I am always currently reading this book... and one of these days I'll finish it...

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If a crazed literature professor ever holds a gun to your head and threatens to pull the trigger if you don’t read one of two interminable, gazillion-page satirical British novels (that would be Vanity Fair of the 19th Century or Tom Jones of the 18th Century), I recommend you choose Tom Jones. Tom Jones is more original (some say it’s the first modern novel), ‘way funnier than VF, and even has a few naughty bits to make you giggle—though tame by modern standards. To read Vanity Fair, you need to brush up your Napoleonic Wars. For Tom Jones, you need to brush up just a bit on your Jacobites, and that conflict isn’t quite so central to the story, so, in that way, Tom Jones is a bit less work. Vanity Fair really is about vanity. Tom Jones is about human nature, as Fielding reminds you again and again in his amusing “blowhard author” introductions to each of the books in the novel. If you think, reading these introductions, that they are ridiculous and irrelevant and you don’t want to read them, Fielding gives you a pass, saying in one of the early introductions that they are indeed ridiculous and superfluous to the story and you don’t have to read them if you don’t want to. He also has a passage of a physician opining unintelligibly about a patient that could be coming out of the mouth of a 21st century physician opining unintelligibly about a patient. One of the hallmarks of a classic is timelessness. This book is timeless, and, for the most part, hilarious.

3.5 stars (extra half star for the ending). I was a little surprised at the bawdy nature of this 18th-century novel. Fielding's humor and Bill Homewood's excellent narration kept me going through the 29 CDs. Also engaging was Fielding's dialogue, which made up for the wordy philosophical ramblings. I must admit to spacing out during the latter - particularly in the first chapters of each "book" - but thankfully, Fielding's narrator gives the reader permission to do so.

Holy smokes! This book is hilarious! Once you find the story's rhythm and figure out the language style, the book comes alive! One of my favorite scenes (the fight in the kitchen) was so hilarious that I found it in print and gave it to my husband to read. It's a bit thick to get through, but once he found his way through the language, he was surprisingly amused too.

I did not read this cover-to-cover; I experienced it in a class where excerpts were the only viable option. Overall, I enjoyed what I read of it. Fielding is still establishing what a novel is in this one, and that's part of the reason why it has lasted. The story is charming and hilarious at times, but it's not a masterful plot. It can be dry for a few chapters on end. Perhaps someday I'll read it all the way through--perhaps not.