Category: General Fiction/Literature Page 15 of 49

Wow. This section came within in seconds of being really dark. Sure, there have been serious moments in this novel, but…wow. I honestly had a hard time believing I was reading what the text was saying. This just didn’t seem like that kind of book. As Fielding says,

this being the most tragical matter in our whole history

But first, we’ll backtrack a bit (this whole section is a flashback that contains a flashback to get us up to the point we were at last week (or close to it, anyway).

You might recall that Lady Bellaston had this plan to help Lord Fellmar see how hung up Sophie was on Tom. It was this stupid plan where at a dinner party someone talked about witnessing a duel that resulted in the death of someone:

“A young fellow we none of us know; a Somersetshire lad just came to town, one Jones his name is; a near relation of one Mr Allworthy, of whom your lordship I believe hath heard. I saw the lad lie dead in a coffee-house.—Upon my soul, he is one of the finest corpses I ever saw in my life!”

Not at all shockingly, Sophia is distraught. And it’s not helped much when later Belaston tells her it was a prank.

Seriously? What kind of monster does that? Just wait a minute…

Fellmar sops by the next day to see Sophia, who doesn’t want to see him. He clearly has a thing for her, and she is not interested. She calls him an “odious lord” and doesn’t want anyone to admit him to her presence.

So, Bellaston comes up with a new plan—Fellmar rapes her, then she has no choice but to marry him. She’ll eventually come around and love him, but the important thing is that they’ll be married. Fellmar, to his credit, resists the notion on moral grounds. But Bellaston convinces him it’s the right thing (eventually) to do.

So, Bellaston clears out everyone from hearing range, and Fellmar corners Sophia as she reads. He pours his heart out to her, she rejects him. He’s deaf to that and more aggressively pours his heart out, she rejects him a bit more forcefully. And just as things start to get very dark Sophia is rescued.

By her drunk and enraged father, who we haven’t seen in a bit. He thinks he’s stumbled into a very different situation. He blows off Fellmar as he tries to ask for Sophia’s hand, Squire Western doesn’t want anything to do with the nobility, he wants an “honest country gentleman.” There’s a bit of a row, Western fires Mrs. Honour (so she can’t help Sophia escape again), and then Weston, the parson, and Sophia leave.

We get a chapter explaining how Western found Sophia (short version: Fitzgerald wrote a letter to his sister), but that’s pretty much where we leave things. Sophia’s on her way to get married to Blifil and Honour’s on her way to tell Tom what’s going on.

Bellaston’s gone from a semi-ridiculous plot device to a real monster. We’re done (I hope) with the Fellmar stuff and we’ve got to be headed toward the Endgame re: Blifil. The pace is picking up and I expect things are going to stay interesting from here on out.

Tom brings Nightingale’s uncle back to the Millers, and everything goes wonderfully. The uncle (remember, he’s under the impression that the wedding already happened) is very supportive, absolutely making up for his father’s clear antagonism. Nancy is overjoyed, Nightingale is happy, Mrs. Miller pulls Tom into another room to lavish gratitude and praise on him–she’s sussed out that he’s the one who got the uncle on board. Everything is going so well that the reader knows another shoe is going to drop.

And it does–Nightingale is so drunk he confesses everything to his uncle. And that support vanishes in the light of reality. Oh? You’re not married? Excellent, there’s time to prevent the mistake. He agrees with his nephew to not change the way he treats Nancy if Nightingale will go home with him to continue their argument. When they get back to the party, the women can tell something’s different, even if the two are on their best behavior. Tom can tell, too–and he correctly guesses what’s going on, and plans on fixing things.

But–of course there’s a but–you don’t get a novel this long if every plan doesn’t “gang aft agley,” right? While Tom is deciding how he’s going to proceed,

the maid of the house informed him that a gentlewoman desired to speak with him.——He went immediately out, and, taking the candle from the maid, ushered his visitant upstairs, who, in the person of Mrs Honour, acquainted him with such dreadful news concerning his Sophia, that he immediately lost all consideration for every other person; and his whole stock of compassion was entirely swallowed up in reflections on his own misery, and on that of his unfortunate angel.

