Ton Jones one

Having read the fat epistolary novel from the eighteenth century called 'Clarissa' a couple of years ago, and having bought another fat novel called 'Tom Jones' at about the same time, as noticed at reference 1, I have now got around to reading it. Or at least, to starting to read it.

A good reading copy from Everyman's Library, printed and bound in Germany. 835 pages of text plus 35 pages of introductory material. This last being pitched about right for the likes of me. No contents pages - perhaps that was not the custom at the time of writing - but arranged in a large number of short chapters arranged in eighteen books, spread across two volumes, 408 and 427 pages respectively. I assume that it was first published in the same two volumes. So the same sort of length as Clarissa, but in a two decker format, rather than the three decker format which I believe the likes of George Eliot worked to, more than a century later.

The introduction explains that the careers of the present author, Henry Fielding, overlapped with that of Samuel Richardson and the two were great rivals, with Fielding publishing a spoof of the latter's 'Pamela', although it also seems that Fielding built on Richardson more than he perhaps cared to admit in print. Tom Jones came out a year or two after Clarissa and both did very well.

A proper novel rather than an epistolary novel, coming with plenty of explanatory, signposting material from the author in the text. I dare say a good number of what were then topical digressions. A much more obviously self-conscious production altogether than either Clarissa or a novel of today: the first chapter of the last book, for example, is called 'A farewell to the reader'.

By way of example of a short digression, we have some observations on newspapers, which had to fill up the same amount of space irrespective of whether there was any news to put in it or not. With some other authors filling up their novels in much the same way, allocating so many pages to the month, month after month. Fielding promises that he will not do this, that he will only hold forth when there is something to hold forth about. 

I suppose a modern novelist might use this kind of material but would work it into the text, in disguise, as it were. Which can sometimes make a novel a bit heavy going; a trap I thought Aldous Huxley fell into quite often, forgetting whether he was writing a novel or an essay.

My first impression is that this is going to be a more accessible read than Clarissa. Also a lot funnier. But only 40 pages in, so early days!

References

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2021/07/clarissa.html.