It's most unusual! (Tom Jones - Henry Fielding)

Member Name: moronboy

Product:	Tom Jones - Henry Fielding
Date:	15/08/00 (126 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Damn good read!

Disadvantages: You need a bit of patience

A big, rollicking slapped-thigh of a book, Henry Fielding's 'Tom Jones' is a masterpiece, achingly funny, slyly satirical, and boiling over with enthusiasm for sex, fun and life itself. Despite famous film and TV adaptations, it lives on the written page, delivered with verve and style.

It's one of the first novels, and it's a whopper, told in Henry Fielding's orotund, fulsome style with endless diversions, comic digressions and mock-epic intentions. Young Tom, a none-too-bright and slightly randy but fundamentally decent young chap adopted by a good family but uncertain about his true identity. Tom romps around the nation getting into a good number of scrapes (and beds) before finally winning the heart of his true love Sophia and settling down.

The conclusion is inevitable, and Fielding is guilty of going on and on some times, but like the pub owner laying out his feast in the opening metaphor, he has a succession of tasty delights on offer.

Summary: