytime soon. Clarissa was tenacious and had not swayed in her actions and righteous indignation, what an impressive lady! She knew how to be independent and strong willed . In a time where women were told they had to marry and marry for status and money , she chose the path that she wanted . Was it all worth it in the end ? That is the operative question to which everyone’s response differs to some degree.