That’s bad enough, but Fielding has to follow that up with:

What this dreadful matter was, the reader will be informed, after we have first related the many preceding steps which produced it, and those will be the subject of the following book.

I think every reality competition show host must study this technique, “the contestant going home this week is….revealed after the break.”

We get our customary commentary from Fielding to open the next book. This time, it’s short and to the point, too all the writers/philosophers/whatever “who teach that virtue is the certain road to happiness, and vice to misery, in this world.” He states, this is “a very wholesome and comfortable doctrine, and to which we have but one objection, namely, that it is not true.”

We see that in the way that Tom is trying to do the virtuous thing with Nightingale and Nancy, yet things with Sophia aren’t going well for him. He develops the idea a bit more, but not much before concluding, “But as the reader’s curiosity (if he hath any) must be now awake, and hungry, we shall provide to feed it as fast as we can.”

So, Lady Bellaston is jealous of poor Sophia. She needs to get her out of the way if she’s going to have Tom all to herself. Several chapters back, when there was that commotion at the play, which brought Sophia home early, interrupting the visit between Tom and Bellaston–Sophia’d been escorted home by a young gentleman. He’d seen her around town a little bit and after the play, had developed a little crush on her.

He came to check on her the next day, visited for a while, and convinced himself he was in love. Bellaston hatches a plan, on the one hand trying to make Sophia all the more appealing to him, but at the same time warning Lord Fellmar before he thinks of proposing,

“there is a bar, which I am almost ashamed to mention; and yet it is one you will never be able to conquer. You have a rival, my lord, and a rival who, though I blush to name him, neither you, nor all the world, will ever be able to conquer…he is,” said she, “what I am sorry to say most happy men with us are, one of the lowest fellows in the world. He is a beggar, a bastard, a foundling, a fellow in meaner circumstances than one of your lordship’s footmen.”

As Sophia’s a silly country-girl, she has these silly romantic notions that she can overcome these deficiencies in character.

The two come to an agreement (okay, Fellmar falls into her trap), he’ll come and spend more time with Sophia to try to pry her away from Tom, while witnessing for himself just how devoted Sophia is. From the chapter titles, we get more of this next week.

I’m not sure what the point of the Nightingale/Nancy storyline is–unless it’s just to prove one more time that despite everything else we know about him, Tom’s a pretty good guy who’s always willing to help those who need it. Which I guess is always good to see about a protagonist. Especially one who seems to attract scandal and trouble the way Tom does.

Bellaston, despite being a lousy excuse for a human being, is pretty entertaining. “Oh, you must rescue my innocent cousin from this low bellow, so I can have him all for myself.” And the dullard falls for it. Still, I wonder how this turns bad for Sophia (which I guess is the point of Fielding’s tease).

Tom and Mrs. Miller sit down for an overdue conversation, now that she knows he has a connection to Mr. Allworthy, she wants to make sure they part on the right terms. She tells him her background, her family’s hard history up to the point where she’s left a widow with two young daughters. Mr. Allworthy knew her late husband a bit and provided her with her house and a small annual income. Not only that, she has heard Allworthy talk about Tom, and always spoke of him in the warmest terms. Tom tries to set her right, but she won’t hear of it, remembering what her husband used to say about circumstances like his:

No, Mr Jones, the words `dishonourable birth’ are nonsense, as my dear, dear husband used to say, unless the word `dishonourable’ be applied to the parents; for the children can derive no real dishonour from an act of which they are entirely innocent.”

This breaks down Tom’s barriers and he tells her everything that’s going on his life. He gets her permission for one final appointment with Lady Bellaston that evening. Bellaston neer shows and Tom falls asleep waiting. He’s awakened by a ruckus–which he discovers is caused by Nancy, trying to kill herself, and her mother and sister lamenting over this. IT turns out that Nightingale has got her pregnant and then left her with a note talking about having to go marry someone his father had picked for her.

Tom tries to help by promising to get Nightingale to come back and do the right thing (which Tom believes is what his friend wants, anyone). Nancy is more concerned with the loss of him than the loss of reputation, it should be noted.

