Henry Fielding is really one of those blessed people who can count themselves lucky since in Samuel Richardson he had found a man he could despise and abhor - or at least if he could not the man, then his works. When this spirit of enmity, abhorrence and scorn is felt by a man who can lay claim to intelligence and wit, instead of just hatred and physical power, inspiration is never far down the road.
This was also the case with Fielding and his novels "Shamela" and "Joseph Andrews", both of them meant as playful criticism of the epistolary novel "Pamela", which Fielding regarded not only as an awkward literary fashion but also as an instance of moral hypocrisy. I am not so sure whether Fielding, by writing "Joseph Andrews" can really be regarded as the creator of the intrusive narrator - as is stated in some reviews -, because I would venture to say that we can also meet this writing technique in Cervantes's "Don Quixote", whom Fielding explicitly names as a source of inspiration, but in the end, there is not a whole lot of things I am sure about.
Fielding tells the story of decent and coy young Joseph in the noblest and most honest of human intentions, the intention to mock and to deride. Resisting the determined attempts from both the widow of his former master, and her lady-servant at seducing him, Joseph Andrew is dismissed and thrown into the world. He decides to find back his true love, Fanny Goodwill, and to marry her. On his way, he meets the excellent parson Abraham Adams, who wants to sell some of his sermons, and both men now travel together. Before finding Fanny and rescuing her from the hands of some brutal highwaymen, Andrews and the cleric have to undergo a picaresque chain of adventures, and even afterwards, their tribulations do not come to an end, one of my personal favourite episodes being the heated meeting between the parsons Adams and Trulliber.
Their story is never to be taken completely seriously, yet at times there are more serious tones, and we can also read some tales of romance and unrequited love, but mostly the novel thrives on the hilarious incongruity of the trivial matters that are reported and the elaborate, epic style of the narration.
What you must give this 18th century masterpiece is a lot of time and contemplation, which is one of its special charms, as it dates from a time when people still were versed in the art of reading at leisure.