Henry Fielding (1707–1754)

Well-bred bastard Tom Jones travels across England, encounters a cross-section of humanity, and sleeps with half the women he meets.

Tom Jones is a great novel. Not for its characters (which are cardboard), not for its plot (which spins with great and soulless efficiency), and not for its themes (which are a grab-bag of universal homilies). Tom Jones is great because it has a great narrator: an omniscient, disembodied voice that boasts and preens, condescends and mocks. No high-falutin show more conceit can appear without the narrator troubling himself to explain things to his groundling readers in single-syllable words. No villain can appear on stage without the narrator taking the opportunity to undiegetically jab his personal enemies. The narrator elides the boring parts and cheerfully notes when he is doing so. The narrator advertises his favorites among the cast and compliments himself on his own cleverness at every plot twist. In short, Tom Jones has the finest narrator I've read since Middlemarch. (Although Middlemarch's narrator likely wins that particular steel-cage match, as Middlemarch used its omniscient narrator to a greater purpose, whereas Tom Jones' highest intention is untrammeled glee.)

Henry Fielding (who should not be confused with the narrating author, as the narrator is too much a self-conscious construction) clearly takes his inspiration from the stage, right down to the Shakespearean mix of aristocratic and groundling humor. In Tom Jones, the Latin epigrams are scattered among scenes of bawdy slapstick. Theatre and actors make repeated appearances in the text, from an evangelical Punch and Judy show to a performance of Hamlet attended by Tom Jones and his superstitious servant. The narrator uses the text as his podium to inveigh against dramatic critics and stupid narrative conventions. In many ways, Tom Jones would seem to be easily adapted to the stage -- all plot points are conveyed through dialogue; characters have no internal existence -- but for one thing: the narrator, who is so tightly (yet invisibly) entwined in everything that happens. Unless he played the Greek chorus? show less

This is a very early novel, published in 1749, and it's telling in several ways this was written when the form was young. There are eccentric spellings, erratic capitalizations, and dialogue isn't set off in the convention we're used to, but has various speakers lumped into one paragraph. There are archaic formulations such as "says he" rather than "he said" and such archaic words as nay, doth, hath, yon, thou, thee, etc. Swear words such as "damn" are presented as "d--n." I felt the various show more parts of the narration--description, dialogue, thoughts, action--are much better balanced in later novels. And the omniscient narrator here, sometimes breaking the fourth wall into first person, is very, very intrusive, with long digressions, some chapter-length, on such subjects as the novel's form or the nature of love. Some parts to my tastes were far too preachy, but having just read Robinson Crusoe before this, that religiosity is just another feature of the era. This did make for rather tedious going at times, especially before I got acclimated to the style, but for the most part the plot and comic aspects kept me chugging along.

It helps that Tom himself is much more likable than I expected from what I had heard of the novel--or even the description on the back of the book. I'd heard this was a picaresque tale with a hero that could be called a rake. But although he's no monk, I wouldn't describe Tom that way. He's neither rapist nor callous seducer. In fact, he's usually the seduced rather than the seducer. And he is young, after all; no older than twenty-one at the end of the novel. He says of himself:

Nor do I pretend to the Gift of Chastity... I have been guilty with Women, I own it; but I am not conscious that I have ever injured any--Nor would I, to procure Pleasure to myself, be knowingly the Cause of Misery to any human Being.

When Tom seemingly gets Molly Seagrim pregnant, he's quite willing to stand by her and marry her, even though she's poor. He'd been raised as a gentleman, and even though being base-born and not the heir means he can't look to marry the lady-of-the-manor next door, he could have done materially better than that. It's not until he finds out she's being unfaithful that he breaks things off with her. He shows himself generous and compassionate throughout. Tom's greatest fault indeed seems a naivete that allows others to take advantage of him.

I felt more mixed about the female characters and especially Tom's love Sophia Western. She's a bit too blushing and apt to swoon--on the other hand, she doesn't let herself be rolled over but takes action to change her fate. It's obvious Fielding does have respect for women and although like the men, they might be fools, often his female characters are more intelligent and better educated than their male counterparts. Note the maid Jenny Jones, who is more learned than the schoolmaster who taught her. To be honest, it's the secondary comic characters that have the most vividness like the Sancho Panza like Mr Partridge or the affected Aunt Western and uncouth Squire Western.

This was a surprisingly enjoyable novel on the whole, even if I wasn't as enchanted by it as I was by its comic descendents by Austen and Thackeray. I immediately felt the kinship to books such as Sense and Sensibility and Vanity Fair in the sparkling wit, the ironic tone, and wickedly sharp satire, even if Fielding is more genial than Thackeray, and more bawdy than Austen. show less

The foundling Tom Jones exists in-between the worlds of privilege and poverty. Raised by a wealthy benefactor to become better than his bastard origins and yet not quite a gentleman, Tom’s inherent good nature and natural exuberance are overrun by his lack of seasoned judgement and his fortune of good looks: a fortune that attracts all the positives and negatives that a financial fortune attracts. After more obstacles and misunderstandings than could be thought possible to cram into one show more book, the summary is All’s Well That Ends Well.

Prepare for thy moral instruction! Better than I had feared — other than two or three speed-reading chapters where I lost stamina, this was actually a very enjoyable read. Definitely a book one has to be in the mood for: not reading for plot / novelty but rather an old-fashioned diversion. Once the style and language of the book are embraced, the reader can enjoy getting to know the narrator, leaving the characters to simply exist for the purpose of storytelling. Plenty of convenient props and devices, deus ex machina, two-dimensional characters and the like, but no more than in a staggering array of contemporary fiction.

Although referencing the events of the day (Jacobite Rebellion, Bonnie Prince Charlie), satire and humour are more prevalent. Early on, the narrator pokes fun at himself and his contemporary authors:

“As this is one of those deep observations which very few readers can be supposed capable of making themselves, I have thought proper to lend them my assistance . . . where nothing but the inspiration with which we writers are gifted can possibly enable any one to make the discovery.”

The book’s true appeal is in communicating with an interesting author, via his narrator, living amid the turmoil of the 1750’s in England; the narrator will be remembered with fondness long after the characters have faded. It may be both worrisome and comforting to see that human nature has not changed at all in the past almost 300 years since publication. Fielding’s observations and philosophies mostly continue to ring true. The book serves as a synopsis, tribute, and revenge for the various people that affected Fielding, from his beloved wife (he based the heroine on her) to those he raged against for hypocrisy.

Book XVIII, the last section of this work, addresses the reader:

“And now, my friend, I take this opportunity (as I shall have no other) of heartily wishing thee well. If I have been an entertaining companion to thee, I promise thee it is what I have desired. If in anything I have offended, it was really without any intention. Some things, perhaps, here said, may have hit thee or thy friends; but I do most solemnly declare they were not pointed at thee or them. . . No man detests and despises scurrility more than myself . . . I have had some of the abusive writings of those very men fathered upon me, who, in other of their works, have abused me themselves with the utmost virulence.
All these works, however, I am well convinced, will be dead long before this page shall offer itself to thy perusal; for however short the period may be of my own performances, they will most probably outlive their own infirm author, and the weakly productions of his abusive contemporaries.”

Fielding died at the age of 47, just four years after publication. show less

Poor Tom: an innocent abroad, surrounded by a world of hypocrisy but for his benevolent adoptive father and the perfect Sophia. Even they can be turned on him by circumstantial evidence, and soon he is logging miles on the highway of despair. There are adventures along the way as he remains ever ready to help a stranger out, and sometimes he even meets with kindness, but how will Tom ever be welcomed back home or win Sophia's hand?

The initial reception of this novel was a bit shaky, as its show more publication was blamed for subsequent earthquakes in London. Its risqué and earthy content was considered scandalous, and the famed contemporary critic Samuel Johnson had nothing but contempt for it. Hundreds of years later it's considered a classic with bawdy bits to rival Chaucer's Miller Tale: fart jokes, adulterous liaisons, pratfall fisticuffs - and Fielding's narrative voice is present throughout to leap in with playful commentary. There's some foreshadowing of what would be tackled more seriously in other works like Richardson's "Clarissa", and more fun than Makepeace could conjure up in "Vanity Fair".

It bears credentials as one of the earliest English novels, maybe even the first modern novel as we understand them today. Fielding was openly feeling his way through the process of establishing a model for this medium, even recording some of his thoughts during those narrative asides. He was also just plain having fun. For thematic elements there's the exposé of hypocrisy at all levels of society, but for me it was earthquake-inducing scenes like Molly's wielding of the thigh bone as the muse sings that really made the reading worthwhile. show less