Maybe it's Time

To whom it m may concern:

After months of on-again-off-again reading, I've finally finished Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. To begin, let me mention why it took so long. Besides the normal drama life throws at us all, I relocated very long distance, not once, but twice during my tenure in this massive tome. 

Published in 1749, like its predecessor, Don Quixote by Cervantes, it is a mammoth book, nearly 800 pages. The similarities don't stop at mere length though. Like Cervantes's work, this book is chocked full of chapters. No, correct that, this work is full of books like Homer or Virgil. However, there are 18 books in all which are then subdivided into short chapters, usually between 10 and 18 per book. So it doesn't take a rocket scientist or math whiz to see the magnitude of verbiage awaiting the reader. 

For those who have mercifully forgotten, or who wish to re-read my semi-review of Don Quixote, you will find it embedded in a much longer post here. However, in case it's not clear, the similarities to Cervantes is primarily restricted to age and length. Otherwise, Fielding's "history", as he's fond of calling it, bears little resemblance to the idiotic foolery of Cervantes's deluded, and most times, down right dangerous, Clouseauesque knight. 

However, for all his improvements on Cervantes, he manages to create some annoying features of his own. Namely, at the beginning of each book, he introduces them with a first chapter "preface" as he will later call them. Naturally, and might I add, ironically, he eventually writes one of these introductions, late in the book, sadly, explaining that they are worthless, have nothing to do with the topic, slams those who write them for plays, and claims one could mix and match the ones written for plays without any ill effects to the reader, the topic at hand, or the work thereto appended. Many are interesting in their own right, but most are simply side bar reading material, typically unrelated to the topic at hand, dragging out his already too long narrative far beyond reasonable expectations. In any event, one can easily do the mental arithmetic and determine that there are 18 "filler" chapters (and one horrid, dedicatory epistle to his patron at the beginning of the book) which, by the author's own admission, are worthless and have nothing to add to the story. 

Now, my point is this, I'm one who has vowed never to read an abridged book on the first reading. I don't want some, often anonymous editor behind the curtain somewhere deciding to what I should or should not be exposed, denying me the privilege he no doubt once had while earning the credentials necessary to edit such works. I want the full experience of what the author intended, at least the first time. On subsequent journeys through a work, I might cull some material, known to be boring or insignificant, on my own, but never on my first time through. 

However, maybe it's time I do. Honestly, I'm not getting any younger. The faster time slips past me, the more I rue wasting it reading non-essential drivel. Now that I try to restrict my reading material to the "great" books, I'm finding that there are often time killers in them at times. Truth be told, I did not finish the dedicatory epistle, and realized, by the second introductory essay, as he also calls them, that they were irrelevant to the topic up coming or past. I easily could have played the odds and missed nothing, saving myself the time of reading at least 15 or 16 chapter length, and often the longest ones, time wasters. In the end, I stuck to my guns and read every word. I really need to revisit my tenacious resistance to abridgment. 

Regardless of my proclivities and his editorial style, his story is coherent and the characters are sympathetic and repeatedly thrown into difficulties which, at every turn, threaten to undo what each is trying desperately to accomplish. It's a classic tale, a boy chasing girl, with two protagonists, and no real antagonists.

Fielding's writing is lively, fresh, mostly light, and very funny. He is good with puns and turns of phrase. Like Cervantes before him, he engages in a delightful blend of meta-fictional elements, regularly, as narrator, speaking directly to his reading audience, rather than through some agent in the story. Like Cervantes, Fielding is truly a character in his own story.

One linguistic caveat: keep Google handy if you are rusty, like I am, on your Latin. There are lots of untranslated, albeit, short Latin phrases. Most are meant to mock the pseudo intellectualism of one of Tom Jones's travelling companions, who either misquotes, or worse, misapplies them to the conversation. Maybe that's what the author intends to communicate by not translating them (longer Latin quotes he does translate, btw). I'll let you decide. 

Caveat number two: there are seemingly endless conversations that, for all practical purposes, serve only to elongate the work. You know: filler, fluff, blurb. Apparently Fielding was being paid by the word *smirks*. One could easily eliminate a few books by cutting, or sharply truncating said adjunct conversations.

Lastly, as is so often the case today, one fancies that Fielding probably ran up hard against his publication date as he attempts to connect his ridiculously complex plot in book 18 alone. Thus, he is forced to render his concluding narrative in 13 chapters when previously he would have taken at least 60 chapters (often dispersed throughout 5 full books) to cover the same material. Needless to say, what began as a leisurely meander through the complications of class conscious, young love, ends more than a bit rushed. 

Nevertheless, all in all, it's a good read. Just plan on taking your time. 

Until  next time,

Contemplate the mysteries, read good, even long books, and remember to breathe.

The Irony

To whom it may concern:

Saturday night after a long day of shopping our favorite second hand stores, we settled in for the night to unpack two large bags of books we'd bought. While doing that, something happened, something simply spectacular, something I've wanted to do for a very long time, something I've dreamed about for decades but never, or very rarely, experienced, and never like this night. We managed a scene right out of John Denver's Poems, Prayers, and Promises, where, after talking quietly from the heart about the things most important to us, and passing the pipe around as it were, when I got to it, I opened a used copy of some collected poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and began to survey its contents.

For whatever reason, I began at the back and began sampling here and there as I moved forward. As I was moved, I began reading aloud to her. What a magical moment: sitting with my best friend and lover, in a dimly lit room, sharing thoughts, dreams, and then poems from this newly purchased volume. Such a state eventually lead us to quoting favorite lines from memory where we could, and searching for others online when memory gave way to the ravages of time. 

After surveying a few pages, I came across his poem entitled Haunted Houses. Upon reading it, I realized that, like second hand houses, anything we purchase used, including books - maybe especially books - comes with a history, a past, ghosts if you dare. Some second hand items are significant, like valuable antiques, others simply carry the impressions, scars, and spirits of previous owners. This irony was not lost on either of us as I read Longfellow's beautiful argument, so lucidly laid out in Haunted Houses, from a used book. It was such a mystical experience all by itself that I have to share a significant stanza with you. It runs thus:

"We have no title-deeds to house or lands,

Owners and occupants of earlier dates

From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,

And hold in mortmain still their old estates."

What a perfect experience: sitting in a used house, built and inhabited since the early 60's, reading from a previously owned book of poems, immersed, or should I say, accompanied by, not only the spectral spirits of earlier generations of readers and dwellers, but also in the authorial presence of Longfellow himself (Anyone unfamiliar with this author/reader union needs to read Walt Whitman who makes it a habit to address future generations of readers as being present with them. Longfellow, while not as explicit, does the same thing by addressing topics such as time passage, aging, and the impermanence of life and reality). We both independently expressed feeling the ghosts of this simple volume. If I might be so bold, I'd say that we ALL enjoyed a beautiful evening singing chants from Longfellow and others.

If you can, get into the habit of buying second hand goods when you can, and you too can encounter these same multi-generational spirits on a regular basis. Please don't think this is just for books, houses, furniture, pictures, and sundry housewares can have the same effect. All one needs is something durable with a past.  I can't think of anything more spine tinglingly flattering than being honored to contribute to the life of a piece of furniture, a garment, or a book, a place, carrying on it's history, adding to its legacy. There's also something comfortably right about it. So join in and add your emotional footprint, your energy signature, to the life of the tangible.

Until next time,

Contemplate the mysteries, and remember to breathe.

(Favorite Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 1947. Henry Seidel Canby, ed. Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York. pp.276,7)