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pussreboots's review against another edition
1.0
Had to read this while at UCLA. HATED every single minute of it. HATED the movie too.
bucket's review against another edition
5.0
Tom Jones is considered Fielding’s masterpiece, and I’m so glad to have finally read it! I’ve been loosely interested in the development of the novel as a literary form for a long time, and Tom Jones in particular sheds a lot of light on Fielding’s experiments and ideas which continue to be reflected in novelistic style even today.
Each of the eighteen ‘books’ that are part of this novel includes a preface, and Fielding most often uses these prefaces to explain his style decisions and what’s important to him in writing what he calls a realistic ‘history.’ These prefaces are sometimes funny, sometimes silly, very often argumentative, and always interesting. Fielding is spot on when he writes:
"In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up."
One style choice Fielding makes is to depict and discuss both ‘high’ and ‘low’ life and characters in the novel. There are scenes among peasants in inns and on the highway, and there are scenes among the gentry in their homes and social gatherings. Fielding contrasts the two sometimes, but more often he sheds light on similarities:
"The great are deceived if they imagine they have appropriated ambition and vanity to themselves. These noble qualities flourish as notably in a country church and churchyard as in the drawing-room or in the closet."
He also pokes fun, at fashionable notions or ideas that are ridiculous to him, as when Mrs. Western, in attempting to convince her niece to marry a man she hates, says:
"I have known many couples, who have entirely disliked each other, lead very comfortable genteel lives. Believe me, child, I know these things better than you. You will allow me, I think, to have seen the world, in which I have not an acquaintance who would not rather be thought to dislike her husband than to like him. The contrary is such out-of-fashion romantic nonsense, that the very imagination of it is shocking."
In my opinion, Fielding’s most important contribution to the development of the novel is his relatively well-rounded characterization. Earlier writing tends to have characters who are either perfectly good or villainously evil. There is no complexity to them and, therefore, no reality. As a reader, I tend to hold excellent characterization as critical to my enjoyment of a novel – it’s well above plot for me, though of course I know that plenty of people feel the opposite. What Fielding chooses to do in his novel is to adhere to reality, to human nature, and only have characters who ring true as people:
"For we do not pretend to introduce any infallible characters into this history, where we hope nothing will be found which hath never yet been seen in human nature."
Overall, considering his attempt is one of the first forays of this kind, I think he is relatively successful, particularly in the main character, Tom Jones, who is virtuous and kind-hearted, but also naïve and impulsive. In Sophia Western, the other principal character, Fielding is less successful. I think this has more to do with his prejudices towards women than anything else. Fielding’s thoughts on women, which I discuss more below, were liberal for his time but are certainly ridiculous now.
Fielding also tackles the issue of plotting in new ways. Earlier writings feature characters having adventures episodically and, for the most part, the ordering of these events doesn’t matter at all, the secondary characters in the scenes are interchangeable and often don’t reappear from one event to the next, and there is no real unity to the story. Here, however, Fielding develops a large cast of secondary characters, most of whom reappear throughout the novel. They know information or take part in scenes that are needed to further the plot. The whole novel is a progression from happiness to tragedy, and then back to happiness, rather than a series of discrete scenes.
While all these things are clear steps forward for the novel as a form, there are still lots of problems. The one that bothers me the most (and that still bugs me in plenty of contemporary novels) is the reliance on miscommunication and far-too-convenient near misses and twists of fate to further the plot and, especially, to tie things back together in the end.
Beyond all this work on the development of the novel, I also enjoyed Fielding’s ongoing commentary on religion and virtue, why they matter, and where they go wrong. For example:
"...both religion and virtue have received more real discredit from hypocrites than the wittiest profligates or infidels could ever cast upon them; nay, further, as these two, in their purity, are rightly called the hands of civil society, and are indeed the greatest of blessings, so when poisoned and corrupted with fraud, pretense, and affection, they have become the worst of civil curses, and have enabled men to perpetrate the most cruel mischiefs to their own species."
