'Evelina' was the second novel that I had to read as part of my "Narrative, Fiction and the Novel" at uni and I must say that it made far more of an impression on me than Daniel Defoe's 'Moll Flanders'. At first it intimidated me a little: after all, it's a fairly chunky book that was written in 1778, enough make even the most avid reader dubious. However, it only took a couple of pages before I was enthralled by Evelina and her "entrance into the world".
Evelina tells the story of a girl who, having been brought up in a rural environment by a Reverend, goes to stay in London with friends of the Reverend (and, later, extended family) and thus experiences what life is like for pretty girls of the time. She attends dinner parties, dances and operas aplenty, keeping in touch with the Reverend via letter-writing: the whole novel is an epistolary which means that the whole thing is written as a series of letters.
Although at first Evelina adores this wonderful new life that she has been thrown into, she soon finds out that being a young, inexperienced woman is difficult and that her choices are often not her own. Not only does she get dragged from pillar to post as people she barely knows decide where the best place for her to stay is, but she also becomes the object of a number of male's affections, most of which are undesirable.
Due to her innocent nature, Evelina often mistakenly offends her admirers, causing them to tease and torment her throughout the novel, all of them seeming to think that she is theirs to do whatever they should please with. However, although Evelina may be unaware of the norms of high society in London, she is a clever girl and a very good judge of character and is thus able to recognise the appalling way in which she is being treated.
Writing to the Reverend about how these men disrespect and harass her on an almost-daily basis, we learn that although Evelina is wise beyond her years, due to the social constraints upon her, nobody other than the Reverend knows this as she is forced to remain quiet and well-mannered in public.
I don't want to spoil the plot any further as I know quite a lot of people that are only part-way through the novel so I'll skip the specifics for now and go on to say that Evelina is a fantastic insight, not only into what it is like being a woman in a society where women are almost powerless, but also into the innermost feelings of a girl who is growing up and starting to become her own person.
Perhaps it's because I am only two years older than Evelina is in this story, but I also find it interesting as I can relate to a lot of her experiences: learning what it is like to have romantic feelings for someone but to be completely in the dark about what to do with those feelings, the little things that happen that seem like the end of the world to a teenage mind and the constant feelings of being inferior to the people older than you because although you're not a child any longer, you're not quite an adult yet.
In addition to this, the letters almost feel like diary entries - this enables the reader to establish an intimate relationship with Evelina as she confides in us, which certainly made me feel as if she was more of a "real person" than the protagonists in novels which are written by an omniscient narrator in the third-person.
All in all, Evelina is a story that anybody can read. If you want to take it at face-value and read it for it's romance and all the fancy balls and whatnot then you'll be happy but if you want to delve a little deeper into the messages behind Evelina's experiences then it's also a great novel for discussion.
It isn't a novel that you'd read if you don't really like books at the best of times because, obviously, the language is old-fashioned and at times a little difficult, with some archaic terms rearing their heads from time to time, but if you really do enjoy reading then please don't let this put you off as it really is a great read and definitely worth your time.
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