My question is, how is one to encounter an early novel like "Tom Jones"? When Fielding wrote it, there wasn't much in the way of standards for prose fiction of its kind; in fact, one of the fun things about this piece is watching Fielding make up the rules as he goes along. But does this mean that when you're reading "Tom Jones" and you come across an authorial interruption or a scene that doesn't add anything to the plot, or anything else that would be a flaw in a modern piece, you scold Fielding for it? Back then, no one ever said that novels shouldn't include such things - no one had had time to say much about novels in English at all, since people hadn't been writing them for very long. On the other hand, such things do trouble the modern reader, so you have to say something, don't you? All right, then, here's one of the problems with "Tom Jones" - although the narrator keeps referring to it as a "history" and declares repeatedly that he's simply reporting the facts, he makes it plain at the same time that it's a work of fiction. Each "book" starts off with a chapter of introductory philosophy of some type, on subjects like what a critic should say about a book like this and what he should not say, and even the purpose of prefaces like the one you're reading, all of which takes you right out of the story of Tom and his adventures. If a student turned in something like this in a creative writing class, it would come back with red ink all over it. Which only goes to show how ridiculous it is to impose rules on fiction, or on anything creative. They usually work, but they're there to make things readable, not to be obeyed. As it turns out, there are dozens or maybe hundreds of novels published in the last forty years that do exactly what "Tom Jones" does. Critics call this technique "metafiction" and praise it to the skies. The only thing Henry Fielding did wrong, along with some of his contemporaries, was to produce metafiction about two hundred years early. In all fairness, part of the reason "Tom Jones" has survived for this long is that most critics and most readers are not so foolish as to blame the novel for premature metafictionality. On the contrary, as I said, that's part of what makes the book so much fun. It's also a pretty good story even without all the authorial side-comments. The title character first comes on the scene as an illegitimate infant in the bed of a country squire named Allworthy. He grows up into a splendid, though often headstrong and hasty, young man, but a fair number of his neighbors spurn him because of the circumstances of his birth. Various enemies conspire to place him in a bad light with his adoptive father, and although he's head-over-heels in love with his neighbor's daughter Sophie, he must leave his home and seek his destiny in the wide world. Sophie, too, who is head-over-heels in love with young Mr. Jones, also leaves home in haste to avoid a disastrous match that her father insists upon. How many people think Tom and Sophie will meet up on the road? Okay, put your hands down. Now, part of the reason "Tom Jones" remains popular is that the author himself emerges from his fiction as a very likable man, whether he was that likable in real life or not - I don't know, myself. Regardless of Fielding's personal manner, he set up a story in which a group of characters of genuine virtue find themselves in deep and profound conflict with a group of characters who pretend to genuine virtue. Squire Allworthy himself, late in the story, labels these two sorts of character flaws "imprudence" and "villainy", and it's pretty clear which side Fielding supports. And we all like to think of our flaws as being sort of accidental to our basic good nature, like Tom's, so it's nice that our narrator here can see beyond polished surfaces to the genuine virtue or evil underneath. That's especially nice when you see how frequently Tom and his allies run afoul of people who lie, or at any rate distort the truth, to make themselves look good by comparison. Indeed, Tom never gets into trouble except for one of two reasons - either someone reveals something about Tom to someone who shouldn't know it, or someone misrepresents Tom's actions to someone who should know better. At one point, for instance, Squire Allworthy recovers from a serious illness, and Tom is so delighted he gets terrifically drunk and has a big fight with a prudish member of the household, but when this is reported to the squire, said prude only mentions the drunkenness, not the reason. Unlike Tom, who always gives everyone else's sins the benefit of the doubt, this prude always twists everything to his own advantage while maintaining the appearance of sober piety. He's so good at this that for quite a while, everyone thinks he's the hero. Grumble grumble. It's enough to make you keep reading just to see if this jerk gets what's coming to him. In short, as Fielding himself says in a few different places, "Tom Jones" is a far more effective sermon than the author's contemporaries might have heard in a month of Sundays, partly because the narrator sees into the hearts of his characters without regard for the surface, and partly because he preaches to you only in the course of telling a good story. That's a pretty good description of the sort of God we'd all like to believe in, actually. And Fielding isn't God, but it sounds like he learned some good lessons from divine nature. Benshlomo says, Literary games have been around a lot longer than you thought, thank goodness.
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