Fielding sets up a dichotomy between religion and philosophy, which is physically embodied in two characters (Thwackum and Square) both of whom have their good points but also their faults. Ultimately, Fielding argues that choosing one over the other is problematic. The two together are needed:
"True it is, that philosophy makes us wiser, but Christianity makes us better men. Philosophy elevates and steels the mind, Christianity softens and sweetens it. The former makes us the objects of human admiration, the latter of Divine love. That ensures us a temporal, but this an eternal happiness."
While Fielding has such interesting ideas about virtue and goodness, and their importance in making a person worthy of admiration, he ultimately succumbs to the sense that high birth is just as important, and very much an indicator of whether or not someone is virtuous. This made the ending of the novel a little disappointing, but I can’t fault Fielding too much for being a man of his time.
I find a bit more fault in his ultimate treatment of Sophia, which is based on her being a woman. During the novel there are some interesting ideas about female intelligence. For example, Mrs. Western tells her brother:
"Your bodies, and not your brains, are stronger than ours. Believe me, it is well for you that you are able to beat us; or, such is the superiority of our understanding we should make all of you what the brave, and wise, and witty, and polite are already - our slaves."
Many of the moments where Fielding discusses the differences between women and men are like this. They start out with the then-radical (and maybe still?) idea that women and men might actually be equals and then turn comic and over-the-top, perhaps to smooth over any intense reactions from the reader.
This was tolerable to me, but when the same thing happens to Sophia in the end on a grander scale, I was definitely let down, especially since for a moment I thought maybe that Sophia was going to take a stand for herself. What happens is this (spoiler alert, though I don’t think I can really spoil a novel after 250+ years):
All is cleared up and resolved with Tom Jones birth and character and he is finally a suitable match for Sophia in all ways. Sophia loves him; however, she doesn’t trust him, and rightly so. He’s done several things along the way to destroy her trust and she tells him so. He begs to know how he can make things right and she gives him what to me seemed like a wonderful response. She refuses to marry him right away and asks him to prove to her that he is worthy of her trust. She says:
“Time alone, Mr. Jones, can convince me that you are a true penitent, and have resolved to abandon these vicious courses, which I should detest you for, if I imagined you capable of persevering in them.”
I was cheering inside for this moment of feminine strength and self-determination discovered in a novel written by a man in 1749. But then it is all destroyed when Sophia agrees to marry Tom the next day in deference to her father because she feels, above all, that as a woman and daughter she must be obedient to him.
So, while this left a sour taste in my mouth as I finished, I overall loved the reading experience.
Themes: 1700s, England, comedy, early novels, classic, love, class, gender, communication, virtue, characterization, tightly plotted, adventure
Each of the eighteen ‘books’ that are part of this novel includes a preface, and Fielding most often uses these prefaces to explain his style decisions and what’s important to him in writing what he calls a realistic ‘history.’ These prefaces are sometimes funny, sometimes silly, very often argumentative, and always interesting. Fielding is spot on when he writes:
"In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up."
One style choice Fielding makes is to depict and discuss both ‘high’ and ‘low’ life and characters in the novel. There are scenes among peasants in inns and on the highway, and there are scenes among the gentry in their homes and social gatherings. Fielding contrasts the two sometimes, but more often he sheds light on similarities:
"The great are deceived if they imagine they have appropriated ambition and vanity to themselves. These noble qualities flourish as notably in a country church and churchyard as in the drawing-room or in the closet."
He also pokes fun, at fashionable notions or ideas that are ridiculous to him, as when Mrs. Western, in attempting to convince her niece to marry a man she hates, says:
"I have known many couples, who have entirely disliked each other, lead very comfortable genteel lives. Believe me, child, I know these things better than you. You will allow me, I think, to have seen the world, in which I have not an acquaintance who would not rather be thought to dislike her husband than to like him. The contrary is such out-of-fashion romantic nonsense, that the very imagination of it is shocking."
In my opinion, Fielding’s most important contribution to the development of the novel is his relatively well-rounded characterization. Earlier writing tends to have characters who are either perfectly good or villainously evil. There is no complexity to them and, therefore, no reality. As a reader, I tend to hold excellent characterization as critical to my enjoyment of a novel – it’s well above plot for me, though of course I know that plenty of people feel the opposite. What Fielding chooses to do in his novel is to adhere to reality, to human nature, and only have characters who ring true as people:
"For we do not pretend to introduce any infallible characters into this history, where we hope nothing will be found which hath never yet been seen in human nature."
