Review of Samuel Butler’s the Way of All Flesh
As part of my goal to read as many of the world’s greatest classic works of literature as I can before I go on to the next world, I have been working my way through classic books.
One of the books, I recently read was Butler, Samuel: “The Way of All Flesh.”
This book, written in the 19th century is a novel about four generations of the fictional Pontifex family. The author grew up with the family as they were from the same town in northern England. The author becomes particularly close with the grandson Earnest and becomes his Godfather, mentor, best friend, and guardian.
Co-pilot provided the following overview.
“The novel draws on Butler’s own life experiences and examines the transmission of Victorian values from one generation to the next.
First Generation: “Old” John Pontifex
John Pontifex, a gentle and artistically gifted carpenter in the village of Pelham, England, marries Ruth. Their son, George, becomes a successful publisher of religious texts.
Commentary: the only Pontifex that seems to have been relatively content with his life.
Second Generation: George Pontifex
George marries and has several children, including Theobald. Theobald becomes a clergyman and marries Christina Allaby.
Commentary: George Pontifex grows up in a religious family but ultimately does not enter the Church but becomes a publisher of Christian books and is well known in the Christian ministries of the time. He pressures his son Theobold to become a minister or risk his inheritance. He is a horrible father, mistreating his children, and his wife, but considers himself to a paragon of Christian virtue.
Third Generation: Theobald and Christina
They raise their children—Ernest, Charlotte, and Joey—in a strict religious environment. Ernest, the central character, attends a boarding school but struggles academically and morally.
Comment: Theobald becomes even more of a tyrant and terror to his children than his own father had been to him. He is determined to beat down any hint of rebellion or independence amongst his children who must obey his every dictate. His wife, tries to mollify his worst parenting instincts. Like his father, he considered himself to be a paragon of religious virtue and had no patience with “dissent” or “Roman Catholicism’
Fourth Generation: Ernest
Ernest’s life takes unexpected turns, including a secret inheritance from his aunt Alethea. His marriage to Ellen, a housemaid, becomes complicated.
Comment: His marriage is indeed complicated as his wife it turned out, was an alcoholic and married to another man so technically thier marriage was considered to be illegitimate, He is left with two children to raise and he finds a home for them. His wife runs off to America with one of her numerous boyfriends. His parents eventually forgive Earnest’s “marriage” as they saw him as a victim of an evil woman which in some sense he was.
Fifth Generation: Alice and Georgie The story continues with Ernest’s illegitimate children, Alice and Georgie. Earnest struggles with what to do about their upbringing and finds a home for them through the help of his Godfather, who was his father’s best friend. despite having a falling out with him over how he was treating his children.
Comment:
The book details the impact of strict Protestantism on children and discusses the age-old problem of fathers and sons. Each of the men in the story has have problems relating to and rearing thier sons. One of the themes of the book is how these family dynamics often continue to impact families, and men in particular don’t seem to be capable of learning from their mistakes as parents. Each of the men in the novel struggle with how to follow their consciousness and their strict interpretation of Christianity as they struggle to raise their children.
The fourth-generation son, Earnest is particularly negatively impacted by his overbearing strict father’s upbringing much as he had had with own father. Earnest wanted to follow his dreams of becoming a composer and musician. But his father was determined that he should go to college and become a minister much as he been forced to become a minister.
Along the way he is derailed and ends up serving six months in prison. Unbeknownst to him, his favorite Aunt, the only person in his family he felt close to, had left him a small inheritance which he gains on his 26th birthday, much to the chagrin of his parents who felt that they should have inherited the family money. This becomes yet another source of parental-children discord. Earnest also falls in love and marries a woman who used to work for his father. She turns out to be an alcoholic and leaves him immigrating to America which another man leaving Earnest to deal with finding a place to raise his illegitimate children. In the end of the novel, father and son attempt to reconcile.
Overall, I found this book to be a powerful indictment of traditional Victorian morality and all that it entails. The novel resonated with me because I had a lot of problems with my own overbearing father just as he had with his father, and I also had estranged relations with my siblings and my mother. To sum up, a powerful somewhat disturbing look at family dynamics that is still very relevant over 150 years later as most of the classic novels tend to be.
Co-pilot provides more background information on the novel and its literary reputation. I
Synopsis:
The Way of All Flesh, written by Samuel Butler, follows several generations of the fictional Pontifex family. The novel draws on Butler’s own life experiences and examines the transmission of Victorian values from one generation to the next.
Literary Reputation:
The Way of All Flesh is a semi-autobiographical novel that boldly critiques Victorian-era hypocrisy. Written between 1873 and 1884, it remained unpublished during Samuel Butler’s lifetime due to its controversial content. However, when it was finally published posthumously in 1903, it was accepted as part of the general reaction against Victorian norms.
