The Way of All Flesh

This is a true story about me reading The Way of All Flesh. Remember how I once mentioned that I nerdily read in the elevator on the way home (for the whole two minute trip)? Well, I was reading this book on my way down one evening at my old job when an older man that I didn’t know turned to me and asked what I was reading (Modern Library version, so the cover is blank, you dig?). I smiled uncomfortably (I may be a book nerd, but I do recognize that it’s a little odd to read in the elevator when you only work on the thirteenth floor), and repeated the title. At which point the stranger asked, “Oh, is it erotic?” And I was totally speechless, turned bright red, and mumbled something like, “Oh no, no its about Victorian hypocrisy, furthest thing actually, etc.” until we reached the lobby. But seriously, that was an inappropriate question, right?* I don’t know if the guy was a client or a partner (he was definitely one or the other, since he was an older gentleman in a suit), so I couldn’t really say what I wanted to, which was something like “Excuse me?” or, you know, “Screw you, pal.” But either the guy was totally clueless, and tripped over his tongue, or he was totally boorish, and trying to make me uncomfortable. Which he succeeded at, at least for a bit. But you know, I quickly regained my composure, and, you know, women still get to be lawyers and work in law firms and have power, no matter what gross guys in the elevator say. So it’s more an interesting story than anything else.<br /><br />Certainly that anecdote is more interesting than, say, The Way of All Flesh. The story is supposed to be a scathing indictment of Victorianism, so much so that the author (who was famous in his lifetime for his satires and treatises) didn’t publish it in his lifetime. I am certain that at the time it was published that it spoke truths that had not been heard before, particularly about Victorian morality and parenting. The thing is, nowdays, the Victorians haven’t only been indicted, they’ve been tried and found guilty. We all think of them as stern, repressed, phony, over authoritative, etc. Lytton Strachey did his job well – we no longer really believe in Eminent Victorians. So that part of The Way of All Flesh no longer really shocks.<br /><br />Which leaves the story itself, a bildungsroman telling the story of Ernest Potifax. His tale includes bad overbearing parents, tough times at school, and a mistaken attempt to be a clergyman. There is an absolutely ridiculous passage where he is wrongfully arrested for sexual assault and spent six months in jail (I absolutely could not understand the charges – he seems to have been arrested for going into a woman’s room). Broke, he marries poorly, and then is saved when it turns out his wife was already married and he can jettison her (his children aren’t so lucky – he farms them out and doesn’t really give them a second thought). At twenty-eight he inherits a fortune (the reader knew this was coming, Ernest did not), and then retires into a life of quiet travel, research and writing. Perhaps the tale sounds interesting in the describing, but not so much in the reading. The reason is, I think, that Ernest is inherently uninteresting. He is the proverbial wet noodle. The narrator – Ernest’s godfather, and guardian of his fortune (and burlesque author!) is much more interesting – and, actually he is the one who does most of the scathing and indicting. I wish I’d read his story! As it is, Ernest flounders from one mistake to another, trying on different philosophies and experiences, and finally, decides to retire from public life entirely and write his books. Hardly a triumphant choice. The point is, without the scandal of the critique of the times, the plot was sort of dull. Well written, but dull.<br /><br />*And seriously, who reads an erotic book at work??

