Shirley Jackson Achieved Something Most Readers Do Not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                               Enough has been said, here and elsewhere, and will continue to be said, about what Shirley Jackson accomplished, through her writing.  But not many know what, as a reader, she accomplished, and I am here to tell you, it is pretty impressive.

                                When those of us who are omnivorous readers gather, the talk can go one of two ways--what one is currently reading, and what one plans to read.  Sometimes these extend to the readings of grandiose works, many save for retirement, like Emil Ludwig's "Life Of Napoleon," the writings of Sir Winston Churchill, "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich," or, in fictive terms, "War And Peace," "Anna Karenina," and "Remembrance Of Things Past"--all volumes.

                                  Typically, I am ahead of the game.  I am on my third reading of "War And Peace," and have read 'Anna' three times, as well as all of Proust's masterwork.  And I feel the better for it.  What I feel I have left to do--but don't know if I will--is tackle James Joyce. Specifically, I want to reread Homer's "The Odyssey," which I have not done since high school, and follow it up with Joyce's masterwork, "Ulysees."  I have resigned myself to never even coming near "Finnegan's Wake;" see, even I can accept things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                   But, when I read, in a NY Times review of Jackson's latest story and essay collection, "Let Me Tell You," that, during the course of her short life, in addition to the vast literary legacy left behind, which is impressive enough, she managed to finish off Samuel Richardson's two masterworks, "Pamela," and "Clarissa," both epistolary novels, I was stopped in my tracks.

                                   Now, I have read "Pamela," but "Clarissa"--oh, my God!--like "Finnegan's Wake," it stares me defiantly in the face, challenging me to take up  the gauntlet, and read it.  I am close, since I read "Pamela," but, while it is more accessible than the Joyce work, do I really want to tackle that, at this stage?  Have I the mental energy for it?  Sometimes I want to go back--to books read many years before, (as I am right now, with "The Executioner's Song" by Norman Mailer, and making fresh discoveries along the way) deriving an emotional comfort from the familiar that made me happy.  I know I SHOULD read "Clarissa," but can I do it?  It is the same lugubrious style used in "Pamela," only it is much longer. I have seen the Penguin edition of "Clarissa" in the stores; it is as heavy and weighty as the paperback "War And Peace" I occasionally carry around.

                                     Reading should be about pleasure, and engulfing oneself into a world that affords one temporary and enjoyable release from that of reality.  I don't know if "Clarissa" can do that at the point I am in life; the boat may have sailed, or it may have not.  Time will tell, in the final analysis.

                                       But I have to hand it to Shirley Jackson.  Even as a reader, she went where so few of us have gone!