★★★★★ 4
The Sidekick in Early-Modern Literature.
Tom Jones is probably the most influential novel in English history, pioneering elements like complex characterization, social criticism and authorial interjection. But you already knew that.
What you want to know is, is this a good book for us in the 21st century. And here, it's not so clear. The dialogue is pretty brisk, and some of the exchanges (the stereotypical Whig Mrs. Western arguing with her Jacobite brother is a particular treat) are actually funny. The latter part of the novel evolves into a farce, with a dozen characters engaged in scheming against one another, while Tom and Sophia helplessly go along. Farce works better in drama, where it has a faster pace, but it's always a welcome mode of comedy. You don't see enough farces.
Some of the characters are evocative (why do I picture Blifil as looking like Ted Cruz?) but some are not: Dowling is just a lawyer, and Mrs. Miller is a good woman, like thousands who have come since, and that's all there is to it. It's not as if every character needs to, or can, be a fully realized person, but the parts of the novel spent with these human plot devices do feel mechanical.
But Mr. Partridge, Tom's traveling companion, is in a different category altogether, and he just poisons the parts of the novel that he features in (chiefly the middle third). Eighteenth Century literature has a depressing reliance on goofy loose-lipped sidekicks: Mr. Partridge, Hugh Strap, Humphrey Clinker, Andrew Fairservice, Friday. Sometimes they're servants, but sometimes they're just stupid friends.
Part of this must be practical: It's difficult to follow a wandering hero (and why are the heroes of these novels always wandering? But that's a different question altogether) without giving him a friend to talk to. Maybe early novelists had a hard time sketching characters who didn't have a way to discuss the ongoing action.
But mostly, I think this is the bad influence of Don Quixote, which was becoming increasingly popular in England during this period. Sancho Panza is OK, and he's certainly the funniest element of that leaden tome. But Mr. Partridge *is* Sancho Panza, cowardice, superstition and all, and one Sancho Panza was more than enough. You know? There's a limited number of things that a silly, selfless, lazy pal can do, and it's hard to read about the same old doofus, yet again.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 28, 2016
