Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding
Joseph Andrews, by Henry Fielding
The hostess, who was a better wife than so surly a husband deserved, seeing her husband all bloody and stretched along, hastened presently to his assistance, or rather to revenge the blow which to all appearances was the last he would ever receive: when, lo! a pan full of hog's blood, which unluckily stood on the dresser, presented itself first to her hands. She seized it in her fury, and without any reflection discharged it into the parson's face, and with so good an aim, that much the greater part first saluted his countenance, and trickled thence in so large a current down his beard, and over his garments, that a more horrible spectacle was hardly to be seen or even imagined. All which was perceived by Mrs. Slipslop, who entered the kitchen at that instant. This good gentlewoman, not being of a temper so extremely cool and patient as was perhaps required to ask many questions on this occasion, flew with great impetuosity at the hostess's cap, which, together with some of her hair, she plucked from her head in a moment, giving her at the same time several hearty cuffs in the face, which by frequent practice on the inferior servants, she had learned an excellent knack of delivering with a good grace. Poor Joseph could hardly rise from his chair; the parson was employed in wiping the blood from his eyes, which had entirely blinded him, and the landlord was just beginning to stir, whilst Mrs. Slipslop holding down the landlady's face with her left hand, made so dextrous a use of her right, that the poor woman began to roar in a key, which alarmed all the company at the inn.
Fielding's Tom Jones is one of my favorite novels ever, the original Delightful Romp of a story that I'm always trying to find another of. Joseph Andrews, Fielding's earlier effort, doesn't quite achieve Delightful Romp status, but it does get a wee bit merry and frolicsome.
Joseph Andrews is presented as a satire on Samuel Richardson's Pamela (see Bookpost, January 2011; I read Pamela the better to understand the parody, and you don't have to), a preachy epistolary tale in which the snow-pure heroine tames and civilizes the country gentleman who wants to ravish her and ends up reforming and marrying her instead and they live happily ever after. In fact, Fielding's "satire" goes off in an entirely different direction, which is just as well, since the whole gender reversal of "Oh goodness, a MAN who deeply values his own virginity and must fend off the rich lady's attention--how ridiculous!" gets old pretty fast.
Andrews, presented as Pamela Andrews's equally sappy and virtuous brother, is a footman in the home of Lady Booby, aunt to the unnamed "Squire B." who is smitten with Pamela in Richardson's novel. Having rejected the advances of both Lady Booby and the housekeeper, Joseph is thankfully turned out of doors by chapter six, meets up with the slow-witted but goodhearted Parson Adams and his real true love Fanny, and the three of them must make their way along the English road through a series of country inns, despite never having any money to pay their way. Comic mayhem ensues, complete with a succession of slamming doors, recalcitrant horses, wrong bedrooms, brawls, thieves, crooked justices, roguish "gentlemen", honest yeomen, improbable coincidences and educational fireside tales, culminating in an appearance by the original Pamela and Squire Booby, and a deus ex machina to get all the crises squared away.
It’s a good tale, but I think maybe the magnificence of Tom Jones spoiled me for it. Joseph Andrews is almost a rough draft for Fielding to practice on in preparation for his masterpiece. All the things that make Tom Jones famous and delightful are there-the digressions by the author; the humanizing of the protagonists compared to the too-virtuous-to-be-real characters in his contemporaries’ works; the red-faced rustic squires and deceptive, corrupted city people; the attention to plot structure-but you can see the chalk outlines where they miss their mark. The baggage that comes with having to accept the given circumstance of a society in which everyone treats birth as an indication of personal merit and one landowner gets to pretty much rule an entire village is harder to put up with every year that passes. And the author has a distasteful prejudice that learning science and philosophy, without religion, automatically makes someone a bad person, and that schools in particular make people into useless city dandies while rural life without asking questions is all wholesome and decent. We get enough uneducated rural people thinking they know better than anyone and feeling entitled to force their agendas on “elitists” who have actually studied a particular problem.
If you love Tom Jones, you’ll like Joseph Andrews a little. If you haven’t read either, read this one first, as an appetizer. You’ll enjoy it more that way.
