The Long Form

Helen and her young baby, Rose, are awake. It is first thing on a new morning. They move, they rest, they communicate; Rose feeds. Thoughts and associations travel far beyond the remit of the front room in their rented flat, which they pace, and which, alive with them, continually becomes new. Their delicate balance is interrupted by the delivery of A History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding – a novel which describes itself, semi-seriously, as inventing the novel-form for the very first time. As the morning progresses, Helen starts reading it. Indirectly, and each in their own distinct ways, Helen and Rose start thinking about it: its claims to newness, its length, its essayistic digressions, its invitation to imagine old and new forms of life, writing, and experience...