First Novel Carries On the Tom Jones Tradition

Bob Coleman is puzzled by the notion that there may have been peril in what he has just done.

All he’s done is write a novel. Never mind that it is his first. Never mind that he chose to write of a time and place far removed from his own.

And never mind that he chose to write nothing less than a sequel to one of the masterpieces of English literature, Henry Fielding’s “The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.”

It is “an enterprise fraught with hazards too numerous to count,” wrote Kirkus Reviews--a sentiment shared by several other reviewers. By taking on such a classic, Coleman set himself up for comparison with one of the authors credited with inventing the English novel and opened himself up to the wrath of academics.

But Coleman was oblivious to the danger. “It’s probably because I’m extremely naive,” he said one recent afternoon. “I grow wiser slowly.”

Like his hero, Tom Jones, who blundered ahead ever-hopeful that truth and goodness would see him through, Coleman trusted himself. And like his hero, Coleman prevailed.

Reviewers have greeted Coleman’s “The Later Adventures of Tom Jones” (Linden Press: $15.95) with generous praise and only a few dissents. Kirkus Reviews--a national, influential publication--said Coleman “captures the wry, balanced, and tolerant voice of the great master so adroitly, that it’s hard to imagine Fielding himself less than pleased with the result.”

Fielding’s comic hero was last seen in 1749, about to begin living happily ever after with his beloved Sophia. Coleman picks up the story 25 years later, and Tom is now, alas, a widower. The year is 1774, and he is a restless middle-aged country squire anxious to embark upon a new set of adventures.

In a “bill of fare” presented in the book’s introduction, Coleman’s Fielding-esque narrator promises the reader “a main course of adventure, set off by various side-dishes such as philosophy, and comedy, and romance, all cunningly dressed and carefully served.” It is a tale in which the reader will find “virtue rewarded, villainy punished, and chastity treated as it deserves.”

Over the course of 345 pages, our hero’s new adventures take him from his pastoral Paradise Hall in Somersetshire to London, to France and even to the Old North Bridge in Concord, Mass., for a rather crucial event in American history.

Along the way he comes in contact with the likes of Dr. Samuel Johnson, Sir Edmund Burke, Ben Franklin, John Adams and John Hancock. As in the original novel, he engages in exploits daring, touching and, inevitably, passionate. Or, as Coleman’s somewhat disapproving narrator laments, “Mr. Jones’s heart was always extremely good; but so, alas, were all his organs.”

A Natural Topic

The subject was a natural for Coleman, who holds a doctorate in 18th-Century literature from the University of Washington and who wrote his dissertation on the works of Fielding. In fact, Coleman is a soft-spoken, unassuming, and optimistic young man who would be right at home in a Fielding novel.

“I find something hopeful about the 18th Century,” Coleman said, sipping coffee in a Mission Hills cafe. “It was an age when faith was placed in the individual. They didn’t believe society overwhelmed the individual.”

Coleman, 34, is a slight, dark-haired San Diego native who lives quietly with his parents in Mission Hills. He works with his father in a brokerage and consulting firm for small businesses, advising the proprietors and investors involved in travel agencies, restaurants and the like.

Slowly, he has been building a career as a writer, although his career seems to have progressed through misdirection. As a student at UC San Diego, he thought he would become a scientist, maybe a biochemist or possibly a doctor. But graduation requirements forced him to take a few humanities courses, and when he found himself quoting Shakespeare in his lab notes, he knew where his true interest lay.

While pursuing his doctorate at the University of Washington, he won a writing fellowship with a segment of a novel, even though he was not enrolled in the school’s writing program. In recent years he has written frequently on business topics, including a book, “The Small Business Survival Guide,” published in 1984.

At Work Again

Now he’s at work on a novel set in the 19th Century, and he has plans for one set in modern times. But his first published novel is as much the product of opportunity as it is of passion for the subject.

Once his business book was completed, Coleman said, he met with his agent to discuss future projects.

“We were just talking, and he was asking me if I had any literary ideas,” Coleman said. The discussion turned to a recently published book, “The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” which was receiving good reviews. They wondered if other classics might be ripe for the reworking.

“At some point we decided Tom Jones was the best book of the 18th Century, and that it cried out for a sequel. When it ends, Tom is just 19 years old, so there’s some room to work with.”

Coleman set to the task, and finished the novel seven months later.

Consensus of Reviews

If, as some reviewers have noted, it is not a fully realized epic like the original, the consensus of reviews so far is that it is a worthy successor. Reviewers have praised Coleman’s wit, his clever choice of new adventures, and his fidelity to the spirit of the original.

“I identified the things that typify his style, and I tried to get at least a flavor of each of them,” Coleman said.

There’s the mock-epic tone, and there’s a strong personal narrator who feels free to interrupt the action with his witty asides whenever he pleases. There are real old-fashioned villains, a plot full of coincidences and surprises, and Fielding’s providential view of events.

“Fielding was a rare combination,” Coleman said. “He was a moralist and an incredibly funny guy. He had the capacity to make us feel good about our fellow beings, and that’s a rare quality.”

And Fielding’s hero is “one of the all-time great comic characters,” Coleman said. He’s a man of great decency who is always seeking to do right, yet his own foibles and frailties at times make him his own worst enemy.

“The original book gives him a moral education,” he said. “This gives him a political one.”

But treading upon a classic, however lightly and respectfully, is bound to result in some backlash. Coleman was warned early on by Greg Matthews, author of “The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” to beware the wrath of academics protecting their turf.

Indeed, one literature professor has attacked Coleman for trifling with a classic that had been closed and settled for centuries. He found Coleman’s sequel more dangerous and distressing than all the Rambos and Rockys, and even art forgeries proliferating today. But his viewpoint is in the minority so far.

“I’ve been lucky,” Coleman acknowledged. “It’s the luck of the draw. In general I keep my fingers crossed about the reviews.”

Nevertheless, he remains somewhat puzzled about why resurrecting a classic might offend anyone.

“It didn’t occur to me that anyone would put in the time on something like this if they weren’t committed to their subject,” he said. “We seem to be in an age of exploitation, but I intended this as homage, and I hope it comes across that way.”

Besides, writers since the days of Shakespeare and even Chaucer have been reworking the tales of their predecessors. “It’s an honorable literary tradition,” he said. And he doesn’t really think Fielding would mind.

“I tried to respect his feelings,” Coleman said. “He might be shocked to see Tom turn up on the side of the Revolutionary forces; in fact, he might be spinning in his grave about that, but otherwise I’d hope he’d be pleased.”