Group Read - Tom Jones - July, August & September

Tom Jones (The History of Tom Jones, Foundling) by Henry Fielding is a comic novel that was first published in 1749. In this book we follow the adventures of an engaging hero described with gusto, glee, wit and sometimes satire. During the course of this novel, 18th century life from the rural poor to affluent aristrocrats is brought vividly to life.

The book is divided into three parts which makes our plan of reading the book over three months fairly straight forward. As most versions of the book weigh in at around 900 plus pages, we would be looking at about 300 plus pages each month.



From Wikipedia:

"The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is both a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London, and is among the earliest English prose works to be classified as a novel. It is the earliest novel mentioned by W. Somerset Maugham in his 1948 book Great Novelists and Their Novels among the ten best novels of the world. It totals 346,747 words divided into 18 smaller books, each preceded by a discursive chapter, often on topics unrelated to the book itself. It is dedicated to George Lyttleton.

The novel is highly organised, despite its length. Samuel Taylor Coleridge argued that it has one of the "three most perfect plots ever planned." It became a bestseller, with four editions being published in its first year alone.

Tom Jones is generally regarded as Fielding's greatest book and as a very influential English novel."



As always please be mindful of spoilers, but by all means let's discuss our feelings and thoughts as we progress through the book.

I have both a kindle version and an audio version of the book so I can switch back and forth. I will be starting my first read early next week and plan to read Part 1 during July. My reading version has 975 pages while my audio version is narrated by Bill Homewood and is 37 hours, 52 minutes.

I've put in a request to the library, so I may be a bit late starting, but will follow along.

I've been reading this on Serial Reader for the past little while, so will do my best to avoid introducing spoilers ;)

I will put a link to this thread on the main group page when I have a computer (I am travelling and have only tablets/phones).

I'd like to join in. I'll probably start off slowly in July, as I'm still working through my reading for Hugo Awards voting. This will be a reread for me. I'd first read this over 30 years ago, so I don't remember all that much.

I have a Penguin Classics edition and plan on reading it over the three months. I have a lot of other reading on the go but will start on this at the beginning of July.

Going to give it a go...I've got an OUP edition with 871 pages of text and 100 pages of extra stuff, and will start in July.

I've jump started a bit on the audio version because I'll be traveling to a wedding in July and I won't listen to this during my travels. I'll listen to a section a month as well.

Link to this thread is up on the main group page.

Thanks, RP. :)

>10 DeltaQueen50: No prob! I've been enjoying this book (in places) more than I thought I would, so it is good to have this group read :)

I have an old mass market paperback edition lying ready, but all my July weekends are booked, so I don't know how far I can get this month.

I'll pick up a copy tonight!

UPDATE: I decided to get the audiobook edition narrated by Bill Homewood! I'll be starting, probably in mid-July as I want to wrap up A Tale of Two Cities (by Charles Dickens; narrated by Anton Lesser) first

:-)

I've been both reading and listening to Tom Jones every morning and it's going well. It's not a difficult read at all although I can see that I will probably switch to straight listening soon. For now I like to read along in order to get the names clear in my head. While I haven't laughed out loud yet, it has made me smirk a little.

I was going through a shelf of dusty of Barnes & Noble Classics editions this morning and found a copy of Tome Jones! I can only say with any certainty that I got in in the past twelve years, and before this year, but it's a fortuitous re-discovery! It's good to have a back-up jic in case the audio doesn't work out for me... And in the end, I can purge it from my TBR shelves! :-)

I put this on my plan for this year, so I will try to fit it in! I have a Franklin Library version on the shelf which appears to be 736 pages (I guess they're big pages with small print!). I won't be able to start until next week when I get back home.

Welcome Tanya and Lisa! I am still listening to the book every morning for an hour and have gotten through about 25% of the book. I want to make this a 3 month read so I will continue on until I get to a good breaking off point around 33% or so and then put it aside until next month. I am not loving the story, it's an easy read just not as humorous as I had hoped. I am finding some of the author's opinions are very pompous and he does like to throw his latin phrases around!

I meant to just listen through Book VI but I somehow missed the break between VI and VII and ended up listening to a bit more than I had originally intended! I've listened to 37% of the book and will pick up at Book VIII in August. I honestly can't remember why I stacked this book years ago so I've gone into this read-along not knowing what it is is about, only that it is a Classic. I've been pleasantly surprised: Not only do I find it humorous but surprisingly relevant 270 years later! If I have any quibble it's that I thought Tom Jones himself would be more charismatic. Right now, he seems a bit of a blank, reminding me of Ryan O'Neill in Barry Lyndon (I film I admittedly bailed out of at the intermission because I thought I was going to die of boredom!)

