Roderick Random (1748)

The Adventures of Roderick Random is a picaresque and partly autobiographical novel depicting a young man's quest for rank and fortune. Roderick's father, the son of a Scottish laird, falls in love with and marries a woman well below his social standing. Roderick himself is the issue of this marriage. His grandfather denounces the marriage and disinherits his son. Shortly after Roderick's birth, his mother perishes. Roderick's father, driven by almost mad by grief, abandons Roderick to the presumed mercies of his grandfather and leaves the country, never to be heard from again. The grandfather wants nothing to do with Roderick and pawns him off on a boarding school.

Reaching early manhood, Roderick finds himself educated as a gentleman but without funds or family. His only true friends are his maternal uncle, Tom Bowling, a naval officer, and Hugh Strap, a former schoolmate and apprentice barber who is Roderick's devoted servant and companion (the model of Sancho Panza is obvious here). Roderick's ambitions are, at first, limited and realistic. He becomes an apprentice to an apothecary and is well on his way to establishing himself in the medical profession. A romantic scandal involving the apothecary's daughter ensues, however, and Roderick is once again afoot and without prospects. His next ambition is to follow his uncle into a naval career as a ship's surgeon, but he is thwarted by the military bureaucracy where such appointments are to be had only by means of influence and bribery. Ironically, when his fortunes are almost at their lowest, he is then press-ganged into service as a common seaman.

Roderick's naval career, based on Smollett's own experiences, is probably the highlight of the novel, as it depicts something of the harsh life aboard a British man-of-war during the early 18th century. Roderick's service is principally in the West Indies where the Royal Navy is conducting operations against the Spanish and French. Tropical diseases and incompetence leadership combine to wreak a fearful toll of death among the common sailors. This is, however, only the beginning of Roderick's peregrinations, which will eventually include a stint in the French army and a voyage aboard a slaver carrying a human cargo from Africa to South America.

The novel satirizes the social structures of the time. Titled nobility are invariably figures of ridicule. The government, military and church are riddled with greed and corruption. Few characters at any level are what they seem, as everyone is putting on the pretense wealth and gentility in order to impress or defraud everyone else.

Roderick himself frustrates the reader's attempts at sympathy. He is touchy, hot-tempered and violent. His attempts to earn his living by honest work are short-lived. Finding himself the dupe and victim of every swindler and false friend he comes across, Roderick becomes dishonest himself. Despising others for their pretense of gentility, he becomes a pretender in turn, his defense being that he is trying to restore the position that was his right by birth. He jokes about leaving a serving girl pregnant, then goes off to court rich (or seemingly rich) women for their dowries. His redemption, if we will grant it, comes only with his love for the beautiful and pure Narcissa.

The appeal of The Adventures of Roderick Random as a novel comes indirectly from its portrait of English society and naval life rather than from the unlikely life story of its protagonist. Some of the better chapters are lengthy digressions into the lives of secondary characters, including a prostitute and an aspiring playwright. Overall, the novel is a picture of a world ruled by greed and pretense where honestly and hard work count for little, but a random stroke of good luck may reward the deserving. ( )

"Smollett’s real masterpieces are Roderick Random and Peregrine Pickle, which are frankly pornographic in a harmless way and which contain some of the best passages of sheer farce in the English language…He accepts as a law of nature the viciousness, the nepotism and the disorder of eighteenth century society, and therein lies his charm. Many of his best passages would be ruined by any intrusion of the moral sense…. Smollett, in spite of his fairly enlightened views, takes patronage, official jobbery and general corruption for granted…”

George Orwell, “Tobias Smollett, Scotland’s Best Novelist”, Tribune 22-Sep-1944 in Collected Essays and Journalism: 1944-1945 ( )

As I've worked on the Libraries of Early America (and the Legacy Libraries in general), a few works of literature tend to appear again and again: Don Quixote, Shakespeare, Homer, Milton, &c.). One of these is Tobias Smollett's first novel, The Adventures of Roderick Random (first published in 1748; I read the 2008 Oxford World's Classics edition). I thought this summer would offer a good chance to dig into this picaresque tale and see if I found it as interesting and/or entertaining as previous generations of readers.

