Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

I am so glad I finished Tom Jones. The novel was Vanity Fair-long. It was basically the story of an illegitimately-born Tom Jones, a chronicle of all the adventures and hardships he encounters before he discovers he is actually the son of a rich man and therefore heir to a considerable fortune. Quite convenient.

Of course, there are romantic elements, but they are surprisingly explicit for 18th-century England. Jones sleeps with three different women, but, tellingly, never the heroine. At least, not until they get married at the end. Though the narrative was still relatively prudish, the soap opera-like plot conventions were different from the other early British literature I've read.

Fielding was a funny guy in his own way. He actually made me laugh out loud a few times. For instance: "At length we are once more come to our hero; and, to say truth, we have been obliged to part with him so long, that, considering the condition in which we left him, I apprehend many of our readers have concluded we intended to abandon him for ever; he being at present in that situation in which prudent people usually desist from inquiring any further after their friends, lest they should be shocked by hearing such friends had hanged themselves." (Book XII, chapter III)

Or this one: "Had we been of the tragic complexion, the reader must now allow we were very nearly arrived at this period, since it would be difficult for the devil, or any of his representatives on earth, to have contrived much greater torments for poor Jones...What then remains to complete the tragedy but a murder or two and a few moral sentences!" (Book XVII, chapter I)

This book, I suppose, fully deserves the category of satire ascribed to it. Still, it was very long. It lagged especially in the middle, though it did pick up in the end. It was altogether all right, but very, very long.