This is exactly what he tells NIghtingale, and probably gives the most eloquent speech of this book to date, about what Nightingale must do, what others will think of his actions and what will happen to Nancy otherwise. NIghtingale assures Tom he’d rather marry Nancy, but his father won’t permit it. Tom sends him off to help with Nancy while he sets off to convince the elder Nightingale to permit this marriage (partially by pretending it already happened).

It does not go well at all, but Tom’s aided by the arrival of the elder Nightingale’s brother (I wish more men had first names in this book to make it easier on these recaps). Nightingale’s uncle married someone who made him happy, not someone who made a “good” (read: profitable) match and encourages him to let the same happen for his nephew. The Elder Nightingale seems to soften a bit and regrets the influence his brother had on his son.

They leave things in this awkward situation, with Tom taking the uncle to see his nephew and Nancy.

A lot happened in a short period of time here. And while I sort of prefer (for entertainment value) TOm being the outrageous scamp, the rascal with a heart of gold; Tom beating earnest and eloquent, showing that heart of gold to the world is really easy to admire and root for. Something tells me he might not have been eloquent enough, but I’ll have to see next week.

As usual, chapter 1 of this Book is a little essay about a topic that Fielding wants to sound off on. This time it’s the education required to be a writer,

As several gentlemen in these times, by the wonderful force of genius only, without the least assistance of learning, perhaps, without being well able to read, have made a considerable figure in the republic of letters; the modern critics, I am told, have lately begun to assert, that all kind of learning is entirely useless to a writer; and, indeed, no other than a kind of fetters on the natural sprightliness and activity of the imagination, which is thus weighed down, and prevented from soaring to those high flights which otherwise it would be able to reach.

I’m tempted to camp out on this chapter for a while. Fielding’s a little more firey this time,

…The nimbleness of a dancing-master is not at all prejudiced by being taught to move; nor doth any mechanic, I believe, exercise his tools the worse by having learnt to use them. For my own part, I cannot conceive that Homer or Virgil would have writ with more fire, if instead of being masters of all the learning of their times, they had been as ignorant as most of the authors of the present age.

He concedes, not everyone who writes needs to be educated:

…very little reading is, I conceive, necessary to the poet, less to the critic, and the least of all to the politician.

Would love to see what Fielding could do with a Twitter feed. He rants on the subject a little longer, but you get the flavor, let’s get back to Tom.

Tom’s slipped out of Lady Bellaston’s house while she and Sophia spar. He’s not home long before he receives a letter from the Lady, who is not happy with him. She warns him against making her angry by seeing Sophia again. Almost immediately, he gets another from her telling him to come to visit. Lady Bellaston is not the woman he wants to go visit, but he figures he’d better. But before he can leave—guess who shows up?

Tom’s in the middle of assuring the Lady that he and Sophia accidentally ran into each other, and that’s all when Partridge comes up alerting him that Mrs. Honour is coming to see him. There’s no good place to hide Lady Bellaston from her prying eyes, so they settle with putting her behind a curtain.

Mrs. Honour gossips a bit about Bellaston while Tom tries (and tries and tries) to shush her and redirect the conversation. But she has to tell Tom about Bellaston’s scandalous behavior with men (Bellaston is insulted, but she is in the room of a man right now—as we’re about to learn, at 2 am with her carriage driver loitering nearby telling everyone who’ll listen why he’s there). She finally gives Tom a letter from Sophia and leaves. Bellaston comes out incredibly offended, Tom placates her about Honour and the meeting with Sophia, too.

Here ensued a long conversation, which the reader, who is not too curious, will thank me for not inserting at length. It shall suffice, therefore, to inform him, that Lady Bellaston grew more and more pacified, and at length believed, or affected to believe, his protestations, that his meeting with Sophia that evening was merely accidental, and every other matter which the reader already knows, and which, as Jones set before her in the strongest light, it is plain that she had in reality no reason to be angry with him.

“the reader, who is not too curious, will thank me for not inserting at length.” Ha.

Anyway, they finally decide that Tom will come to visit the next day. He’s coming over to visit Bellaston, but will pretend to be there to see Sophia.