Overall, considering his attempt is one of the first forays of this kind, I think he is relatively successful, particularly in the main character, Tom Jones, who is virtuous and kind-hearted, but also naïve and impulsive. In Sophia Western, the other principal character, Fielding is less successful. I think this has more to do with his prejudices towards women than anything else. Fielding’s thoughts on women, which I discuss more below, were liberal for his time but are certainly ridiculous now.
Fielding also tackles the issue of plotting in new ways. Earlier writings feature characters having adventures episodically and, for the most part, the ordering of these events doesn’t matter at all, the secondary characters in the scenes are interchangeable and often don’t reappear from one event to the next, and there is no real unity to the story. Here, however, Fielding develops a large cast of secondary characters, most of whom reappear throughout the novel. They know information or take part in scenes that are needed to further the plot. The whole novel is a progression from happiness to tragedy, and then back to happiness, rather than a series of discrete scenes.
While all these things are clear steps forward for the novel as a form, there are still lots of problems. The one that bothers me the most (and that still bugs me in plenty of contemporary novels) is the reliance on miscommunication and far-too-convenient near misses and twists of fate to further the plot and, especially, to tie things back together in the end.
Beyond all this work on the development of the novel, I also enjoyed Fielding’s ongoing commentary on religion and virtue, why they matter, and where they go wrong. For example:
"...both religion and virtue have received more real discredit from hypocrites than the wittiest profligates or infidels could ever cast upon them; nay, further, as these two, in their purity, are rightly called the hands of civil society, and are indeed the greatest of blessings, so when poisoned and corrupted with fraud, pretense, and affection, they have become the worst of civil curses, and have enabled men to perpetrate the most cruel mischiefs to their own species."
Fielding sets up a dichotomy between religion and philosophy, which is physically embodied in two characters (Thwackum and Square) both of whom have their good points but also their faults. Ultimately, Fielding argues that choosing one over the other is problematic. The two together are needed:
"True it is, that philosophy makes us wiser, but Christianity makes us better men. Philosophy elevates and steels the mind, Christianity softens and sweetens it. The former makes us the objects of human admiration, the latter of Divine love. That ensures us a temporal, but this an eternal happiness."
While Fielding has such interesting ideas about virtue and goodness, and their importance in making a person worthy of admiration, he ultimately succumbs to the sense that high birth is just as important, and very much an indicator of whether or not someone is virtuous. This made the ending of the novel a little disappointing, but I can’t fault Fielding too much for being a man of his time.
I find a bit more fault in his ultimate treatment of Sophia, which is based on her being a woman. During the novel there are some interesting ideas about female intelligence. For example, Mrs. Western tells her brother:
"Your bodies, and not your brains, are stronger than ours. Believe me, it is well for you that you are able to beat us; or, such is the superiority of our understanding we should make all of you what the brave, and wise, and witty, and polite are already - our slaves."
Many of the moments where Fielding discusses the differences between women and men are like this. They start out with the then-radical (and maybe still?) idea that women and men might actually be equals and then turn comic and over-the-top, perhaps to smooth over any intense reactions from the reader.
This was tolerable to me, but when the same thing happens to Sophia in the end on a grander scale, I was definitely let down, especially since for a moment I thought maybe that Sophia was going to take a stand for herself. What happens is this (spoiler alert, though I don’t think I can really spoil a novel after 250+ years):
All is cleared up and resolved with Tom Jones birth and character and he is finally a suitable match for Sophia in all ways. Sophia loves him; however, she doesn’t trust him, and rightly so. He’s done several things along the way to destroy her trust and she tells him so. He begs to know how he can make things right and she gives him what to me seemed like a wonderful response. She refuses to marry him right away and asks him to prove to her that he is worthy of her trust. She says:
“Time alone, Mr. Jones, can convince me that you are a true penitent, and have resolved to abandon these vicious courses, which I should detest you for, if I imagined you capable of persevering in them.”
I was cheering inside for this moment of feminine strength and self-determination discovered in a novel written by a man in 1749. But then it is all destroyed when Sophia agrees to marry Tom the next day in deference to her father because she feels, above all, that as a woman and daughter she must be obedient to him.
