Tom Jones: “we have […] adhered closely to one of the highest principles of the best cook”

I’ve noted that some bloggers complain about the narrator of Tom Jones—why?—this is one of the great charms of the novel.   

“The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part, and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town. Where, then, lies the difference between the food of the nobleman and the porter, if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf, but in the seasoning, the dressing, the garnishing, and the setting forth? Hence the one provokes and incites the most languid appetite, and the other turns and palls that which is the sharpest and keenest.

In like manner, the excellence of the mental entertainment consists less in the subject than in the author's skill in well dressing it up.” (B.1, ch.1) 

I used to think I disliked the intrusive narrator, until I discovered Thackeray and Fielding (turns out I just didn’t get along with George Eliot). 

“… As this is one of those deep observations which very few readers can be supposed capable of making themselves, I have thought proper to lend them my assistance; but this is a favour rarely to be expected in the course of my work. Indeed, I shall seldom or never so indulge him, unless in such instances as this, where nothing but the inspiration with which we writers are gifted, can possibly enable any one to make the discovery.” (B.1, ch.5) 

Fielding’s authorial persona is a delight—his influence on Thackeray is obvious. 

Tom Jones is divided into 18 books and each book begins with the author talking about his own writing—meta? I’ve come across readers who say that these chapters contribute nothing to the plot and that they are skippable, but they’re a carefully constructed part of the novel—like the essays in War and Peace or Life and Fate—in Joseph Andrews, Henry Fielding has created a warm, witty, large-hearted narrator as an essential part of the novel; in Tom Jones, he goes further, talking about the art of the very book we are reading. 

“… I mean here the inventor of that most exquisite entertainment, called the English Pantomime.

This entertainment consisted of two parts, which the inventor distinguished by the names of the serious and the comic. The serious exhibited a certain number of heathen gods and heroes, who were certainly the worst and dullest company into which an audience was ever introduced; and (which was a secret known to few) were actually intended so to be, in order to contrast the comic part of the entertainment, and to display the tricks of harlequin to the better advantage.” (B.5, ch.1)

I guess the advantage of the novel being such a new thing in the 18th century was that writers could do whatever they wanted (I know, I will read Tristram Shandy). Some features and techniques people commonly associate with postmodernism were there from the very beginning (including Don Quixote). 

“Now, in reality, the world have paid too great a compliment to critics, and have imagined them men of much greater profundity than they really are. From this complacence, the critics have been emboldened to assume a dictatorial power, and have so far succeeded, that they are now become the masters, and have the assurance to give laws to those authors from whose predecessors they originally received them.

[…] Hence arose an obvious, and perhaps an unavoidable error; for these critics being men of shallow capacities, very easily mistook mere form for substance. They acted as a judge would, who should adhere to the lifeless letter of law, and reject the spirit. Little circumstances, which were perhaps accidental in a great author, were by these critics considered to constitute his chief merit, and transmitted as essentials to be observed by all his successors. To these encroachments, time and ignorance, the two great supporters of imposture, gave authority; and thus many rules for good writing have been established, which have not the least foundation in truth or nature; and which commonly serve for no other purpose than to curb and restrain genius, in the same manner as it would have restrained the dancing-master, had the many excellent treatises on that art laid it down as an essential rule that every man must dance in chains.” (ibid.) 

Take that, critics! 

The funny part is that now and then, the narrator pretends not to know everything. 

“Mr Allworthy had been absent a full quarter of a year in London, on some very particular business, though I know not what it was…” (B.1, ch.3) 

Who knows if you don’t, Mr Fielding? 

“… it is with jealousy as with the gout: when such distempers are in the blood, there is never any security against their breaking out; and that often on the slightest occasions, and when least suspected.

Thus it happened to Mrs Partridge, who had submitted four years to her husband's teaching this young woman, and had suffered her often to neglect her work, in order to pursue her learning. For, passing by one day, as the girl was reading, and her master leaning over her, the girl, I know not for what reason, suddenly started up from her chair: and this was the first time that suspicion ever entered into the head of her mistress.” (B.2, ch.3) 

This is even funnier: 

“As he did not, however, outwardly express any such disgust, it would be an ill office in us to pay a visit to the inmost recesses of his mind, as some scandalous people search into the most secret affairs of their friends, and often pry into their closets and cupboards, only to discover their poverty and meanness to the world.” (B.4, ch.3) 

Isn’t that against what novels are about? 

“… As to the name of Jones, [Blifil] thought proper to conceal it, and why he did so must be left to the judgment of the sagacious reader; for we never chuse to assign motives to the actions of men, when there is any possibility of our being mistaken.” (B.5, ch.10)

What would Tolstoy think? (I’m thinking of his criticism of Shakespeare for not only concealing but sometimes also removing characters’ motives). 

Let’s see if next time I find anything interesting to blog about. I’m enjoying Tom Jones, especially the references to Shakespeare and Don Quixote.