Because that’s going to work, I guess.

Sophia’s letter interferes with that plan, she tells him repeatedly, “if you have
any concern for my ease, do not think of returning hither.” She doesn’t trust Bellaston and things won’t go well. Tom isn’t sure what to do now, so the next morning, he jots off a quick note begging off from calling that day, he’s sick.

He’ll come to regret that because that means he’s home to get a talking-to by Mrs. Miller. Two women in his room with him alone last night? One who didn’t leave until 2? This will not do. She doesn’t need people talking, him setting a bad example for the girls, and she expects more from someone tied to Mr. Allworthy. Tom agrees but insists on his own privacy, no matter who comes to visit. Things break down to the point where he’ll have to look for a new place to stay the next day.

Nightingale stops by, too. He’s headed for other pastures, too. Tom rakes him over the coals for the way he’s behaving toward Mrs. Miller’s daughter, Nancy. Nightingale claims to have no idea what Tom’s talking about. Tom sticks to the message—you messed up, thanks to your flirting, the girl has fallen in love. YOu can’t just duck out (as he was planning), but you can’t keep stringing her on, either.

And that’s that, I’d expected to take about 1/3 the space and time to write this up. Heh.

Last week, Lashaan asked about going through the novel in little bits and pieces. This selection was one of those times I had a hard time stopping—the clock and fatigue stopped me from finishing Book IV. I have a bad feeling both about Tom’s impending meeting with Lady Bellaston and ol’ Nightingale, and want to see if I’m right.

Well, thanks to that unexpected nine-week break, I’m abandoning the whole “read through this in 2020” goal. This bothers me a little bit, but I’ll get over it.

So, when we left Tom, he was in London. He’d made some decent friends (or at least allies), was being his usual generous and helpful self with them. He’d also found a way to hopefully gain an audience with Sophia, but it looks like it’s going to take some work. Let’s dive back in, shall we?

Oh, my hardcopy with the funky capitalization, etc. is in a different box than I believed. So, Project Gutenberg to the rescue today.

I just love the titles of the first two chapters we’re looking at this week: “Which treats of matters of a very different kind from those in the preceding chapter,” and “A chapter which, though short, may draw tears from some eyes.”

So Tom’s getting nowhere with his connections to Sophia—in fact, it’s getting to the point that he’s about to lose his connection if he keeps bringing her up. But, he’s a clever guy. If Lady Bellaston won’t help him who will? Well, what she knows, the servants likely know (he figures), so Partridge is deployed to get that information from the servants.

While we wait for results on that front, we learn that Lady Bellaston is what we would call a cougar (or we would’ve a few years ago, anyway), and she has her sights set on Tom, and showers him with attention (and gifts). Tom isn’t interested in her, he’s devoted to Sophia. But, it’d be rude to not return a little of the affection she’s showering on him.

One night, he’s compelled to ditch his pal Nightengale—they were supposed to go see a play together, but Bellaston wanted Tom to come meet her in her home. To make this appointment possible, Bellaston sends away some servants and even arranges for her houseguest, Sophia, to attend that same play (with a chaperone, of course).

But before Tom can leave, Mrs. Miller asks him to join her to meet someone. The cousin that Tom’s been so recently generous to is downstairs and wants to thank him. Now remember a few chapters back, when someone tried to steal from Tom, tells him a sob story about a sick family member, and so Tom gives him some money? Well, guess who Mrs. Miller’s cousin happens to be. It’s practically a Dickensian coincidence (if Dickens had been born yet, anyway). Mr. Miller had already planned on spilling his heart in gratitude, but this just compounded his thanks. Tom’s gratified to hear how much he’s helped. (this is the chapter we might have got teary about).

So then Tom heads to Ballston’s, and gets there early, so is hanging out in the drawing room to wait. The play turned into some sort of a to-do. it was a new play, and apparently controversial. One group had shown up to protest, another to cheer it on (Nightengale had been counting on Tom to help him encourage the production). It was all too much for Sophia, who came home between accts. She discovers Tom, and almost faints.

