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Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh follows four generations of the Pontifex family. The novel is semi-autobiographical and attacks the hypocrisy that was characteristic in the Victorian era. It was written between 1873 and 1884, but Butler didn't risk publishing it in his life - it was instead finally released a year after Butler's death, in 1903.
nessreader: Way of all flesh is a novel about monster victorian sanctimonious paterfamilias; Life of Mary Benson is about a real one, her husband the archbishop of canterbury. Both books are hilarity-propelled rants that are in the end touching.
De roman neemt een aanvang drie generaties voor de geboorte van de hoofdpersoon Ernest Pontifex, bij overgrootvader John. Diens enige zoon George kan goed leren en wordt op zijn vijftiende ingelijfd bij de religieuze uitgeverij van een oom in Londen, waar hij zich als gewiekst zakenman ontpopt en later alles erft. George's jongste zoon Theobald, het tegendeel van een veelbelovende zakenman, moet dan maar dominee worden, vooraf te gaan door het behalen van een doctorstitel aan Cambridge. Datzelfde lot wacht Theobalds oudste zoon Ernest, die vanaf de wieg gebukt gaat onder een agressieve, verbitterde maar buiten de deur o zo rechtschapen vader. In deze geschiedenis, verteld door de peetvader van de held, worden de bedenkelijke motieven, uitingen en gedragingen van de meeste betrokkenen met bijtende spot neergezet, opgeluisterd door hilarische innerlijke monologen. De roman The Way of All Flesh werd in 1998 door de grote Amerikaanse uitgever Modern Library gerangschikt als twaalfde op de lijst van 100 beste Engelstalige romans van de twintigste eeuw.
Love it. Remarkable that a man can make such cold, heartless observations and still create characters that one loves and misses when they are gone. There is one image from the beginning of this book that will stay with me for the rest of my life. I even sat and read passages aloud to Megan so that someone else could enjoy them as much as I did. ( )
FROM BARNES & NOBLE: Written between 1873 and 1884 and published posthumously in 1903, The Way of All Flesh is regarded by some as the first twentieth-century novel. Samuel Butler's autobiographical account of a harsh upbringing and troubled adulthood shines an iconoclastic light on the hypocrisy of a Victorian clerical family's domestic life. It also foreshadows the crumbling of nineteenth-century bourgeois ideals in the aftermath of the First World War, as well as the ways in which succeeding generations have questioned conventional values.
I don't know what I thought this book would be about from the title; I thought it could have been about the will being weaker than the flesh. It's not about that --it's about a boy whose father was a clergyman in England, and who of course shoved all his hypocritical beliefs down his throat, along with his mother. The boy, because of a family friend and his aunt Alethea, ends up having his eyes opened to reality as to his father and mother, and to the teachings of his religion. I loved that Butler shows the Bible's story of Jesus' resurrection to be malarkey. if you are like me and was brainwashed by the (Catholic) Church, you know what a battle it is to unbrainwashed yourself and open your eyes. I could have used well this book years ago, but maybe it will do it's good work to other minds that need enlightening. ( )
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God.
—Rom. viii.28
Dedicatória
Primeiras palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
When I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I remember an old man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who used to hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick. He must have been getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlier than which date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was born in 1802.
Citações
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.
it seems to me that youth is like spring, an overpraised season - delightful if it happen to be a favourable one, but in practice rarely favoured and more remarkable, as a general rule, for biting east winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers, we more than gain in fruits. (Chapter VI)
A pair of lovers are like sunset and sunrise: there are such things every day but we very seldom see them. (Chapter XI)
The devil, in fact, when he dresses himself in angel's clothes, can only be detected by experts of exceptional skill, and so often does he adopt this disguise that it is hardly safe to be seen talking to an angel at all. (Chapter XIX)
those who are happy in this world are better and more lovable people than those who are not (Chapter XXVI)
Having, then, once introduced an element of inconsistency into his system, he was far too consistent not to be inconsistent consistently... (Chapter LXVIII)
For a long time, as I said, his choice of subjects continued to be such as I could not approve. He was continually studying scientific and metaphysical writers, in the hope of either finding or making for himself a philosopher's stone in the shape of a system which should go on all fours under all circumstances, instead of being liable to be upset at every touch and turn, as every system yet promulgated has turned out to be. [...] having found out that no system based on absolute certainty was possible, he was contented. (Chapter LXXIII)
For my own part, I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided on is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better. (Chapter LXXX)
It is in the uncompromisingness with which dogma is held and not in the dogma or want of dogma that the danger lies. (Chapter LXVIII)
Últimas palavras
Informação do Conhecimento Comum em inglês.Edite para a localizar na sua língua.
His father and grandfather could probably no more understand his state of mind than they could understand Chinese, but those who know him intimately do not know that they wish him greatly different from what he actually is.
Samuel Butler's The Way of All Flesh follows four generations of the Pontifex family. The novel is semi-autobiographical and attacks the hypocrisy that was characteristic in the Victorian era. It was written between 1873 and 1884, but Butler didn't risk publishing it in his life - it was instead finally released a year after Butler's death, in 1903.
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