So, while this left a sour taste in my mouth as I finished, I overall loved the reading experience.
Themes: 1700s, England, comedy, early novels, classic, love, class, gender, communication, virtue, characterization, tightly plotted, adventure
katiburd's review
3.0
Well! I read this beastly thing! It’s huge. It was interesting though!! Read the book and listened to the audiobook! A lifesaver haha! Tom and Sophia are pretty good as far as 18th century literature!
clairen's review
2.0
Se fosse stato lungo la metà sarebbe stato diverrtente da leggere come reperto archeologico della verbosa anzichenò letteratura inglese del Settecento. Così è impossibile, ho saltato di tutto e di più e non ho neanche avuto voglia di leggere per intero il capitolo finale, tanto per capire l'andazzo di questa orribile esperienza.
brucefarrar's review
5.0
Poor Tom, he’s a pleasant tempered and handsome fellow, but he’s just not able to say no, especially not to the young women who fancy him, or to the not so young women who fancy him. This gets him into some terrible scrapes and even disowned and thrown out of his home. Will he be able to reconcile himself to his benefactor, Squire Allworthy, or to Sophia Western, the beautiful girl next door, for whom he would readily drain his veins to preserve one drop of her dear blood? And will he be able to save her from a forced marriage to the deceitful, scheming Master Blifil?
paintedverse's review
5.0
Tom Jones is a kind of story that I pour out my heart to. I haven't read something so agreeable and sweet and pleasing in a very long run. It demands patience, not only because of the number of pages, but also because of the gentleness that Fielding has shown for even in portraying something immodest. I am glad that I didn't leave the journey unexplored. I had an urge to, but I pushed myself a little everyday. It took three months for me to get convinced that I need to read this and another (almost) two months to finish reading it. Ultimately, like all journeys, it ended, and how agreeably has it ended.
Tom Jones is widely acknowledged to be one of the first English novels. The greatest challenge for me was its writing style. Who was I fooling? I should have accepted from the beginning that this is not the conventional writing style. Afterall, it was published long back in 1749. Tom Jones tells the story of a solitary hero, a vagabond, who, though he has Mr Allworthy as his family member, the most agreeable of all fellows, undertakes a journey and carries the social stigma everywhere. Though I felt that he lacks certain 'virtue' for which he is often considered worthy of admiration, but this too, I can let pass. Afterall, who, among us, is entirely faultless?
The narration of this novel can't remain untouched. It is a tangle of many styles. The authorial interventions are many, but it adds on to establishing a firmness in the plot. Like everything that is a part of this novel, the narrator is quite agreeable. With a pleasing disposition, he lets the reader use their imagination while also instigating a few emotions in the journey. While, on the one hand, there are characters who are full of concealment and debauchery, on the other hand, there are characters who can easily be said to be the embodiment of virtue.
I can't stop myself from gushing over the fact that even though I had wanted to leave it in between, I didn't. Damn -- it counts as one of the best decisions of my life.
Tom Jones is widely acknowledged to be one of the first English novels. The greatest challenge for me was its writing style. Who was I fooling? I should have accepted from the beginning that this is not the conventional writing style. Afterall, it was published long back in 1749. Tom Jones tells the story of a solitary hero, a vagabond, who, though he has Mr Allworthy as his family member, the most agreeable of all fellows, undertakes a journey and carries the social stigma everywhere. Though I felt that he lacks certain 'virtue' for which he is often considered worthy of admiration, but this too, I can let pass. Afterall, who, among us, is entirely faultless?
The narration of this novel can't remain untouched. It is a tangle of many styles. The authorial interventions are many, but it adds on to establishing a firmness in the plot. Like everything that is a part of this novel, the narrator is quite agreeable. With a pleasing disposition, he lets the reader use their imagination while also instigating a few emotions in the journey. While, on the one hand, there are characters who are full of concealment and debauchery, on the other hand, there are characters who can easily be said to be the embodiment of virtue.
I can't stop myself from gushing over the fact that even though I had wanted to leave it in between, I didn't. Damn -- it counts as one of the best decisions of my life.
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