Why is this novel not a better known classic? Granted it is slow and not much happens in terms of an excitable story. And the characters are not exactly endearing. It is altogether very ordinary. But this is the genius in it. I am sure this is why he is not up there on the lists with Hardy, Dickens, Austen or Eliot. <br /><br />Butler does not over embellish his plot, nor create exuberant colourful characters. He is interested in exposing and probing into every day Victorian society. He is unapologetic in his characterisation and his critique of some big ticket (and very touchy subjects for the time) – notably the elitism and hypocrisy of both the church and the higher education system. <br /><br />Oh, and the institution of marriage. He shows that none of these ‘expected’ things secure the way to a happier or more prosperous life – indeed, they most often send our protagonist backward, or falling on his face, and cause more misery than success or happiness.<br /><br />Much of Butler’s purpose is instinctive, rather than relying on or espousing empirical knowledge or theoretical concepts….“we must judge men not so much by what they do, as by what they make us feel that they have it in them to do.” Consequently, his parody of Oxford learning and clerical processes is both comical, accurate but also so incredibly ahead of its time – no wonder he was ‘knocked on the head’ as an author – he was dealing quite roughly with very very touchy, no-go subjects! ‘There are two classes of people in this world, those who sin, and those who are sinned against; if a man must belong to either, he had better belong to the first than to the second.’ Ha, I rest my case.<br /><br />I really enjoyed the comic tone of Butler’s writing – his language is exquisite, and sometimes the comedy is quite latent, which makes it all the more enjoyable. ‘No boy can resist being fed well by a good-natured and still handsome woman. Boys are very like nice dogs in this respect — give them a bone and they will like you at once…’ and ‘Truth might be heroic, but it was not within the range of practical domestic politics.’<br /><br />It is very much a book about resilience and the value of making mistakes, sometimes more than once, in order to learn and gain strength of character. ‘ Adversity, if a man is set down to it by degrees, is more supportable with equanimity by most people than any great prosperity arrived at in a single lifetime.’ And our often exasperating protagonist, Ernest, certainly has his fair share of hardships – many of which he brings on himself I may add! And he falls in his own traps more than once, mistakes are made again and again until eventually he ‘grows up’ and takes stock of his decision making and harnessing his own happiness.<br /><br />It is also about the importance of optimism in the face of adversity – for ‘he who does not consider himself fortunate is unfortunate…’ I feel like this passage sums up Butler’s message perfectly, and how true he speaks – ‘Being in this world is it not our most obvious business to make the most of it — to observe what things do bona fide tend to long life and comfort, and to act accordingly? All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it — and they do enjoy it as much as man and other circumstances will allow…’<br />

I've read this book at least 5 times and I always come back to it. It has seemed to have something unique to say to me no matter what age I am when I read it. I first read it in my Freshman year of college and there were very few of us who really liked it. I couldn't understand why at the time, but I think I do now.<br /><br />The book is very introspective and if you are looking for some kind of action or plot, this isn't the book for you. The main action takes place in the character's minds. Butler takes his main character and gives him an upbringing that is deplorable and then uses the rest of the book showing how Ernest works through the hand life has dealt him. I found some profound statements on the process of education and the effect on the young...things that are just as present today as in the 1700's. <br /><br />This book is a wonderful book to take on a vacation when you have time to sit and ponder on Butler's ideas and relate them to your own life. I've read this at just about every major stage of life and learned something different each time.

A semi-biographical story of four generations of the Pontifex family by <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/72703.Samuel_Butler" title="Samuel Butler" rel="noopener">Samuel Butler</a>, that he only allowed to be published after his death that takes apart Victorian society focusing on the unrelenting hypocrisy of, in this case the monied religious family focusing on the detrimental effects of patriarchy and how they fed down from generation to generation. Although technically a classic, this sits better as historical fiction as it reads well, but was a lot of hard work to get through.<br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1645144308ra/32587177.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br>This could be a really useful historical record and was lauded by <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/3706.George_Orwell" title="George Orwell" rel="noopener">George Orwell</a>:<br>"A great book because it gives an honest picture of the relationship between father and son, and it could do that because Butler was a truly independent observer, and above all because he was courageous. He would say things that other people knew but didn't dare to say. And finally there was his clear, simple, straightforward way of writing, never using a long word where a short one will do."<br><br>And <a href="https://goodreads.com/author/show/81466.A_A__Milne" title="A.A. Milne" rel="noopener">A.A. Milne</a>:<br>"Once upon a time I discovered Samuel Butler; not the other two, but the one who wrote The Way of All Flesh, the second-best novel in the English language".<br><br>Alas for me it's a 5 out of 12 Two Star read, but one that should be on everyone's top 100 Victorian novels.<br><img src="https://images.gr-assets.com/hostedimages/1645144308ra/32587176.gif" class="gr-hostedUserImg" loading="lazy"><br><b>2022 read</b>

Άλλο ένα αριστούργημα το οποίο σου δημιουργεί θλίψη για τα σημερινά ...αριστουργήματα που κυκλοφορούν κατά δεκάδες. Δεν περιγράφει αλλά διεισδύει στους χαρακτήρες, στη διάπλαση τους, στην εξέλιξη τους αναδεικνύοντας τις κρυφές αυτές λεπτομέρειες της ψυχοσύνθεσης των πρωταγωνιστούν που δύσκολα γραφίδες της εποχής μου έχουν την δυνατότητα. Ίσως έφτασε η εποχή που καλόν είναι να διαβάζουμε τέτοια βιβλία ανακαλύπτοντας και πάλι την αίσθηση του καλού βιβλίου. <br />Έχουν βέβαια ένα ελάττωμα. Δεν διαθέτουν καλό μάρκετινγκ...Τα ακολουθεί μόνο η φήμη τους!<br />ΤΟ ΞΑΝΑΔΙΑΒΑΣΑ και το ΞΑΝΑΕΥΧΑΡΙΣΤΗΘΗΚΑ!

