Bad uses of good books

Moll Flanders begins with a stern injunction to the reader: What you're about to read is sensational, Defoe says, but don't let that distract from the morals! The work is "chiefly recommended to those who know how to read it, and how to make the good uses of it which the story all along recommends to them." And in what remains of the preface, the author pedantically sketches the lessons learned by our brave heroine--the just desserts of lewd living and the rewards of repentance and virtue.

The moral logic is impeccable:

Throughout the infinite variety of this book this fundamental is most strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it but is first or last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a virtuous just thing but it carries its praise along with it. (p. 11)

And yet, it is when Moll is at her most unrepentant, and the narrative at its most scandalous, that I find it all most compelling. Perhaps I am not the right reader for this book.