>18 Tanya-dogearedcopy: Tanya. I've started listening to Tom Jones again and I am about 37% of the way through the book as well. I am also enjoying the listening and I think the narrator, Bill Homewood, is doing an excellent job. I totally agree with you regarding Tom, he's not the mischievous fellow I was expecting.

I thought about listening to this but my library only has abridged versions of the book on audio.

>18 Tanya-dogearedcopy:
>19 DeltaQueen50:

I agree with your assessment of Tom. I found him to be a likeable scoundrel; it seems as if he wants to please.

I listened/read the book in June before I knew or realized there was going to be a group read; but thought I would pop-in to see what others were thinking about this book.

I'm almost done this book and it has been much more fun than I thought! I like the bits where the author is commenting on how he's constructing the story: "My plan is to start each book with a boring introductory chapter where I go on at length about various topics -- but if you want to skip those, that's fine!"

>22 rabbitprincess: I am enjoying how the author speaks directly to his readers at times, very much tongue in cheek.

I've also listened up through book VII. I'm enjoying this so far.

I've listened through to the end of Book XII which puts me at the 67% mark.

I realized that there is a sort of rhythm to the "set up" chapters and the narrative chapters. It's somewhat akin to the idea of a comic duo where the straight man feeds the funny man :-D

As we are leaving on a road trip next week, I went back to my audio version of Tom Jones and have finished the book. I think listening to the book helped to bring it to life for me. I have posted a review on my thread, but in short, this was a very good read, one that I enjoyed and will remember.

>26 DeltaQueen50: I'm back to listening to Tom Jones as well Judy. I"ll post when I'm done. I'm enjoying it, but I do wish I knew a little bit more of the classic writings Fieldings goes on about. I think I would probably get a few more laughs out of the book.

>27 luvamystery65: I think Fielding had a few axes to grind with the politicians, upper society, the critics and some other authors so all came in for a dose of satire during the course of the book. Fielding was an interesting character on his own. He is credited with being one of the founders of London's first police force.

I just finished reading Book XV and I was laughing at myself as I appear to have a sort of weak spot for melodrama! A couple of years ago, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed The Scarlet Pimpernel (by Baroness Orczy) but just put it down to a one time thing. But now, in Chapter II, "In which is opened a very black design against Sophia," I actually said out loud, 'Oh! Noo!

I finished Tom Jones the night before last. It was so much fun. When I first started I was worried that there would be lots of preaching and moralizing and not the fun novel I always assumed it was. I'm glad to say that it was fun. There were things that went over my head as I am not as well read as the narrator or the original audience, but I found Tom and Sophia quite enjoyable. Bill Homewood was an excellent narrator for my audiobook. His Mr. Weston absolutely made me cringe. What a nasty man.

I finished listening to Tom Jones (by Henry Fielding; narrated by Bill Homewood) this morning! As much as I intellectually appreciated the preface/prologue and narrative sequences for the first seventeen books, I have to admit that I cheered a bit when the book's narrator stated that he would be going to straight narrative for the last sections. Of course, I thought it was a bit sneaky that Fielding put the moralizing words into the mouth of various characters, but I the pace was nonetheless faster. I ended up enjoying the last third of the book more so than the first two-thirds. The melodrama worked for me :-D

Is anyone still reading Tom Jones? I did not manage to start it until a month ago but have been reading a little bit each day. I'm at 60% now and liking it very much so far. The first time I'd read it was for an English lit class decades ago, and I had to rush through it to keep up with the class. This slower pace is much more enjoyable.

I'm still reading with about a hundred pages left.

I have put it aside for now, as I have been spending two weekends away from home. Travelling eats up more time than I thought...

I'm still reading it too. Have switched to the audio for a while.

>33 hailelib: >34 MissWatson: >35 avatiakh: Great! I'm glad I'm not the only one still working on this book! :)

Finished last night and thoroughly enjoyed this book. Very impressed with Kenneth Danzinger as narrator though I did put my iPod down for the last 50 or so pages and read the book instead.

I am hapy that so many of us stuck with the book, and for the most part, really enjoyed it. It feels good to get such a chunkster off the TBR pile!

I finished this some time ago but have been negligent about updating threads! Anyhow, I liked the novel very much and am glad that I had this group to motivate me to reread it. I enjoyed it more this time around, as I didn't have the pressure of finishing it by a certain date for course requirements.