Published when its author was just 27 years old, and drawing inspiration at least partly from Don Quixote and Gil Blas (as well as on Smollett's own youthful experiences to a degree), this is the engaging and often hilarious story of a young man's roller-coaster ride through childhood and adolescence. Cast out by his father's family and forced to make his own way in the world, the narrator sets off from his native Scotland to try his luck in London. But no sooner does Roderick (or Rory, as he is affectionately known by some) catch a break or find a job he likes than the fates intervene and toss him to the bottom of the heap again (in all sorts of comical ways).

Assisted by his erstwhile and ever-trusting friend Strap, and his worthy uncle Tom Bowling, Random tries his best to make his way in the world, but it's a rare ten-page stretch in which his fortunes are not entirely reversed, usually but not always as a result of Random's own ingenuousness and trusting nature. His adventures take him halfway around the world, as a surgeon's assistant abroad the British fleet against Cartagena in 1741, and again abroad a slave ship bound for Jamaica. From the back alleys of London to the salons of Paris and Bath, Random sees it all as he tries to get ahead (and, for once, actually manage to stay there).

Smollett's incisive wit comes through not only in the telling and amusing names he assigns to his bit players, but also in the satirical treatment of British society, of which few elements escape his pen: among the areas most thoroughly treated are naval customs and culture, political knavery and preferment, and the linkages of monetary worth with marriage potential.

Well worth a read if you've not had the chance, and I'd advise taking your time with it; it'll bear a good close read, and you'll find more reasons to chuckle that way.

http://philobiblos.blogspot.com/2010/08/book-review-adventures-of-roderick.html ( )

Roderick Random (1748), Smollett's first novel, is full of the dazzling vitality characteristics of all his work, as well as of his own life. Roderick is the boisterous and unprincipled hero who answers life's many misfortunes with a sledgehammer. Left penniless, he leaves his native Scotland for London and on the way meets Strap, and old schoolfellow. Together they undergo many adventures at the hands of scoundrels and rogues. Roderick qualifies as a surgeon's mate and is pressed as a common soldier on bord the man-of-war Thunder. In a tale of romance as well as adventure, Roderick also finds time to fall in love... Smollett drew on his own experiences as a surgeon's mate in the navy for the memorable scenes on board ship, and the novel combines documentary realism with great humour and panache.

Sailing boats reminds me - I have just read Smollett's Roderick Random which, as you probably know, is our chief literary document for the life of the navy in the 18th century. It is there that Captain Whiffle orders the officer out of the cabin because he cannot stand the stink of him. His picture as a whole is much what I expected - infernal. The resigned but bottomless contempt of all ranks for their senior officers, the certainty that everything is being mismanaged, and that the staff are fools and cowards is especially interesting: I suppose it is the normal state in all armies and navies. The book as a whole belongs to a type whose disappearance I do not much regret: the autobiographical novel in the form of memories of one who relates his misfortunes (for he is very unfortunate): that is, a string of frauds, oppressions and accidents piled on the hero in such a way as to give him the opportunity of fluctuating rapidly through all social strata, now 'a fine gentleman', now in a sponging house, pressed, imprisoned, etc. At one time he becomes a foot soldier in a French regiment. It is all very lively and will hold your attention wherever you open it: but the author's determination to ring the changes and show every side of the life of his times, by making it certain that whatever the hero is doing at the moment, some accident will completely reverse the position in the next ten pages, prevents the development of any continuous interest. Like Tom Jones, it uses the device of a story in a story and Roderick is constantly meeting people who at once tell him their story. (You will remember one instance of this in Tom Jones.) This, together with the rambling episodes, recalls the structure (tho' not of course the atmosphere) of the Faerie Queene. In fact in reading this, Tom Jones, and Evelina (which I have also read recently for the first time) I was struck by the real identity of method between the medieval romance and the early novel, and also by the wonderful reform that Scott and Jane Austen effected in reaching the modern complex but unified plot.
- from a 9 July 1927 letter to his brother, in The collected letters of C.S. Lewis, volume I ( )