<a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/126512.The_Way_of_All_Flesh" title="The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler" rel="noopener">The Way of All Flesh</a> is the anti-Victorian novel. In the clergyman’s house the daughters play cards to determine which of them will get to marry the single suitor lured in through the front door <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="1b3050d6-f768-43e9-9a4c-a0d098186506" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="1b3050d6-f768-43e9-9a4c-a0d098186506">and England expects every man to do his duty in luring him in no matter how far Jane Austen turns round in her grave</label>, there is no weeping round the death bed <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="b61bad4f-96c0-4ac8-a5a9-3c5afe577723" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="b61bad4f-96c0-4ac8-a5a9-3c5afe577723"> in a lovely moment the children of George Pontifex compose the following epitaph for him, pregnant with double meaning: <br />"HE NOW LIES AWAITING A JOYFUL RESURRECTION<br />AT THE LAST DAY.<br />WHAT MANNER OF MAN HE WAS<br />THAT DAY WILL DISCOVER." (p110)<br /></label>, just a sincere wish for the end to hurry up now, and the hero does get to marry his childhood sweet heart but since she has become by that time an alcoholic, it is lucky the union turns out to have been bigamous <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="74265fe2-ea5c-4f9e-95a5-b3b07ec92148" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="74265fe2-ea5c-4f9e-95a5-b3b07ec92148"> apart from for the children who thereby become bastards, still no omelettes without breaking eggs and all that…</label>.<br /><br />Wealth ruins people <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="495d28f1-f3ae-4d30-9cd7-2bcf4c2de235" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="495d28f1-f3ae-4d30-9cd7-2bcf4c2de235"> unless invested in railway shares for ever, ideally with the same company, other forms of investment may lead to your being swindled by an almost Catholic deacon and certainly losing money in any case</label>, the family is a torture chamber ruled by a domestic tyrant in which one generation’s torments can be passed on to the next, the world of music has been inexorably going downhill since the death of Handel, and the Church is ably served by men such as Theodore Pontifex who succeeds in petrifying an elderly parishioner into hiding under her bed clothes with the fear of hellfire when she had been only a little frightened of dying and in need of some gentle handholding.<br /><br />This along with <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/98935.Father_and_Son" title="Father and Son by Edmund Gosse" rel="noopener">Father and Son</a> was recommended to me, by my history teacher if I remember correctly, when I was about sixteen. They are both great statements of opposition to Victorian ideals and how to survive the Victorian family. At the time I first read was a little after Mrs T <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="9d2a613c-2080-42f9-a76f-a03156b72657" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="9d2a613c-2080-42f9-a76f-a03156b72657"> in my imagination the estranged wife of Mr T on account of her not being prepared to even pity a fool</label> had spoken out in favour of Victorian values - plainly as is often the case with very little idea about Victorian values actually were but assuming that they were as demonstrated here, uncontroversially a good thing. <br /><br />For Butler those values were bullying, swindling, pride, boasting, flogging your children, and the reading of arbitrary Bible passages <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="90f5a52e-f5a3-4eb3-92da-8fcd9a02696b" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="90f5a52e-f5a3-4eb3-92da-8fcd9a02696b"> as well as investing in railway shares if you were wise</label>. Edmund Gosse’s experience, as far as I remember, was written with more sadness at the gulf between father and son but anger flavours Butler’s interpretation and understanding of his family relationships.<br /><br />Not so much as Bildungsroman as a Verderbensroman, the spirit of Rousseau rather than of Darwin breathes across its pages. Everything starts off well with the Great-grandfather, but is horribly warped by the Grandfather’s worldly success. You are born innocent, in this view, with a natural desire for a penny loaf, which feelings are flogged out of you by the dual action of a tyrannous father and prolonged schooling in pomposity and priggishness. If the process is conducted correctly you will be suitable for no productive role in society and instead fit to minister in the Church of England <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="46185453-a023-4a56-9686-c2ca48ffdac3" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="46185453-a023-4a56-9686-c2ca48ffdac3">other churches are available I am told</label>. Rousseau is also apparent in the hero farming out his children at a pound a week to a bargeman’s family to bring up, ideally as illiterates, which makes the boy into an excellent steamboat captain and the girl into a good housewife <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="8634c411-ccb7-497d-bea0-9adf50097452" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="8634c411-ccb7-497d-bea0-9adf50097452"> there are limits, it appears, to Butler’s disenchantment with the social norms of his day, though a maiden aunt is a positive figure <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="0af362d9-c7e6-4bc1-8cd1-bf9846199dc0" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="0af362d9-c7e6-4bc1-8cd1-bf9846199dc0">she invests in railway shares</label></label>. Well, it is a Bildungsroman, but one in which schooling is not an educational process. Instead prison, the zoo <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="e552a406-3bca-417c-993f-d106018dccdd" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="e552a406-3bca-417c-993f-d106018dccdd"> but not if you go to see the lions, reptiles or monkeys, obviously! <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="f269b2c4-13bb-459f-9861-56fc0ef34d6e" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="f269b2c4-13bb-459f-9861-56fc0ef34d6e"> but not because of their attitude to railway shares</label></label>, and relations with the opposite sex perform that function, life is education.<br /><br />Edmund Gosse’s memoir, <i>Father and Son</i>, works, I feel, better. The fictionalisation of Butler's own experience creates an awkwardness in this book, which the on and off process of writing for a long period during his life only emphasises, and in the end the book was published posthumously. It is successful, maybe too successful, in conjuring up a narrow, crushing, family atmosphere in which parent envy their children’s success and desire nothing more than to keep them smaller than themselves, and ideally in a position in which they can give them a good kicking periodically. but also Butler wants to have his penny loaf and eat it. The past represented by the craftsmanship of the Great-Grandfather is good <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="d347c969-2030-4b01-919d-264aa7017e41" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="d347c969-2030-4b01-919d-264aa7017e41"> and this is the type of Victorian novel that starts with the hero’s great grandfather so you can properly understand where he is coming from, like a Zola saga condensed into a single volume</label>, but railway shares make the modern world better. In a moment reminiscent of – and for all I know inspired by - a scene in <a href="https://goodreads.com/book/show/825901.Under_the_Greenwood_Tree" title="Under the Greenwood Tree by Thomas Hardy" rel="noopener">Under the Greenwood Tree</a> there’s a lament for the passing of the old church music and the bawling out of the old hymns, but equally the past isn’t completely idolised <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="9354d073-ec11-49e9-9a7a-0b7b066f350b" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="9354d073-ec11-49e9-9a7a-0b7b066f350b"> with the exception of Georg Friedrich Handel</label> since the ploughmen of earlier times are vacant, made more animal than human by their daily grind unlike the next generation of farming folk who have the time and energy to gossip. <br /><br />In my memory the book was more of a struggle against evangelicalism, but rereading, the precise nature of the faith is irrelevant, in fact we even see Theobald’s religious practice moves from being more low church to higher church <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="accfe154-ecff-471b-bdb3-e417b9fac582" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="accfe154-ecff-471b-bdb3-e417b9fac582"> ie from something almost Protestant to practically Roman Catholic</label> under the influence of his daughter and wife <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="1adc6040-e080-4d38-aed3-dda335068f8f" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="1adc6040-e080-4d38-aed3-dda335068f8f"> themselves under the influence of others</label>. Instead the book is a brick through the shop window of the conventional and a raising of the Jolly Roger against all ships that sail the seas of social norms <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="08071f19-07bf-4ff6-b575-c3b68209a33a" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="08071f19-07bf-4ff6-b575-c3b68209a33a"> and by ‘brick’ I don’t mean to imply that it is particularly well written despite some funny sentences <input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="9aa0cc07-a086-4a16-a3dc-b7d0e146739d" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="9aa0cc07-a086-4a16-a3dc-b7d0e146739d">and good advice in regards to railway shares</label></label>.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><input type="checkbox" class="spoiler__control" aria-label="The following text has been marked spoiler. Toggle checkbox to reveal or hide." onchange="this.labels[0].setAttribute('aria-hidden', !this.checked);" id="1b47a1c8-db39-473c-8a19-0718cfa43785" /><label aria-hidden="true" class="spoiler" for="1b47a1c8-db39-473c-8a19-0718cfa43785"> I had lent this book to my Mum and much to my surprise and despite the passage of many years she still hasn't traded it in for some railway shares, which is the normal way of all books</label>

