Reading Day 7 - Advice for Reading Tom Jones

The novel is not perfect, but it only paints a picture of ordinary life. The novel does not glorify the protagonist or deliberately write evil about the villain. Each of the characters is real, and the author Fielding tries not to exaggerate or hide flaws and mistakes in life.

　　But in the social context of the time, as Dr. Johnson commented on "evil works," the work was considered vulgar. The celebrity even regarded the author of the novel as a "big fool" and "a servant who fed horses", and felt that Fielding was "literaryly unattainable".　　

　　Only because the protagonist in the text received a rich woman's sponsorship when he was poor, or "packaged". The public is incompetent in accepting this matter, after all, it is already a shame for a man to accept a woman's money.

　　In fact, this matter is not a big deal in our modern view, and Maugham has said that "it reflects the ignorance of public opinion." ”

　　But what we can't quite understand in the modern age is: "Tom Jones sincerely and involuntarily loves the charming Sophia (the heroine), and at the same time, he indulges his lust in every beautiful woman who is easy to reach, and he is not ashamed, he thinks that his love for Sophia will not be diminished by these episodes." This typical "scumbag" performance.

　　I read a simplified version of Tom Jones in detail from Baidu Encyclopedia and learned about the characters. Indeed, tom Jones portrayed in the text is a very kind, righteous "scumbag". Most book reviews will write Tom Jones as "lively and energetic, although rash, reckless and impulsive, but sincere, bold, benevolent, open-minded, extremely compassionate, embodying a sound, kind, sincere "human nature", in line with "natural morality". "He will reflect on himself when he is thrown out of the house by his adoptive father; he will stand up when he encounters an uneven road; he will intercede for him when he finally drives away BuLifei, who framed him, and complains with virtue."

　　It is such a very positive role, in the face of emotions, there are still many shortcomings. For Fielding's view of experience is that "utter selflessness does not exist in human nature." "Complete selflessness is beautiful, and in Tom Jones there is a Mr. "All-In-One" who is too kind and somewhat distorted, as if it were complete selflessness, but this character, in Maugham's view, is also a failure to portray.

　　It cannot be found in life, so in some literary works it is the "ideal type" that the author and the reader want to create, but although Fielding does not believe that there is such a person, he still creates an almost perfect heroine Sophia, so that when we read, we can't help but have the emotion of "unworthy".

　　Maugham said that Fielding thought of his wife when he created the character, well, then I just don't quite understand the meaning of the brackets here (I'm afraid, it's also tortured). If Fielding is based on tom Jones, oh, his wife is really going to be "tortured."

　　At the end of the article, Maugham still gave a very high evaluation of "Tom Jones". "This is an epic depicting the healthy ordinary life of ordinary people, and it is full of realism and humanity."

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Following Maugham's advice to us to read novels— looking for books that interest me, I don't feel like the final plot of the book, and I would like to say that there are many works whose outlook on life is actually not quite in line with our current value orientation. While saying that I love you, while rolling the sheets with other people, this kind of performance is aggrieved for our heroine. Of course, it can also be said that the hero finally turned back to the prodigal son, and the heroine happy ending, just like the fairy tale, marriage is the end, is not a little idealized?

Of course, the different values do not prevent us from reading this novel well. Every earlier novel book was influenced by the social morality of the time, both good and bad.