Tom Jones

1749, 1993 Wordsworth Classics edition
Henry Fielding
The History of Tom Jones: A Foundling
Original price not shown, bought used for 50 cents
Starting to get a bit ratty
B+

My last paperback copy of Tom Jones, from around 1965, fell apart from too many rereadings.   As with Don Quixote, I like going on a journey with these characters.  Fielding gives an even broader world than Cervantes did-- with scoundrels and heroes and folks in between, with lawyers, doctors, parsons, innkeepers, the idle rich and their servants, and so on.  Also, Fielding offers us town vs. country.  All the while, Fielding comments on, well, everything, from ethics to boxing.  Some things are wonderfully timeless, like the remark about people who name-drop books they haven't read.  And some things are rooted in that world of 1740s England.

Why isn't this an A-, or higher?  Well, I don't like either squire.  Western is a crude brute and Allworthy is a sanctimonious bore.  Fielding seems to think they're both lovable.  Also, the view of marriage and relationships is often bleaker than a rollicking comedy should have.  I never know whether to take the novel as a Hogarth comic strip or as a drawn-out soap opera.  (Everyone has a back story!)  I don't love this book, but I'm very fond of it and will probably continue to read it every couple years.