The Water Babies (Award Gift Books)

Product Information

The most wonderful and the strongest of things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.'

Last line: "But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true."The book had been intended in part as a satire, a tract against child labour, [7] as well as a serious critique of the closed-minded approaches of many scientists of the day [8] in their response to Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution, which Kingsley had been one of the first to praise. He had been sent an advance review copy of On the Origin of Species, and wrote in his response of 18November 1859 (four days before Darwin’s book was published) that he had "long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species," and had "gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made", asking "whether the former be not the loftier thought." [9] Anyway, all loose ends are neatly tied up and put to bed with a kiss and a warm glass of milk. Then, after having said repeatedly every other paragraph that just because someone says something is not true, that doesn’t mean it isn’t, the epilogue tells you not to bother believing a word of anything you’ve just read even if it is true. Great. Thanks.

As such, the novel is about a sort of ‘moral evolution’ to match Tom’s own physical evolution (into a water-baby, among other things, but ultimately into a successful and morally upright Victorian gentleman). The most famous character in the novel, after Tom himself, is Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby, which points up the moral message of the novel – the so-called Golden Rule that is central to many religions and philosophies, including Christianity – pretty clearly. Kingsley believed that water could purify the soul as well as the body, and he once went so far as to say, in one of his sermons, ‘If you will only wash your bodies your souls will be all right.’ this parent-to-child approach is maintained throughout. In a playful manner, Kingsley always makes sure that his readers see the point. For example, at the end he states that “we should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things” from the tale, but “I am not exactly sure which.” The Water-Babies is essentially a charming fantasy with a serious, consistently developed moral purpose. In this book, the reader gets to accompany young Tom on a fantastic journey. As the journey progresses, the book gets worse. Al tono fantástico le pongo un diez, del crítico diría que es mejorable y del pedante, que lo considero casi un subtono del segundo, diría que es horrible. Para empezar, Tom realiza todo un viaje personal hacia la máxima virtud, es decir, convertirse en un niño bueno cristiano que antepone los buenos deseos ajenos a los deseos personales. Ese viaje está lleno de magia, imaginación y elementos dispares que unidos crean una historia perfecta a la que le hubiera puesto cinco estrellas de cabeza. Sin embargo, como la historia está repleta de comentarios críticos, más dirigidos a un público adulto que al infantil, la fantasía es interrumpida en decenas de ocasiones y, finalmente, opacada por temas mundanos y muy concretos de la época. Que si un tal Samuel Griswold ( Primo Cramchild) dijo que la magia no existe en una ponencia, que si la gente sigue la moda y por eso se ponen esos horribles spoon-bonnets, que si Jane Marcet ( Tía Agigate) dijo no se qué…Se centra en hechos muy específicos de la era victoriana que desde la mirada actual solo nos provocan indiferencia pues, aunque podemos entender el modo de proceder de los citados y del propio Kingsley, el comentario concreto y la crítica nos es indiferente. Holt, Jenny (September 2011). " 'A Partisan Defence of Children'? Kingsley's The Water-Babies Re-Contextualized". Nineteenth-Century Contexts. 33 (4): 353–370. doi: 10.1080/08905495.2011.598672. S2CID 192155414.

THE END

Ugly people are described as "like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes"; an extended passage discusses St. Brandan among the Irish who liked "to brew potheen, and dance the pater o'pee, [e]

Summary: The audiobook narration is truly one of the finest that can be found -- really superb. The book itself is particularly good, and educational, though some caveats must be made. Did not learned men, too, hold, till within the last twenty-five years, that a flying dragon was an impossible monster? And do we not now know that there are hundreds of them found fossil up and down the world? People call them Pterodactyls: but that is only because they are ashamed to call them flying dragons, after denying so long that flying dragons could exist.” Farley, P. (30 March 2013). Classic serial, The Water Babies : A modern fairy tale. bbc.co.uk. Harding, Emma (director). BBC Radio4 . Retrieved 19 April 2014. Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby (Κάνεαυτοπουθεσνασουκανουν), την Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid (Πάθεαυτοπουεκανες), μια στρατιά από είδη ψαριών, πουλιών, οστρακόδερμων, αμφιβίων, πετρωμάτων, που πρέπει να έχεις ανοικτό ένα λεξικό ζωολογίας/γεωλογίας για να καταλάβεις τι είναι. Παράξενα επαγγέλματα όπως Δρ. Βλττσσγλς (Βάλτε τους σε γυάλες) καθηγητής νεκροβιονεοπαλαιουδροχθονανθρωποπιθηκολογίαςHow do you know that? Have you been there to see? And if you had been there to see, and had seen none, that would not prove that there were none... And no one has a right to say that no water babies exist till they have seen no water babies existing, which is quite a different thing, mind, from not seeing water babies.

Kingsley’s lively passions and imagination place him alongside other Victorian writers for children such as Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear. You can also trace a line through to, say, Spike Milligan’s children’s writing in his willingness to allow the imagination to run riot and to recover a sense of child-likeness. Today The Water Babies itself is close to unreadable due to the way it presents the casual prejudices of its time: the division of the world into racial hierarchies, the completely nonchalant caricaturing of Irish people. Charles Kingsley was an eccentric who once made friends with a wasp which he saved from drowning. He gave a Devon village its name. He gave us a number of words and phrases still in common use. His most famous work, The Water-Babies, is an odd book which is at once a children’s classic, a moral fable, a response to the theory of evolution, and a satire on Victorian attitudes to child labour and religion. Darwin, C. (1860). On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (2nded.). London, UK: John Murray . Retrieved 20 July 2007.I took lots of notes during this read. There are so many good little moral lessons to reflect upon. I wonder how this little boy actually turned out when he became a man? I could't just write them all down. It would be like writing the book over again in long-hand. Caritas and Empire; the two do not sit well together in the soul. What can a man do to resolve the debate within? He can tell a story that resolves the conflict; for him, at least. ETA: What I believe was designed to be an allegory for his son, was also a treatise of progressive thoughts of the day. I enjoyed it up until this point. It was apparently meant to be a lesson on, amongst other things, child labor and the treatment of the boy by his master would be a good argument against. It actually seemed like it might have been better if the story ended here.