The Adventures of Roderick Random - Tobias Smollett (week 3)

Roderick ("Rory") Random is a restless, rootless young rogue, bereft of social and financial support after his mother dies and his father is driven mad with grief. He subsists only on his skill, wit, charm, and (occasionally) unscrupulous behavior, trotting the globe as doctor, writer, soldier, or lover, as opportunity permits.

The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) is a preeminent example of the picaresque, a pre-novelistic genre depicting a satirical "struggle of an individual against a hostile society." Roderick's energetic adventures and misadventures cut a sordid cross-section through the 18th century, portraying a "slapstick hell" of high society and criminal underworlds, corruption, imperialism, sex, and slavery.

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) trained as a physician in Scotland, in the 18th century's global epicenter for medical education, and later became a surgeon in the Royal Navy. His work is famous for providing a candid "eyewitness" account of the reckless medicine, brutal discipline, criminal neglect, and horrendous press-gangs of the era. It invites direct comparison to Melville's White-Jacket and probably provided inspiration for that novel's character, Cadwallader Cuticle, M. D.

Schedule:

• Week 1 (Nov 8): Chapters 1-20
• Week 2 (Nov 15): Chapters 21-38
• Week 3 (Nov 29): Chapters 39-69

The Adventures of Roderick Random:

• Kindle
• Gutenberg
• Google books
• Librivox ~19h 9m

Extracts:

• "Sometimes we chatted, as well as we could, with the natives; and, one day—joy to us!—Po-Po brought in three volumes of Smollett’s novels, which had been found in the chest of a sailor, who some time previous had died on the island." (Omoo, 77)
• "... the sailor, who to-day steers the Hibernia or Unicorn steam-ship across the Atlantic, is a somewhat different man from the exaggerated sailors of Smollett..." (Redburn, 29)
• "These are the fellows that sing you 'The Bay of Biscay Oh!' and 'Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowling!' 'Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!'" (White-Jacket, 3)
• "Mark him, as he advances along the files of old ocean-warriors; mark his debased attitude, his deprecating gestures, his Sawney stare, like a Scotchman in London; his—"cry your merry, noble seignors!" He is wholly nonplussed, and confounded." (White-Jacket, 3)
• "But Cadwallader Cuticle, who, as yet, has been but incidentally alluded to, now deserves a chapter by himself." (White-Jacket, 60)

This meetup is part of the series Circuses and Snake Oil.