Here is swissmarg's official review of Pamela in this forum, which includes my review in comments:
http://community.livejournal.com/books1001/7319.html
My review of Tom Jones:
http://admnaismith.livejournal.com/172436.html#cutid1
The hostess, who was a better wife than so surly a husband deserved, seeing her husband all bloody and stretched along, hastened presently to his assistance, or rather to revenge the blow which to all appearances was the last he would ever receive: when, lo! a pan full of hog's blood, which unluckily stood on the dresser, presented itself first to her hands. She seized it in her fury, and without any reflection discharged it into the parson's face, and with so good an aim, that much the greater part first saluted his countenance, and trickled thence in so large a current down his beard, and over his garments, that a more horrible spectacle was hardly to be seen or even imagined. All which was perceived by Mrs. Slipslop, who entered the kitchen at that instant. This good gentlewoman, not being of a temper so extremely cool and patient as was perhaps required to ask many questions on this occasion, flew with great impetuosity at the hostess's cap, which, together with some of her hair, she plucked from her head in a moment, giving her at the same time several hearty cuffs in the face, which by frequent practice on the inferior servants, she had learned an excellent knack of delivering with a good grace. Poor Joseph could hardly rise from his chair; the parson was employed in wiping the blood from his eyes, which had entirely blinded him, and the landlord was just beginning to stir, whilst Mrs. Slipslop holding down the landlady's face with her left hand, made so dextrous a use of her right, that the poor woman began to roar in a key, which alarmed all the company at the inn.
Fielding's Tom Jones is one of my favorite novels ever, the original Delightful Romp of a story that I'm always trying to find another of. Joseph Andrews, Fielding's earlier effort, doesn't quite achieve Delightful Romp status, but it does get a wee bit merry and frolicsome.
Joseph Andrews is presented as a satire on Samuel Richardson's Pamela (see Bookpost, January 2011; I read Pamela the better to understand the parody, and you don't have to), a preachy epistolary tale in which the snow-pure heroine tames and civilizes the country gentleman who wants to ravish her and ends up reforming and marrying her instead and they live happily ever after. In fact, Fielding's "satire" goes off in an entirely different direction, which is just as well, since the whole gender reversal of "Oh goodness, a MAN who deeply values his own virginity and must fend off the rich lady's attention--how ridiculous!" gets old pretty fast.
Andrews, presented as Pamela Andrews's equally sappy and virtuous brother, is a footman in the home of Lady Booby, aunt to the unnamed "Squire B." who is smitten with Pamela in Richardson's novel. Having rejected the advances of both Lady Booby and the housekeeper, Joseph is thankfully turned out of doors by chapter six, meets up with the slow-witted but goodhearted Parson Adams and his real true love Fanny, and the three of them must make their way along the English road through a series of country inns, despite never having any money to pay their way. Comic mayhem ensues, complete with a succession of slamming doors, recalcitrant horses, wrong bedrooms, brawls, thieves, crooked justices, roguish "gentlemen", honest yeomen, improbable coincidences and educational fireside tales, culminating in an appearance by the original Pamela and Squire Booby, and a deus ex machina to get all the crises squared away.
It’s a good tale, but I think maybe the magnificence of Tom Jones spoiled me for it. Joseph Andrews is almost a rough draft for Fielding to practice on in preparation for his masterpiece. All the things that make Tom Jones famous and delightful are there-the digressions by the author; the humanizing of the protagonists compared to the too-virtuous-to-be-real characters in his contemporaries’ works; the red-faced rustic squires and deceptive, corrupted city people; the attention to plot structure-but you can see the chalk outlines where they miss their mark. The baggage that comes with having to accept the given circumstance of a society in which everyone treats birth as an indication of personal merit and one landowner gets to pretty much rule an entire village is harder to put up with every year that passes. And the author has a distasteful prejudice that learning science and philosophy, without religion, automatically makes someone a bad person, and that schools in particular make people into useless city dandies while rural life without asking questions is all wholesome and decent. We get enough uneducated rural people thinking they know better than anyone and feeling entitled to force their agendas on “elitists” who have actually studied a particular problem.
If you love Tom Jones, you’ll like Joseph Andrews a little. If you haven’t read either, read this one first, as an appetizer. You’ll enjoy it more that way.
Here is swissmarg's official review of Pamela in this forum, which includes my review in comments:
http://community.livejournal.com/books1001/7319.html
My review of Tom Jones:
http://admnaismith.livejournal.com/172436.html#cutid1