The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding: BOOK VIII., i.-iv.

I sat my laptop down after I’d started this post, and Windows decided that when I said I wanted to install updates later, I didn’t mean a half-hour later after I stopped working for a couple of minutes. I lost a couple of paragraphs of this—my reconstruction might be a little rough. We’ll see.

We start Book VIII with the typical digression from the story. This time, we get “A wonderful long Chapter concerning the Marvellous; being much the longest of all our introductory Chapters.” He really believes in truth in advertising, it’s a long chapter. A long discussion about the “marvelous,” or supernatural in fiction. It’s pretty interesting but has as little to do with the novel as any of the other first chapters. I’d love to take the time and work through the allusions and footnotes (added by the editor of my edition), because that’d be a fascinating study.

We return to Tom’s room as he continues to recover—the Landlady shows up and introduces herself to Tom. Thanks to some intelligence from the Lieutenant, she pretends to know Sophia. Which gets Tom to open up to her about his life—she quickly learns that he’s no gentleman at all, but a broke castout. Which pretty much means that she’s done with him. As Fielding notes:

for the lower sort of people are very tenacious of respect; and though they are contented to give this gratis to persons of quality, yet they never confer it on those of their own order without taking care to be well paid for their pains.

(that’s horribly cynical, but…probably holds more than a kernel of truth)

The doctor comes back and argues with Tom about his treatment (getting a little more lampooning). Afterward, he talks to the landlady and discovers that Tom can’t pay him, either. Which (not surprisingly) gets him very angry. He argues with Tom some more and gets shooed off.

Which brings us to the barber—Fielding puts him on the same level as barber from Don Quixote and The Arabian Nights. He’s a jolly sort, given to quoting philosophers. He tells Tom it’s crazy to join the army with head injury he’s sporting. The Table of Contents tells me we’re going to get more of him soon.

Not a lot happens again, but (like last week) it’s all about the way that things are told. It’s fun and I’m looking forward to seeing what the barber’s really about.