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

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

Books as old as Tom Jones require the right frame of mind to both read and appreciate. You must remind yourself that 18th century authors shamelessly interrupted their story to sermonize, padded their novels with scenes of supposed comic hilarity and monotonous monologue which serve no purpose except to extend a novel's length, and over relied on coincidence to keep a plot together.

Having complained in this way, I confess that despite these drawbacks I enjoyed Fielding's ribald story of a show more bastard child in 18th century England in love with a beautiful girl above his station in life. When I remembered that authors of the times were free–perhaps even expected–to intrude upon the narrative, I found this book laugh out loud funny. Fielding repeatedly delivers a comic punch at end of an innocuous sentence: "Allworthy then departed, and left Blifil in a situation to be envied only by a man who is just going to be hanged."

Tom Jones might be pitched as Jane Austen meets Laurence Sterne. Over the course of eight hundred pages, Fielding turns an unbelievable series of coincidences (which he attributes to Fortune and which I will not spoil by divulging) into an entertaining commentary on the hypocrisy of English nobility and the enrichment which honesty and integrity bestow upon those who practice both. Tom's pursuit of love is repeatedly thwarted by self-inflicted wounds and the well-intentioned bumbling of his traveling companion, whose inability to keep matters private probably gave Murphy inspiration for his famous Law.

Fielding's humor is subtle; he begins each of the eighteen books which comprise Tom Jones with a direct address to the reader on topics seemingly unrelated to the plot and passes himself off as a historian rather than novelist. The ironic undercurrent of these intrusions builds slowly; at the end of the novel their cumulative effect satisfyingly mutes Fielding's 18th century moralizing.

Tom Jones demands patience and perseverance but is ultimately a highly rewarding read. show less