I am a Victorianist, so I have no issues with reading texts many others find old or dull. However, I am beginning to think that some kind of switch was flipped around 1820 or so that made literature become good—presumably this was done by Jane Austen. This reminded me a lot of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (published a year later), in that it goes on and on and on and on without stopping. The focus on interiority that makes the novel the novel just isn't here yet, but even a lot of the dialogue comes in the form of reported summaries of conversations. It's like listening to someone tell you a story, only the teller is an older relative and they have no clear point and no clear direction and soon all you can do is nod politely and hope it doesn't go on too long. But of course it does. Fool me once, eighteenth-century picaresques,* shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Hopefully I am not fooled into picking up a third one.

* Everyone calls this book a picaresque, but David Blewett, editor of my Penguin Classics edition, goes to great pains in his introduction to establish that it's not one.

Disinherited by his grandfather, Roderick Random leaves Scotland for London to become a naval surgeon.

The novel was more interesting as a social document consciously and unconsciously revealing its period than as a story. I found a lot of it repetitive, especially parts that were obviously meant to be funny and probably were when it was published, but I can only take so many jokes involving somebody getting covered in piss or poo. ( )

orphan wanders Britain and finally discovers father and marries true love

Take the journey and find yourself immersed. Humor, soap. To another level. Sublime. ( )

Having read Peregrine Pickle, the novel Smollett wrote after this one, three years ago, I kind of realised that, like with Henderson and Herzog, I'd read these the wrong way around. Smollett made his name with Roderick Random and then went on to perfect his style with Peregrine in much the same way that Bellow did, not that I find Smollett anywhere near as engaging as Bellow.

If you've ever read any picaresque novels, you've read Roderick Random. Interminable japes lead to misunderstandings, wheezes, a dice with death or two and enough characters that Dickens, 100 years later, had no shortage of inspiration. There's nothing particularly new here for the modern day reader, and if you want to distract yourself for a few hours, there's no harm in it.

But, as with Peregrine, it does tend to go on a bit, although Peregrine goes on far, far longer than Roderick does. Plus there are some satirical and historical references that may fox our understanding today. The fact that the novel does travel overseas (or at least the characters literally do) means that there are some interesting diversions on the way.

So, an important book for literature and one with some distracting adventures, but not one I'd urge you to rush out and read. ( )