Here are some key points about its literary reputation:
Significance: Some consider The Way of All Flesh to be the first twentieth-century novel, as it challenges conventions and sheds light on the darker aspects of Victorian domestic life1.
Legacy: In 1998, the Modern Library ranked it twelfth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century2.
Iconoclastic: Samuel Butler’s autobiographical account, informed by his own upbringing and adulthood, exposes the hypocrisy within a Victorian clerical family.
So, as you write your review, keep in mind that this novel is not only a compelling family saga but also a powerful critique of its time. Happy writing! 😊📚345
1supersummary.com2en.wikipedia.org3cliffsnotes.com4books.google.com5books.google.com6goodreads.com— see less
Certainly! The Way of All Flesh delves into several thought-provoking themes, making it a rich and multifaceted work. Let’s explore some of these themes:
Christianity and Its Variations:
At its core, The Way of All Flesh grapples with different expressions of Christianity. Samuel Butler, through his protagonist Ernest Pontifex, dissects the nuances between high and low Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, ritualism, and evangelicalism.
The novel doesn’t outright reject Christianity; rather, it critiques specific aspects of Anglicanism. Butler portrays the Anglican Church as demanding blind faith while offering a mishmash of unscientific and self-contradictory teachings. The Church’s insistence on accepting dogma without questioning its reasonableness becomes a central point of contention.
However, scattered throughout the novel are glimpses of another Christianity—one that is rational, humble, and life-affirming. This unorthodox version encourages coherence, compatibility with scientific findings, and a willingness to adapt beliefs based on new information.
Hypocrisy and Social Conventions:
The Way of All Flesh exposes the hypocrisy prevalent in Victorian society. The Pontifex family embodies societal norms, but their actions often contradict their professed values. The novel critiques the gap between public appearances and private realities.
Social conventions—
Especially those related to marriage, family, and religion—are scrutinized. Butler challenges the idea that adhering to societal norms necessarily leads to moral goodness. In some ways this is also a proto-feminist novel as the female characters try to navigate their way through a male dominated society.
Generational Conflict and Rebellion:
comment:
This is strongest element of the novel for me, as it subsumes the other themes into it.
The novel spans multiple generations of the Pontifex family. Each generation grapples with its own set of expectations and norms.
Ernest, the central character, rebels against the rigid structures imposed by his parents and the Church. His intellectual journey takes him from disinterest to orthodoxy and eventually to heterodoxy.
Individual Autonomy and Authenticity:
Ernest’s struggle for autonomy drives the narrative. He seeks to live authentically, even if it means rejecting societal norms.
The tension between conforming to expectations and forging one’s own path is a recurring theme. Ernest’s pursuit of personal truth becomes a powerful force in the novel.
Education and Intellectual Growth:
Education plays a significant role in shaping characters’ lives. Ernest’s experiences at school and university profoundly impact his worldview.
The novel questions the purpose of education: Is it merely to conform to societal norms, or should it encourage critical thinking and personal growth?
In summary, The Way of All Flesh is a layered exploration of faith, hypocrisy, rebellion, and the struggle for authenticity. Its critique of Victorian mores remains relevant even today. 📚✨12
I have completed 65 % of the books in the three-volume set titled “50 Books You Must Read Before You Die”
Bolded indicates that I have read the book
The list follows
50 Masterpieces You Have to Read Before You Die
Started reading the first one of Volume 3
Bolded indicates I have read it.
