Human nature: Solly McLeod as Tom Jones and Sophie Wilde as Sophia Western in new ITV series. Photo: ITV STUDIOS
Hundreds of pages from Henry Fielding's novel Tom Jones, the hero stops to watch a puppet show. It turns out «very serious and solemn entertainment, without any low wit, humor or jokes», «calculated to improve the morals of young people.» Tom is disappointed: he would rather watch Punch and Judy's mischievous antics.
Whenever there is a debate about art and morality—when critics start urging characters to be consistently good, likeable, or virtuous—Tom Jones pops up to tickle their noses.
Fielding's novel, which will hit the screens in a new the next week's ITV film adaptation is a raucous roar of «Hurrah for Mr. Punch!» It was published in 1749, a glorious moment for fiction, when no one yet understood what a novel was. Nevertheless, Fielding had a clear idea of what she was not: Pamela, Samuel Richardson's popular 1740 sentimental epic on the virtues of chastity.
To write one parody of Pamela for an entire book is an indulgence. To write two — as Fielding did with Shamela and Joseph Andrews — requires a kind of madness. But Fielding was annoyed by Richardson's hypocrisy, and that annoyance fueled his masterpiece.
Art, he wrote, should reflect «human nature» in all its diversity. Referring to the imaginary «critic's little reptile», Fielding cautions him «not to judge a character as bad because he's not exactly good». He slyly suggests that Punch and Judy's mischief is truer to life than any moral fable. In his novel, after the end of the puppet show, the maid is punched by the hostess, who catches her in the act with one of the puppeteers.
Illustration 1817 from Henry Fielding's fourth book, Tom Jones. Photo: Culture Club
The fact that Jones is, as the book's full title suggests, a «foundling» and a bastard already makes him a walking taboo. Fielding shows us crime, violence, infidelity and abandoned babies. This is a novel in which, right outside a church, a topless woman fights a bunch of local gossips, using a skull and a femur from a cemetery as weapons. (This scene is, alas, toned down by ITV.)
But Fielding also shows us forgiveness: people can get into fights, have sex without marriage, lead promiscuous lives, and still be good people. Fielding's beloved wife Charlotte died in 1744, and three years later he caused a local scandal by marrying her maid, which no doubt fueled his personal hatred of hypocrisy and malicious gossip that pervaded the novel.
The qualities that make Tom Jones such a pleasure to read are not easy to transfer to the screen. Coleridge once declared that he had «one of the three most perfect plots ever planned»—a judgment that can easily be made if one is mad on opium. In essence, the plot is a twisty picaresque work. It ties neatly towards the end, but the middle section is ridiculously aimless; Tom and his friend Benjamin Partridge roam the country from inn to inn, presumably on their way to fight in the nascent civil war — this is the time of the Jacobite uprisings — but never really take part in the battles. Many chapters go by before Partridge realizes they are destined to fight on opposite sides.
Today we're looking for subtle characters with nuances, but Fielding is Hogarth's caricatures. Squire Allworthy — based on Fielding's patron — practically wears a halo. He contrasts with the cursing, hunting, shooting, short-tempered but ultimately likable Squire Western, a character who — with great foresight on Fielding's part — was clearly based on Brian Blessed.
As for Tom himself: impulsive, loyal, happily galloping through life, an innocent but appetizing creature — a role that a Labrador Retriever should really play. But the best character in the book—indeed, it is worth reading for—is Fielding himself. It is impossible not to fall in love with his richly ironic, feignedly scolding, «prosaic-comic-epic» voice of the story. Take that great scene where Mrs. Waters tries to seduce Tom at dinner, but he's too busy eating. He calls it a Homeric battle, listing its «weapons»: «Speak, favors! [… How] first, from two beautiful blue eyes, whose bright balls flashed with lightning when they were discharged, two pointed eyes flew out; but, fortunately for our hero, he only hit a huge piece of beef.
It's impossible to catch Fielding's tone. The 1997 BBC version nearly gets it right, portraying John Sessions in a thick wig, wide Somerset accent and triangular hat, like Fielding himself. In the first minute he is almost run over by a carriage, then he is interrupted mid-sentence by the opening credits. Excellent.
“And here, in spite of all the barking critics of the world, I must and will make a digression …” — Fielding declares at some point. The plot, shit. Tom Jones is all digressions — cousin to Tristram Shandy or Byron's Don Juan — and the jokes start before the novel even starts. of the year, in which Partridge interrupts Tom Jones in his protests to Lady Bellaston. Photo: MET/BOT/Alamy Stock Photo
It's a novel in 18 books — they fly by, honestly — each is preceded by a whole chapter of Fielding's own plotless chatter. The first of these explains that a good author, like a good innkeeper, must offer a menu of what will be for dinner.
And so we get an overly detailed page of content, a list of dishes for a feast. summarizing each chapter. These summaries begin helpfully, but almost immediately wind down into the surreal: «Contains little or nothing.» «Contains five pages of paper.» “Indeed, the most terrible chapter; and which few readers should venture into for an evening, especially when alone.”
Richardson couldn't understand why anyone liked it. He called Tom Jones «a fake brat» and considered the novel's success «inexplicable». Certainly his own work—so carefully calculated to improve our morals—will outlive it.
Don't wait for the new adaptation of Pamela. Fielding had the last laugh.
'Tom Jones' airs on ITVX on Thursday, May 4
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