Classic By a New-To-You Author: Jonathan Wild

I read this book for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2018.

Jonathan Wild – Henry Fielding

Published in 1743, this short novel came between the massive texts of Joseph Andrews and Tom Jones. Loosely based on a historical mob kingpin, it tells the story of the title character whose family name is apt. He is wild in the sense of being unrestrained in the pursuit of his ends. He cheats, robs, commits fraud, sexually assaults, kills, and denounces henchmen so that they are executed. He is uncontrolled in that he in incapable of conceiving ways to his ends except by criminal means. He then jeers at people who have been weak enough to trust him and thus be taken to the cleaners. Critics says that Thackeray was inspired by this novel to write Barry Lyndon. But Barry is a schoolboy, a lovable rogue compared to the rapacious, disturbing Jonathan Wild.

Fielding’s message is that the same insatiable qualities that make a great thief are the same that go into making a great leader. His maxims call to mind Machiavelli. Examples are below and may be useful to those of us who work in large organizations.

2. To know no distinction of men from affection; but to sacrifice all with equal readiness to his interest.

4. Not to trust him who hath deceived you, nor who knows he hath been deceived by you.

7. To maintain a constant gravity in his countenance and behaviour, and to affect wisdom on all occasions.

12. That virtues, like precious stones, were easily counterfeited; that the counterfeits in both cases adorned the wearer equally, and that very few had knowledge or discernment sufficient to distinguish the counterfeit jewel from the real.

15. That the heart was the proper seat of hatred, and the countenance of affection and friendship.

I daresay readers will get the idea that the moral atmosphere of the novel is not what an unselfish person would describe as edifying or uplifting. But it’s not utterly lacking in positive examples. This, from a good soul abused by the title character:

Why, what can [reason’s] office be other than justly to weigh the worth of all things, and to direct us to that perfection of human wisdom which proportions our esteem of every object by its real merit, and prevents us from over or undervaluing whatever we hope for, we enjoy, or we lose. It doth not foolishly say to us, Be not glad, or, Be not sorry, which would be as vain and idle as to bid the purling river cease to run, or the raging wind to blow. It prevents us only from exulting, like children, when we receive a toy, or from lamenting when we are deprived of it. Suppose then I have lost the enjoyments of this world, and my expectation of future pleasure and profit is for ever disappointed, what relief can my reason afford? What, unless it can shew me I had fixed my affections on a toy; that what I desired was not, by a wise man, eagerly to be affected, nor its loss violently deplored?

A neat defense of reason, self-command and moderation, but Fielding’s ironic repetition of “great” to describe sleazy voracious narcissism beats the reader down, rather.

In fact, like another 18^th century writer Tobias Smollett, Fielding looks hard at our commonplace notions, such as “He may be a jerk crook and jackass, but he at least get things done.” And he poses the questions, why do so many people, otherwise smart and decent, get a kick out of rogues; is all our talk about honesty and fair-dealing merely talk;  what does a society look and feel like when a large percentage of its members could care less to distinguish right and wrong and laugh at people who fret about truth.

I like this, the first novel by Fielding I’ve ever read. I’d recommend it to readers that like unblinking surveys of this vale of tears. Whether I could handle Fieldings' dense prose for the thousand pages of Tom Jones is an open question.