The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding (Book Review)

The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
by Henry Fielding
Published by Penguin Classics, 2005
Print Price: $12

As the title states, Tom Jones was abandoned by his mother at birth. Fortunately for him, a certain wealthy landowner named Mr. Allworthy, decides to raise the boy and adopt him as his own. You might ask why Allworthy would do this? All the local people think it's because Tom is his illegitimate child. That's not true. You see, all of Allworthy's children died and his wife is deceased as well. I think he was just lonely and Tom took the place of his own children. Besides all that, Allworthy is just a good man.

If you are a reader of 18th and 19th century European novels you already know that authors from those time periods took a lot of time to set up the plot and characters. Tom Jones, the main character in this book, doesn't even really come onto the stage until the first one hundred pages have gone by! You might even think of the first hundred pages as a prologue.

The meat of the story begins when Tom becomes a young adult and falls in love with Sophia Western, the young daughter of another wealthy landowner. Tom, even though he has been raised by Allworthy, legally has no claim to inheriting his wealth. That will fall to  Allworthy's nephew, Mr. Blifil (yes, I LOVE these Dickensian names!). Sophia's dad forbids Tom from wooing Sophia, and on top of that, Blifil begins to lust for her and wants to doublecross Tom! Let the novela begin!

This novel clocks in around 875 pages and is the size of a small bible. But the great thing about it is that I never got bored. I never thought about putting it down. This book is a MASTERPIECE. What made it so great was the author's purpose. Henry Fielding set out to approach fiction as history and did not shy away from chronicling humanity at its lowest and highest. I think there was some Roman or Greek writer that said "Nothing human is alien to me." Tom Jones is a great example of that maxim put into action.

As you can tell from the cover of this book, there is a lot of sex. Subjects that a more prudish writer like Dickens or Eliot had to leave out of their novels. Tom is a good looking guy. He is also brave, friendly, and kind. So of course he is very attractive to the ladies, young and old. Tom never has sex with anyone by taking advantage of a woman in a compromising situation, or of a lower social strata. Women WANT to have sex with him. And being a red blooded male, he's more than happy to oblige, which gets him into a lot of trouble.

Fielding reminds me a LOT of Shakespeare. Not only in his drama setups but in his mastery of comedy. There is a LOT of humor in this book. Along with the funny bits, there is also seriousness. Fielding shows us as we are and as seen through this book, humans haven't changed a lot since 1749. Tom has his flaws. He does stupid stuff. Just like we all do. In some of his asides, Fielding even comments that some critics will give him hell because his hero isn't perfect, or that he might portray situations that the elites might look down their nose at.

I loved all the women in this book. They were strong. They took action. Some were good. Some were bad. They refused to be ruled by males. They were sexual beings. They had their own goals, their own minds. That's not always true for novels written so long ago. This also reminded me a lot of Shakespeare's giving equal billing to the ladies and gents. Sophia was probably my fave character. She loved Tom but never let him forget that she was really in charge.

What was the most surprising thing about this novel?  Yes, it's a road trip journey. It's a comedy. It's a quest. But at the bottom of it all, it was essentially a love story. Tom's good natured horndogeddness vs. Sophia's faithful strength. Tom's problem was his "wantoness, wildness, and want of caution". To me, the whole book was a portrait of what men and women are really like. Not that I'm saying men just want sex and women want stability. I'm saying the actions that happened in Tom Jones were how people really act: lustful, loving, hateful, sad, happy, vengeful, loyal, humorous, angry, grateful,  and every other emotion under the sun.

This was one of the best books I have ever read. And I've read quite a few.

My Grade: A+