Roderick Random

Pretty funny so far, always surprised when old books are so bawdy. Within the first 30 pages, our hero is a thief, a gambler, a brawler, a bully, gets a housemaid pregnant and then conspires to blame the parentage on his boss (who is to be fair, equally likely to be the father).

I think even though I know better, I still basically have core idea that ‘performed morality increases as you go backwards in time’, which feels like it roughly holds true in literature as you go back to the Victorians / middle 1800s. But it’s definitely not true across the rest of time farther back; just look at Laurence Sterne! Still a shock to go from the upright citizens of Trollope and Dickens to this kind of stuff in 1748. Like, the author looks like a Founding Father with his wig and cravat!

Noted on August 8, 2023

Also Random orders a drink called a pop-in, a shot of brandy dunked in ale. That’s a proto-boilermaker, right?

Noted on August 8, 2023