Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

One of the smartest moves I've made this year was to sync up my reading of history with my reading of fiction.  I'm reading more fiction than ever, and now that fiction is mostly set in the same time period as the history I'm reading on a parallel track.  Right now both are fixed squarely on the mid-19th century.

Even better, I'm listening to an audio course on English fiction, entitled The English Novel by Professor Timothy Spurgin of Lawrence University, to provide additional context and help me select much of the fiction that I read.

The most recent example is Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, and wow, did I really enjoy this book!  Although written almost a century before Dickens, the book must have influenced that beloved, favorite author of mine.  The setting, the characters, the style, the wit, virtually everything reminded me of Dickens.  Even the names of characters are descriptive in true Dickensian style, from the always virtuous Mr. Allworthy, to the cynical Mr. Thwackum.

In Spurgin's discussion of the book he spends a great deal of time contrasting Tom Jones with Pamela, which were written about a decade apart (1740 for Pamela, 1750 for Jones).  Fielding and Richardson were in fact huge rivals and quite on the record about their dislike for one another.

Although both deal centrally with class divisions, hierarchy, and the difficulty (or impossibility) of ascendancy, as does much English literature of the period, they approach these issues from different perspectives.

In Pamela, Richardson takes the point of view that, although difficulties abound, one can rise through the hierarchy by the constant striving for virtue.  The full title of that book, after all, is Pamela, Or Virtue Rewarded.  Pamela's supreme virtue elevated her from lady's maid to mistress of the estate.

In Fielding's masterpiece, which itself is fully titled The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling, centers around the question of whether or not Jones comes from the gentry or not.  He acts like a gentleman, he dresses the part, and in fact most people upon first impression believe him to be a gentleman.  But because he was abandoned in his infancy as a foundling with unknown lineage, no one really knows if he deserves the title or not.  Where does he fall in the strata of society?  This is the central issue of the book.

Near the very end of the story we learn that Jones is in fact a gentleman, immediately changing his trajectory for life.  The stars instantly align, all loose ends are tied off, and no doors remain closed for Jones.  Even the love of his life, Miss Sophia Western, and her crazy father relieve themselves of any objection to Tom Jones.  Sophia and Tom wed within days.

And of course this is the ending everyone wants.  But for this modern reader it's a little disappointing how quickly Jones' newly confirmed lineage changes everything.  British society in the 18th century was highly stratified, and Jones' confirmation as a gentleman means a completely different life for him.

Fielding writes from the perspective that one can't change classes through any effort of our own, in direct opposition to Richardson's point of view as expressed in Pamela.

One aspect of Fielding's Jones that I did like, however, was his imperfection.  Tom Jones is virtuous in every sense of the word about 95% of the time.  Everyone across all strata of society loves Tom Jones.  But the other 5% of the time he shows great lack of judgement.  He's a great lover of women, and doesn't waste an opportunity to romance them on occasion even while he risks life and limb in pursuit of his beloved Sophia.

No one is perfect, not even the gentleman of Tom Jones.  That gave him real humanity.  Heroes are typically portrayed as boundless beyond measure.  Fielding created a wonderful character in Tom Jones, and one of my favorite reads of the year in this lovable novel.