To paint the looks or thoughts of either of these lovers, is beyond my power. As their sensations, from their mutual silence, may be judged to have been too big for their own utterance, it cannot be supposed that I should be able to express them: and the misfortune is, that few of my readers have been enough in love to feel by their own hearts what past at this time in theirs.

In what follows, Tom gives her the pocketbook and money, they clear up some misconceptions and misunderstandings, basically clear the air and are getting all sentimental with each other, when Tom remembers he has to ask her to forget about him (the last thing she wants to hear), and starts to say something along those lines, but botches it and says something

that sounded like a proposal of marriage. To which she replied, “That, did not her duty to her father forbid her to follow her own inclinations, ruin with him would be more welcome to her than the most affluent fortune with another man.”

The use of the word “ruin,” brings everything back to Tom and he starts to do what he’s supposed to do, but she interrupts to ask what he was doing in that room. Naturally, in walks Lady Bellaston—shocked to find the two of them together, and she demands to know what Sophia is doing there.

Sophia tells what happened at the play (Bellaston doubts it), says that Tom came to return her pocketbook (Bellaston knew it was missing, doesn’t believe that Tom returned it), after tracking her down by the name inside it. Bellaston and Tom don’t let on that they know each other either. Tom’s willing to play along, as it keeps both women from being upset with him.

Tom leaves, and the two women spend some time lying to each other about what they think about Tom, what they know about him, and so on. It’s a giant mess that’s sure to come toppling down soon.

And there we go, back to the book and at the end of Book Thirteen. Both of which are fun. We’re in the final third here, so things are going to start happening more quickly (I expect). Will Tom come clean to Sophia about Bellaston? Will Bellaston tell Sophia that she knew she was lying about Tom? Is Tom still destined for a hanging? All this and more to come in the next few chapters.

The next day, Tom tries several times to see Mrs. Fitzgerald but gets nowhere. Fed up, he goes back to the Inn he’s staying at (a place Mr. Allworthy stayed at when in London). He hears an altercation and comes to intervene.

I was joking last week about how nice it was to see another fistfight again, and already we have a new one. They’re good for drama, I guess, and to make fast friends of whoever Tom comes to the rescue of (or vice versa). A footman was attacking his employer, and the daughter of the Innkeeper was standing by and screaming (this is what alerted Tom). As handily as the footman was beating his employer, so Tom took care of the footman.

It turns out—and you’ve gotta love this—the footman had been using his boss’s (Mr. Nightengale) copy of Hoyle and had spilled wine on an open page. Nightengale was angered, and the two started arguing over how much the book had been worth before getting ruined, so they could agree on how much to be withheld from his pay. One thing led to another…

Anyway, out of gratitude Nightengale splits a bottle of wine with Tom and they become friends, the innkeeper and her daughter join them and they all get along really well.

The next day, as masquerade invitation and mask arrive for Tom, he assumes this comes from Mrs. Fitzgerald and will be his chance to see Sophia. So he invites Nightengale to come to the ball with him—and then has to borrow cab fare from Partridge so he can afford to go anywhere. There’s no Sophia, or even Mrs. Fitzgerald at the ball, instead, it’s Sophia’s friend, Lady Bellaston, who arranged to meet Tom there.

She grills Tom for hours and finally agrees to arrange a meeting if he promises to leave Sophia alone after that. She gives him fifty pounds and sends him on his way.

Tom gets back to the inn to hear Mrs. Miller (the innkeeper, who I should’ve introduced earlier) talk about a cousin, who married for love and is now destitute and barely hanging on due to illness in the family. Tom pulls her aside and gives her the money Bellaston just gave him.

Now, earlier, Fielding told the reader that he focused on describing Mrs. Miller because she’s going to be important. I wonder how? And I look forward to finding out. A fun few chapters this week, I’m really enjoying Tom’s time in London.

After the wedding, Tom and Partridge are back on their way to London. Funds are running low, and Partridge suggests borrowing from Sophia’s hundred to get them some food, they both could use some. Particularly Tom, who hadn’t had anything but a poached egg in a long time, unlike Partridge at the wedding “he had feasted only his understanding.” Tom refuses to steal (or, borrow, but he knows it’d really be stealing) and the two get into a heated argument about it.

