Wildly popular satirical novel of the Victorian era. Probably best left to students/devotees of the literature of the era, because who else would really care about a satire of the pop novel of the time? Yet it can still be read with some enjoyment today, with similarities to the Book of Job and to Voltaire's Candide noted, and a sense of why this was one of Dickens's favorite novels.

The first half seems considerably stronger than the second; it possesses a light tone and some quite comic scenes poking fun at the characters - one involving a commissioned painting of the "humble" family is pure gold. The second half however swings wildly about, with long harangues on the political merits of monarchy and the problem of prison reform seeming like they were shoved in from elsewhere to bulk up the book, before the soap opera-ish grand finale in a prison cell, where a disguise is removed, one thought dead is returned, a love thought lost is restored, a villain receives his comeuppance, yada yada yada.

( )

Three and a half stars. The second half was better than the first -- after the first half, the influence on Little Women became quite clear to me.
What I like about this book is that it invites the reader to reflect on the possibility of happiness in extremely difficult circumstances, just like War and Peace does. ( )

I was a bit surprised to learn that there was a debate over whether or not this 1766 Goldsmith novel is a satire. I think if it is read as anything other than a satire, its import is lost. The humor hidden just beneath the surface is the only thing I can imagine would have garnered it its popularity or held its recognition over the years. It was very popular in the 19th Century and has reportedly influenced many writers.

The Vicar is a sanguine character, who grabs the silver lining from cloud after cloud. He’d tell you that glass is half full and then say it was more than one body needed and give part of it away to his fellow man. He seems a little naive with today’s vision, but he cares far more about honor and integrity than money or position, and we could use a few more of his ilk, I think.

Goldsmith made me laugh more than once with his dry humor, i.e.

However, when any one of our relations was found to be a person of very bad character, a troublesome guest, or one we desired to get rid of, upon his leaving my house, I ever took care to lend him a riding coat, or a pair of boots, or sometimes a horse of small value, and I always had the satisfaction of finding he never came back to return them.

Or, in a longer passage, one of the characters embarks to Holland where he means to earn his living by teaching English to the Dutch. I addressed myself therefore to two or three of those I met whose appearance seemed most promising but it was impossible to make ourselves mutually understood. It was not till this very moment I recollected, that in order to teach Dutchmen English, it was necessary that they should first teach me Dutch. How I came to overlook so obvious an objection, is to me amazing; but certain it is I overlooked it.

Tell me you didn’t nod a little and smile.

The plot is thin and full of cliches. In a modern writer, I would toss it out the window, but somehow its date and language make it very palatable. There is some sermonizing (what would you expect from a book written in the 1700s?), but again, I didn’t find it objectionable and actually thought many of his ideas well ahead of his time. He pressed for reform efforts instead of punishment for minor crimes and decried a system in which two crimes, dissimilar in nature, such as murder and theft, often received the same punishment, death by hanging.

But a contract that is false between two men, is equally so between an hundred, or an hundred thousand; for as ten millions of circles can never make a square, so the united voice of myriads cannot lend the smallest foundation to falsehood.

I was struck by the wisdom of that statement and how it applies, perhaps even more, to us in this day of mass media. The truth can be buried beneath so many lies that it seems to disappear, but the lies will never be the truth, no matter how many times they are repeated.

I found this book easy to read and mostly fun to watch unfold. It was pretty predictable, but that is because subsequent authors have used the same intrigues since. I caught glimpses of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, and had to remind myself that Goldsmith predated them all. ( )

From Wikipedia; subtitled A Tale, Supposed to be written by Himself – is a novel by Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774). It was written from 1761 to 1762 and published in 1766. It was one of the most popular and widely read 18th-century novels among Victorians. I thought I had read this, but so long ago I could not even begin to tell you what it might be about, so I put it on my tbr takedown list for 2021 and now that I've read it, I still can't say whether I read it before. It is a tale written by (supposedly) the vicar himself that relates his idyllic life as vicar, his family, and the mishaps they experience. The history of how it come to be published (to pay rent) is interesting indeed. It was sold to Francis Newberry (relative of John Newberry) and went unpublished until 1766. STructure includes some poetry, some sermons, and fables. It is a fictitious memoir as it is supposedly written by the vicar himself. The novel supports the basic goodness of man and also a satire on the sentimental novel. There is similarity to Job's difficulties in the book of Job (Holy Bible). The novel is mentioned in George Eliot's Middlemarch, Stendhal's The Life of Henry Brulard, Arthur Schopenhauer's "The Art of Being Right", Jane Austen's Emma, Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and David Copperfield, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Sarah Grand's The Heavenly Twins, Charlotte Brontë's The Professor and Villette, Louisa May Alcott's Little Women and in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther, as well as his Dichtung und Wahrheit. It is on several lists including; 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and The Guardian's 1001 Novel's Everyone Must Read, ( )

I am torn about this one - yes, it is a classic, and I have the feeling that without it, Austen would not have been possible (at least not the way we know her). But the characters appear uneven (well, there is really only one character, everyone else is pretty one-dimensional), and while there are nuggets of social commentary, one also has to wonder how that character can get to that particular realization.
So, is it just an overwritten Job version or do we see some real development? I think the first. ( )