"Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding

Squire Allworthy is surprised when a baby boy appears in his bed. Having made enquiries which point to the mother as one Jenny Jones, a servant girl, the good squire decides to bring Tom up in his own household. Tom grows up, with the Squire's nephew, Blifil, a nasty boy, and falls in love with Sophy, daughter of the neighbouring Squire Western (although Tom, being a young man, has amours with other ladies too). But Sophy is engaged to marry Blifil so that the two neighbouring estates can be joined and Tom is sent away. Sophy, who very much hates the idea of marrying Blifil, runs away to London and Tom, after various adventures, particularly in Upton, follows her. But even in London the course of true love never runs smoothly. Will our tomcat of a hero gain his true love? Will the mystery of his parentage be solved? Will Sophy be forced by her father to marry for money? Will she forgive Tom's infidelities? All this and more will be resolved over the course of eighteen books (800 pages of quite small print in my edition).

It's a classic, rated as number 5 in the Guardian's top 100 novels of all time. Why?

It's quite funny, there was even one moment when I laughed aloud, and Squire Western, obsessed with hunting ("Mr Western grew every day fonder and fonder of Sophia, insomuch that his beloved dogs themselves almost gave place to her in his affections"; 4.13) and with a sometimes variable Zummerzet accent, is a brilliant comic character. But Fielding writes as such length! Each of the eighteen books is introduced by a chapter which comments on what is to come without in any way being part of the plot; these chapters are eminently skippable. And Fielding is so prolix that even when there is action the relentless flow of words was putting me to sleep. The plot itself twists and turns and I sometimes lost track of the characters but at least there is a plot which is more than you can say of Tristram Shandy (although Jones doesn't have that wonderful surreality of Shandy).

It is interesting as a social document. It reinforces the notion that Englsnd was class-ridden with a wastrel aristocracy who either hunted their landed estates or fought duels if they were young men about town; the purpose of the lower classes is to serve them. It mentions "the toasts of the Kit-Cat" club and Hogarth (describing people as being like a certain character) and "Dr. Donne" and Pope and Garrick playing Hamlet and "the famous author of Hurlothrumbo"). It was written only four years after the 1745 Jacobite rebellion in which Bonnie Prince Charlie and his troops invaded England from Scotland, reaching as far south as Derby before turning back, and there are references to this, as when Tom volunteers to join soldiers going to fight the rebels, and when Sophy is mistaken for Bonnie Prince Cahrlie's mistress. Politically, it must have been very daring, since Squire Western is a Jacobite, drinking toasts to "the King over the Water" (7.4) and regularly excoriating Hanoverians.

One of the lovely things about this book is that it explores all the weaknesses of human character in such a tolerant and, indeed, compassionate way. Georgian society may have been class-ridden and hugely sexist, riddled with extremes of poverty and wealth, and plagued by criminality, but (perhaps like today) if a young fellow is good-looking he can charm the pants of others and get away with all sorts of roguishness.

There are lots of great moments but it was hard work.

TV adaptation

I've now watched the 2023 ITV adaptation. Of course there are alterations to the plot. It's a very long novel; how can it be adapted into four hours (minus at least forty minutes for titles and adverts) of television? There are aspects of the novel (for example, the fact that it is set at the time of the Jacobite rising and that the Hanoverians are neither a secure nor a generally popular dynasty) that one couldn't expect modern audiences to understand. 

But more problematically, Tom Jones doesn't accord with modern sensibilities. Although Sophia casts off the subjugation expected of women, nevertheless its toleration of Tom's misdeeds is fundamentally misogynistic. As though to compensate, Sophia was changed from being the daughter of Squire Western to being his grand-daughter, begotten by his son upon a slave woman in their West Indian plantations. I suspect that this was done solely to enable the casting of a person of colour in a high status role but I would have preferred colour-blind casting to avoid an unnecessary change of plot; they didn't actually make any political capital out of the idea that the wealth of the society was based upon the exploitation of black slaves (which wouldn't be the case in the novel since there is no suggestion that either Squire Allworthy or Squire Western make their money from anything other than their farming of their Somerset estates). 

