Category: Blog Series Page 163 of 232

Allrighty, folks…buckle in. We’ve got to get through 30 pages here to get back on schedule.

We start with Mrs. Fitzpatrick telling Sophia what has her on the road, essentially recapping her entire life from the time she married Mr. Fitzpatrick. It takes three long (by Fielding’s standards) to get through. In short, she was taken in by his (fleeting) charms—a personality that disappeared soon after their wedding, and looks that went the way of all things. He, on the other hand, seemed primarily interested in her “Ready Money” (in the words of one of his impatient creditors). Even as she becomes aware of the latter, he’s able to talk her into returning to Ireland with him and to take up residence in an increasingly gloomy house. From this point, we get a tale of repeated arguments, infidelity (on his part), imprisonment in her quarters, and attempts to force her to sell part of her landholdings.

What a great guy, eh?

They’re interrupted briefly by the landlady with news that the French have arrived to throw in with the rebellion against the Queen. It’s distressing news to Sophia, but she’s so worried about her father’s arrival and what Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s been telling her that her reaction isn’t quite right.

Then Sophia tells her tale—Fielding tells us that he won’t recap what she says, because we’ve already read it. But, there’s a catch:

she made no more mention of Jones, from the Beginning to the End, than if there had been no such Person alive. This I will neither endeavour to account for nor to excuse. Indeed, if this may be called a Kind of Dishonesty, it seems the more inexcusable, from the apparent Openness and explicit Sincerity of the other Lady.—But so it was.

A Gentleman arrives at the Inn and, after a lot of fuss and bother, is revealed to be the gentleman and neighbor of Mrs. Fitzpatrick who helped her escape from her home and get to England. He agrees to help the ladies get to London safely.

I’ve got to say, this was hard to get through. It was exactly the kind of info dump that most authors try to avoid today, and just wasn’t that interesting. I hope, hope, that learning all this pays off eventually and is something more than just Mrs. Fitzpaterick’s backstory just to be told it.

Still, that little nugget about Sophia leaving Tom out of the tale of her last few months is interesting…

Partridge tries to talk Tom in to returning home, rather than getting further inolved with the military. That doesn’t go well at all, and the two start to bicker, when Tom finds the Muff, recognizes it and suddenly can only care aonly about it. He tries to set out to track Sophia down.

And, yeah, Mrs. Fitzpatrick was, after all, probably at the Inn—just not the woman that Tom was found with, and is already on the road. The coach that had likely brought Mrs. Fitzpatrick to the end is described:

The Coach which had brought the young Lady and her Maid, and which, perhaps, the Reader may have hitherto concluded was her own, was, indeed, a returned Coach belonging to Mr King, of Bath, one of the worthiest and honestest Men that ever dealt in Horse-flesh, and whose Coaches we heartily recommend to all our Readers who travel that Road. By which Means they may, perhaps, have the Pleasure of riding in the very Coach, and being driven by the very Coachman, that is recorded in this History.

According the footnotes in my edition, this was an actual business, making this appear to be one of the earliest examples of product placement?

Chapter vi ends with:

Here, Reader, it may be necessary to acquaint thee with some Matters, which, if thou dost know already, thou art wiser than I take thee to be. And this Information thou shalt receive in the next Chapter.

This is one of my all-time favorite chapter endings. I love it when Fielding narrates his narration like this. It’s the simple things in life, right?

The next chapter is such the comedy of errors, mistaken identities, mistaken motives, wild accusations, and general running about that I can’t summarize it well—I’d really have to just reprint the whole chapter. Suffice it to say that Squire Western is a couple of hours behind Sophia, and is still no friend of Tom’s. Oh, and Mrs. Fitzpatrick is the cousin of Sophia.

We then get flashback chapters, detailing how Sophia ran away from her home, and how her father reacted (hint: poorly) upon discovering it—oddly, her aunt defended her actions. Naturally, Fielding uses the chance to indulge his weakness for the young lady,

It is now Time to look after Sophia; whom the Reader, if he lovers half as well as I do, will rejoice to find escaped from the Clutches of her passionate Father, and from those of her dispassionate Lover.

We get a beginning of a Book digression—this one into a harangue against literary critics, who are nothing more than slanderers, attacking an author when they attack a book—

for, as no one can call another Bastard, without calling the Mother a Whore, so neither can any one give the Names of sad Stuff, horrid Nonsense, &c., to a Book, without calling the Author a Blockhead; which, though in a moral Sense it is a preferable Appellation to that of Villain, is perhaps rather more injurious to his worldly Interest.

(as much as I quibble with his argument, I enjoyed it)

Then we resume with Sophia’s journey after her close miss with Tom, she, her maid, and their guide rush toward London, and soon discover they’re being followed (unintentionally). It turns out that they’re being followed by none other than Sophia’s cousin, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. They had been very close not that long ago and decide to travel together. But are both so tired after their last couple of days that they don’t talk much, and resolve to keep their stories until they’ve had a chance to sleep. They get to an inn, and collapse almost immediately, so we’ll get to see them catch up with each other next week.

Some of this was just a bit too busy for my taste. I prefer Fielding a bit more streamlined, but overall, this was eventful, fun and should prove to make life interesting in the chapters to come.