The Potter's Hand

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Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does?” declares the LORD. “Behold, like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel.

So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Jeremiah 18:3-4 A novelization of the life of Josiah Wedgewood of the famous Wedgewood pottery. Lots of fascinating historical reveals -- I didn't know that Josiah Wedgwood was Charles Darwin's grandfather, and I'd never heard of the Frog Service or the Portland Vase, both of which I immediately had to google -- but I wonder if this novel wouldn't have worked better as a biography, or maybe just a history of the time. (Although Richard Holmes' The Age of Wonder, peopled with many of the same characters and occurring in much the same era, does that just fine.) The inclusion of the Darwin family – is a key indication of Wilson’s slight tendency towards famous name dropping. It is true – to a large extend this is inevitable as Jos knew and interacted with a range of people we all know today. However, some of these name drops do seem slightly forced into the narrative in ways that do not add to a great deal to the central story. He's not much of a father, either, turning his sons into gentlemen with the result that none of them have any desire or ability to step into the business, and expecting his nephew Tom first to bring him white clay from the Cherokees in America and then run the business without much affection, respect or trust in return. Not that his progeny didn't amount to something a generation on, as in the aforesaid Charles Darwin and many more leading lights of their day.O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith Jehovah. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, O house of Israel.

Ultimately, though, Wilson cares less for the individuals of the novel than for the history and, in particular, the questions of death and legacy. Wedgwood's story serves as a painful lesson; though he longs for his sons to take over his business, he has raised them as gentlemen, congenitally unable to work as he has worked. As the terror in France "devoured its children", so the great wealth of the Wedgwood family rots its scions at the root. For we are God’s handiwork,createdin Christ Jesus to do good works,which God prepared in advance for us to do. Isaiah 29:16 says, “ You turn things upside down! Shall the potter be regarded as the clay, that the thing made should say of its maker, “He did not make me”; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, “He has no understanding”? That said – the quality of the writing is superb and the fascinating man that is Josiah Wedgewood is depicted effectively at a pivotal historic period. A modern day reader may wonder that anyone achieved anything – let alone building a hugely successful business – given the doses of medications, leg amputations and scalping featured in the novel.

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O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the LORD. Behold, as the clay in the potter's hand, so are ye in My hand, O house of Israel. In The Potter's Hand, his first novel for more than five years, AN Wilson has taken as his subject Josiah Wedgwood, the great craftsman and industrialist whose factories did so much to transform England in the 18th-century. Wilson is a prolific historian and biographer, with a scope ranging from the Elizabethans to the Victorians, but Wedgwood is a subject particularly close to his heart. Wilson's father was managing director of Wedgwood, his grandfather a master potter; he and his siblings are the first generation of Wilsons not to be industrial potters since the reign of George III. I didn't learn anything about the Darwins who were only present through the stuttering pervert family doctor, Darwin who is a repulsive caricature.