They do stop for some food and things cool down. When they leave a stranger asks if he can travel with them—and after a little bit, he pulls a gun on them and demands that hundred. A scuffle (a really tame one by this book’s standards) ensues and Tom gets the guy on his back and disarmed easily. This was his first attempted mugging—the pistol isn’t even loaded—he’s poor, he has five kids with another on the way. Tom gives him a little bit of money (over Partridge’s objections—he’s getting hard to like), and goes on his way.

They end up in London and now Tom has to find Sophia. He tracks down Mrs. Fitzpatrick and tries to get information about Sophia from her. Mrs. Fitzpatrick is convinced he’s Mr. Blifil and doesn’t give him anything. As Tom leaves, her maid clues her in—which involves catching her up on who Tom is, as Sophia left him out of her stories.

In that case, Mrs. Fitzpatrick both wants to meet with him again and to get Sophia’s friend, Lady Bellaston, involved, too. The next day when Tom comes again to try to get information out of Mrs. Fitzpatrick the two ladies make some observations and discuss him at some length after he leaves again.

After fisticuffs being a frequent occurrence for a bit, it’s now been weeks since we had one. And it looks like it’s going to be a few before we get another after this very short altercation. I’m not saying I need them, it’s just something that was common enough that I joked about it, and now it’s gone by the wayside. Instead, it looks like we’re getting into a groove of domestic kind of action—Sophia’s female relatives or friends looking out for her and making Tom jump through hoops. Maybe I’m wrong, but I bet the last little bit is going to repeat itself for a few chapters.

While Jones is catching some Zs, Partridge is having a good time talking with men at the inn. He starts off talking up Tom’s wealth, but then gets into talking about worrying aobut his mental health. THye kick around some schemes to get TOm some help for his madness, but don’t end up pursuing any action because some news comes in about the rebels marching on London.

Tom sleeps a lot for him, and could probably do with some more. But he gets a clue about Sophia’s route and follows up on it—and then finds the boy who took her into London, and discretely pumps him for information. It’s at this point that Fielding talks about Sophia being more offended by Tom’s use of her name in public than any, shall we say, extra-curricular activities he may be involved in. Sadly, she’s upset with the wrong man, Tom’s very careful of her reputation. Partridge, on the other hand… Tom must really be lonely and in need of a traveling companion, that’s all I’ll say.

During a break in their travel, Tom splits a bottle of wine with Mr. Dowling—the attorney who brought news of Blifil’s mother’s death.

Mr Dowling, pouring out a glass of wine, named the health of the good Squire Allworthy; adding, “If you please, sir, we will likewise remember his nephew and heir, the young squire: Come, sir, here’s Mr Blifil to you, a very pretty young gentleman; and who, I dare swear, will hereafter make a very considerable figure in his country. I have a borough for him myself in my eye.”

“Sir,” answered Jones, “I am convinced you don’t intend to affront me, so I shall not resent it; but I promise you, you have joined two persons very improperly together; for one is the glory of the human species, and the other is a rascal who dishonours the name of man.”

No beating around the bush there with Tom, who goes on to explain his problems with Blifil in the starkest of terms before the horses are ready for them to resume.

Tom, Partridge and the boy get lost shortly after this and stumble upon a Romani (not the word Fielding used) wedding party and take some shelter with them during a storm. It’s an interesting interlude, Tom and their “King” engage in good conversation about forms of government and lighter topics. Their conversation ends with this amusing exchange:

the king, turning to him, said, “Me believe you be surprize: for me suppose you have ver bad opinion of my people; me suppose you tink us all de tieves.”

“I must confess, sir,” said Jones, “I have not heard so favourable an account of them as they seem to deserve.”

“Me vil tell you,” said the king, “how the difference is between you and us. My people rob your people, and your people rob one anoder.”

Not a lot actually got accomplished in these few chapters—the plot only inched forward. But there were some interesting/amusing passages, and the closer Tom gets to London, the closer we get (I imagine) to a lot of things happening.