... δεν είναι άλλη, παρά εκείνη της λογοτεχνίας. <br />Η ανθρώπινη κατάσταση, όπως ξεδιπλώνεται αβίαστα μέσα από την πένα ενός μεγάλου συγγραφέα. <br />Χρώμα πάνω στο χρώμα, ένας καμβάς ζωντανός, ολόφρεσκος, όπως την ημέρα εκείνη που ο δημιουργός του τον παρέδωσε στην αιωνιότητα. <br />Ο μεν βίος βραχύς, η δε τέχνη μακρά.

There's a poem by Kahlil Gibran which goes like this:<br /><br /><br />"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.<br />You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, 
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.<br />You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, 
and He bends you with His might 
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, 
so He loves also the bow that is stable."<br /><br />Had Samuel Butler's parents known this poem and took it to heart he would not have found the inspiration to write this semi-autobiographical novel where, in one passage, the principal protagonist Ernest Pontifex, as he was about to get out of prison, felt the dread of meeting his parents after a long time and then the narrator continuing--<br /><br />"...There, sure enough, standing at the end of the table nearest the door were the two people whom he regarded as the most dangerous enemies he had in all the world--his father and mother."<br /><br />It is a very common parental mistake even nowadays, almost always by parents who have had successes in their careers or had built great wealth: they think their children are like them and that they own them. So when these creatures of their loins, seemingly like wayward arrows hit piles of dung on the ground instead of the lofty trees they had targeted, they gnash their teeth in anger and despair and their children, seeing their reaction, either undertake a rebellion or carry their burden of self-pity, unworthiness and defeat all their lives.<br /><br />A recommended reading for those who have, or have had, problems with their parents along this line or are parents like these themselves (according to their children).

"Η κοινή ανθρώπινη μοίρα" <br /><br />Ένα βιβλίο που φτάνοντας στη μέση ��ου με προβλημάτισε. Όντας αποστασιοποιημένη από θρησκευτικές ιδεολογίες οφείλω να ομολογήσω πως με κούρασε κ με εκνεύρισε. Όμως, προχωρώντας την ανάγνωσή του κ δίνοντάς του χώρο, διαπίστωσα πως πρόκειται για κάτι παραπάνω. Σαφέστατα υπάρχουν αναφορές στην τότε Αγγλική εκκλησιαστική κοινωνία κ νοοτροπία αλλά ο συγγραφέας δεν εστιάζει εκεί. Τουναντίον όλη η αφήγηση που γίνεται από το νονό του ήρωα αποτελεί μια ψυχοθεραπεία, μια αναζήτηση, μια διαδικασία εσωτερικής διάπλασης κ ενδυνάμωσης. <br /><br />Ο ήρωας, γιος κληρικού, ζει περιορισμένος κ αναγκασμένος να ακολουθήσει την πορεία του πατέρα του, παρά τη θέλησή του. Ο στόχος είναι να αφιερωθεί στο θεό. Οι επιλογές των παιδιών ήταν άρρηκτα συνυφασμένες με τις επιθυμίες των γονέων. Δυστυχώς! Μέσα από μια συνεχόμενη προσπάθεια, περιπέτειες, γεγονότα, ο ήρωας "ξυπνάει" κ βρίσκει το δρόμο του. Απελευθερώνεται από τα οικογενειακά δεσμά! Δραπετεύει, από τον πατρικό κυρίως, εξαναγκασμό. Δε φοβάται να αντιταχθεί στα στερεότυπα της εποχής.<br /><br />Κάθε επιλογή όμως, επιφέρει συνέπειες κ τη δεδομένη στιγμή ο ήρωας θα τις βιώσει... <br /><br />Ένα βιβλίο που χρήζει υπομονής κ επιμονής αλλά κυρίως αναγνωστικής αναζήτησης. ??

Τί απολαυστικότερο για τον αναγνώστη να έρχεται σε επαφή με ένα κείμενο που γράφτηκε τον 19ο αιώνα αλλά να νιώθει σα να γράφτηκε χτες. Το απόλαυσα απ αρχής μέχρι τέλους. Το καυστικό χιούμορ και η διάχυτη ειρωνεία στιλιτεύουν με μαεστρία την κοινωνία της Αγγλίας τότε. Προτείνεται ανεπιφύλακτα!!!