Vol 1 starts with Volume One
Alcott, Louisa May: Little Women
Austen, Jane: Pride and Prejudice
Austen, Jane: Emma
Balzac, Honoré de: Father Goriot
Barbusse, Henri: The Inferno
Brontë, Anne: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Brontë, Charlotte: Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Tarzan of the Apes
Butler, Samuel: The Way of All Flesh
Carroll, Lewis: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Cather, Willa: My Ántonia
Cervantes, Miguel de: Don Quixote
Chopin, Kate: The Awakening
Cleland, John: Fanny Hill
Collins, Wilkie: The Moonstone
Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness
Conrad, Joseph: Nostromo
Cooper, James Fenimore: The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen: The Red Badge of Courage
Cummings, E. E.: The Enormous Room
Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe
Defoe, Daniel: Moll Flanders
Dickens, Charles: Bleak House
Dickens, Charles: Great Expectations
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: The Idiot
Doyle, Arthur Conan: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Dreiser, Theodore: Sister Carrie
Dumas, Alexandre: The Three Musketeers
Dumas, Alexandre: The Count of Monte Cristo
Eliot, George: Middlemarch
Fielding, Henry: Tom Jones
Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary
Flaubert, Gustave: Sentimental Education
Ford, Ford Madox: The Good Soldier
Forster, E. M.: A Room With a View
Forster, E. M.: Howard End
Gaskell, Elizabeth: North and South
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von: The Sorrows of Young Werther
Gogol, Nikolai: Dead Souls
Gorky, Maxim: The Mother
Haggard, H. Rider: King Solomon’s Mines
Hardy, Thomas: Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Scarlet Letter
Homer: The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor: The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hugo, Victor: Les Misérables
Huxley, Aldous: Crome Yellow
James, Henry: The Portrait of a Lady
Volume 2
– Little Women [Louisa May Alcott]
– Sense and Sensibility [Jane Austen]
– Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy) [J.M. Barrie]
– Cabin Fever [ B. M. Bower]
– The Secret Garden [Frances Hodgson Burnett]
– A Little Princess [Frances Hodgson Burnett]
– Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland [Lewis Carroll]
– The King in Yellow [Robert William Chambers]
– The Man Who Knew Too Much [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
– The Woman in White [Wilkie Collins]
– The Most Dangerous Game [Richard Connell]
– On the Origin of Species, 6th Edition [Charles Darwin]
– Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe]
– The Iron Woman [Margaret Deland]
– David Copperfield [Charles Dickens]
– Oliver Twist [Charles Dickens]
– A Tale of Two Cities [Charles Dickens]
– The Double [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes [Arthur Conan Doyle]
– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button [Francis Scott Fitzgerald]
– A Room with a View [E. M. Forster]
– Dream Psychology [Sigmund Freud]
– Tess of the d’Urbervilles [Thomas Hardy]
– Siddhartha [Hermann Hesse]
– Dubliners [James Joyce]
– The Fall of the House of Usher [Edgar Allan Poe]
– The Arabian Nights [Andrew Lang]
– The Sea Wolf [Jack London]
– The Call of Cthulhu [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
– Anne of Green Gables [Lucy Maud Montgomery]
– Beyond Good and Evil [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]
– The Murders in the Rue Morgue [Edgar Allan Poe]
– The Black Cat [Edgar Allan Poe]
– The Raven [Edgar Allan Poe]
– Swann’s Way [Marcel Proust]
– Romeo and Juliet [William Shakespeare]
– Treasure Island [Robert Louis Stevenson]
– The Elements of Style [William Strunk Jr.
Vol 3 finished keeping for the historical record
This book contains the following works arranged alphabetically by authors’ last names.
Started with volume 3 then will go back and do volumes one, two, and the Harvard classics. The goal is to finish all of these by the end of next year. I almost finished Volume One. Will do some of the WC reading books as well.
– What’s Bred in the Bone [Grant Allen]
– The Golden Ass [Lucius Apuleius]
– Meditations [Marcus Aurelius]
– Northanger Abbey [Jane Austen]
– Lady Susan [Jane Austen]
– The Wonderful Wizard of Oz [Lyman Frank Baum]
– The Art of Public Speaking [Dale Breckenridge Carnegie]
– The Blazing World [Margaret Cavendish]
– The Wisdom of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
– Heretics [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
– The Donnington Affair [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
– The Innocence of Father Brown [Gilbert Keith Chesterton]
– Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [John Cleland]
– The Moonstone [Wilkie Collins]
– Lord Jim [Joseph Conrad]
– The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe [Daniel Defoe]
– The Pickwick Papers [Charles Dickens]
– A Christmas Carol [Charles Dickens]
– Notes From The Underground [Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
– The Gambler par Fyodor [Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky]
– The Lost World [Arthur Conan Doyle]
– The Hound of the Baskervilles [Arthur Conan Doyle]
– The Sign of the Four [Arthur Conan Doyle]
– The Man in the Iron Mask [Alexandre Dumas]
– The Three Musketeers [Alexandre Dumas]
– This Side of Paradise [Francis Scott Fitzgerald]
– Curious, If True: Strange Tales [Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell]
– King Solomon’s Mines [Henry Rider Haggard]
– The Hunchback of Notre Dame [Victor Hugo]
– Kim [Rudyard Kipling]
– Captain Courageous [Rudyard Kipling]
– The Jungle Book [Rudyard Kipling]
– Lady Chatterley’s Lover [David Herbert Lawrence]
– The Son of the Wolf [Jack London]
– The Einstein Theory of Relativity [Hendrik Antoon Lorentz]
– The Dunwich Horror [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
– At the Mountains of Madness [Howard Phillips Lovecraft]
– The Prince [Niccolò Machiavelli]
– The Story Girl [Lucy Maud Montgomery]
– The Antichrist [Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]
– The Republic [Plato]
– The Last Man [Mary Shelley]
– Life On The Mississippi [Mark Twain]
– The Kama Sutra [Vatsyayana]
– In the Year 2889 [Jules Verne]
– Around the World in Eighty Days [Jules Verne]
– Four Just Men [Edgar Wallace]
– Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ [Lewis Wallace]
– Jacob’s Room [Virginia Woolf]
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