Other aspects if the plot were changed, most importantly the fact that Squire Western's sister didn't die early but survived until the end. This meant that Blifil couldn't be as villainous as he is in the novel and it also begged the question as to why Mrs Blifil didn't intervene when Squire Western exiled Tom. This plot alteration baffled me.

Selected quotes:

• "One of the maxims which the devil, in a late visit upon earth, left to his disciples, is, when once you are got up, to kick the stool from under you. In plain English, when you have made your fortune by the good offices of a friend, you are advised to discard him as soon as you can." (1.13)
• "a news-paper, which consists of just the same number of words, whether there be any news in it or not." (2.1)
• "he looked on a woman as on an animal of domestic use, of somewhat higher consideration than a cat" (2.7)
• "Here [among the servants] are prudes and coquettes. Here are dressing and ogling, falsehood, envy, malice, scandal; in short, everything which is common to the most splendid assembly, or politest circle." (4.7)
• "He was a good-natured worthy man; but chiefly remarkable for his great taciturnity at table, though his mouth was never shut at it. In short, he had one of the best appetites in the world." (4.10)
• "Wisdom ... teaches us to extend a simple maxim universally known and followed even in the lowest life ... And this is, not to buy at too dear a price." (6.3)
• "He then bespattered the youth with abundance of that language which passes between country gentlemen who embrace opposite sides of the question; with frequent applications to him to salute that part which is generally introduced into all controversies that arise among the lower orders of the English gentry at horse-races, cock-matches, and other public places. Allusions to this part are likewise often made for the sake of the jest. And here, I believe, the wit is generally misunderstood. In reality, it lies in desiring another to kiss your a— for having just before threatened to kick his; for I have observed very accurately, that no one ever desires you to kick that which belongs to himself, nor offers to kiss this part in another." (6.9) This was when I laughed aloud. It seems so modern: kiss my arse (or ass as Americans say)!
• "'To be sure,' said the squire, 'I am always in the wrong.' 'Brother,' answered the lady, 'you are not in the wrong, unless when you meddle with matters beyond your knowledge'." (6.14)
• "When the centinel first saw our heroe approach, his hair began gently to lift up his grenadier cap; and in the same instant his knees fell to blows with each other." (7.14)
• "Our modern authors of comedy have fallen almost universally into the error here hinted at; their heroes generally are notorious rogues, and their heroines abandoned jades, during the first four acts; but in the fifth, the former become very worthy gentlemen, and the latter women of virtue and discretion: nor is the writer often so kind as to give himself the least trouble to reconcile or account for this monstrous change and incongruity. There is, indeed, no other reason to be assigned for it, than because the play is drawing to a conclusion" (8.1)
• “First, from two lovely blue eyes, whose bright orbs flashed lightning at their discharge, flew forth two pointed ogles; but, happily for our heroe, hit only a vast piece of beef which he was then conveying into his plate, and harmless spent their force." (9.5) Don't bother making eyes at a man while he's eating.
• "now on some hollow tree the owl, shrill chorister of the night, hoots forth notes which might charm the ears of some modern connoisseurs in music" (10.2)
• "he was one of those compositions which nature makes up in too great a hurry, and forgets to put any brains into their head." (10.6)
• "the slander of a book is, in truth, the slander of the author: for, as no one can call another bastard, without calling the mother a whore, so neither can any one give the names of sad stuff, horrid nonsense, &c., to a book, without calling the author a blockhead; which, though in a moral sense it is a preferable appellation to that of villain, is perhaps rather more injurious to his worldly interest." (11.1)
• "If she be not a woman of very great quality, sell me for a fool; and, I believe, those who buy me will have a bad bargain." (11.2)
• "Jones now declared that they must certainly have lost their way; but this the guide insisted upon was impossible; a word which, in common conversation, is often used to signify not only improbable, but often what is really very likely, and, sometimes, what hath certainly happened; an hyperbolical violence like that which is so frequently offered to the words infinite and eternal; by the former of which it is usual to express a distance of half a yard, and by the latter, a duration of five minutes." (12.11)

May 2023; 798 pages

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God