Life in the woods Book

As you probably already know, this book is narrated by an immortal atom living in the pineal gland of an eighteenth-century London haberdasher, who dictates the story of his life in eighth-century Japan, back when he lived in the butt of a Japanese official and consequently was "privy" to affairs of state. The story he tells is a thinly veiled allegory for the (then-contemporary) Seven Years War, with Japan=Britain, China=France, etc.

The result is as weird as you imagine. Unless you have a doctorate in eighteenth century politics, you'll probably want an edition with extensive notes (e.g. this one) to understand the barest amount of what's going on; even with notes, the book is difficult to read because for every character you must remember 1. a long and absurd pseudo-Japanese name and 2. a "real world" equivalent, whose name and function is only occasionally familiar to a layman.

When it works (which is not so very often) though, the book offers wonderful examples of grotesquery:

"He put them upon a diet of yeast; where this did not agree with the stomach, he employed his emissaries to blow up the patients à posteriori…The individuals thus inflated were seen swaggering about the streets, smooth and round, and sleek and jolly…"

or absurdity:

"[After the death of a commander] 'Tis an ill wind that blows nobody good:'the same disaster that deprived him of a good officer, afforded him the opportunity to shift the blame of neglect from his own shoulders to those of a person who could not answer for himself."

Smollett makes a pretty good attempt to out-Rabelais Rabelais by throwing in ludicrous erudition mixed with nonstop scatology; but the very specific local interest of much of the allegory keeps it from hitting the Gargantuan heights. More a curiosity with flashes of brilliance than a must-read.