So much for my happy ending

I finally managed to read Tom Jones last Monday. It was a long read indeed, and sometimes I found the narrator's comments way too long. It took me two weeks to read this more than 700 page long volume. Actually, it consists of 18 "books," so I don't think it's unusual that it took me so long.
As for the book... I wasn't an English major student, so I'm absolutely lay and unauthorized in this field. I think I liked the book, especially its humor. The plot is something like Voltaire's Candide for me, a series of picaresque adventures, with characters appearing and re-appearing unexpectedly. Also our hero is a typical fellow of comedies in the sense that he always has some affair with a woman. But at the same time he has his own principles, so in this respect he's cleverer than Candide.

Tom Jones is an adopted child, or to use the then contemporary expression, a bastard. Nobody knows who his parents are until the very last part of the story. Mr Allworthy, a generous but somewhat naive squire finds the baby in his bed one night, and he treats him as a son of his own. An important turning point is that Tom has to leave this warm home because of all the mischieves he has done, and especially because of the way they are presented to Mr Allworthy by his cousin, Mr Blifil. Another important subplot is Tom's love towards Sophia Western, the beautiful and good-hearted daughter of the neighboring squire. This is a rather complicated story indeed, since Tom is often caught in flagranti. In the greater part of the book we follow Tom as he chases her Sofia from town to town. In the meantime, he meets beautiful madames, liars, beggars and all kinds of people who pop up in inns and on the road.
I think my favourite character (after Tom) was Squire Western, who is Sophia's father. He is a countryman, whose favourite pastimes include hunting and drinking. Nevertheless, he thinks he is worthier than all the lords and court-people. This fixture manifests itself in his discussion (or rather quarrels) with his sister, Mrs Western, who likewise thinks of herself as someone "who has seen the world," which she frequently shares with all the people she meets. Besides them I think the common people are quit funny as well. Here I'm referring to characters like those in Shakespeare's comedies, e.g. guards, thieves, etc. Two important common people in the story are Paltridge, Tom's partly servant, partly friend, and Mrs Honour, Sophia's maid. They both do and tell lots of stupid things but they are faithful to their masters, at least to the extent that their interest meets their masters' interests.
Fielding is also great with the language. All the characters have their peculiar ways of thinking and turns of phrase. The common people are also illustrated by their pronunciation and spelling. I really really liked Western's hunting metaphores and exclamations, e.g. Zounds!
What I didn't much like were the lots of prologues in each "book." Usually they were thoughts about literary issues, e.g. about narration. You know, the things that technically make a writer. I felt that these were addressed to the critics. Sometimes they were funny but I usually didn't care much about them, I wanted to follow the story.
Finally, let me add a few more expressions that frequently came up.

vociferous expressing your opinions or feelings in a loud and confident way
odious extremely unpleasant
sagacious showing good judgment and understanding
slut a woman who has many sexual partners

(See http://virezma.blogspot.com/2011/03/words-words-words.html for more)