I am so pleased to have re-read this book. I was afraid that I would come to dislike it because of the criticism it receives for prejudices and moralizing. I think this aspect of the book is a good reflection of nineteenth century philosophical thought. However, Kingsley's scientific references make me believe that he was a progressive thinker for his time. Coles, Richard (11 July 2016). "Reverend Richard Coles on The Water Babies: how a vicar saved a chimney sweep". The Guardian. Popes" are listed among Measles, Famines, Despots, and other "children of the four great bogies." [5] The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby is a children's novel by Charles Kingsley. [2] Written in 1862–1863 as a serial for Macmillan's Magazine, it was first published in its entirety in 1863. It was written as part satire in support of Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species. The book was extremely popular in the United Kingdom and was a mainstay of British children's literature for many decades, but eventually fell out of favour in America in part due to its prejudices against Irish, Jews, Catholics, and Americans. [3] Story [ edit ] 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.

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.This was not for me. Yes, I understand the importance of the book at time, how it was a satire on Darwin’s classic and the fact that it predates Alice in Wonderland did impress me when I compared their publication dates. But it just got on my nerves after about chapter three and from then on right until the end where, confronted with the most ridiculous last line in the history of literature, my patience gave way entirely.

I may never finish those last chapters. If I were writing a dissertation, yes. For pleasure, no. Absolutely not.

A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby

Los personajes no están muy desarrollados, pero realmente eso no importa en este cuento de hadas victoriano. El peso de la trama lo adquiere el sinsentido una vez la fantasía queda en segundo plano. La consecución de temas escatológicos culmina en una escena en la que Tom ha de reencontrarse con su mayor miedo y ayudarlo. Charles Kingsley se vale de la historia de Tom, un crío victoriano obligado a trabajar como deshollinador desde una temprana edad para un tal Grimes, para narrar una historia infantil llena de moralejas pero sin moraleja (incomprensible, lo sé) y realizar diversas críticas sociales; la esclavitud infantil, el sistema educativo de la época, la teoría de la evolución de Charles Darwin y la racionalización del mundo fantástico llevada, según Kingsley, por la sociedad estadounidense. También subyace una simplona crítica hacia los irlandeses y el catolicismo, pero creo que esta última viene más por la profesión del propio Kingsley y su orgullo británico y temperamento flemático que por un odio real hacia los irlandeses y el catolicismo. Humphrey Carpenter's "Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature" sounds like something I ought to have read. The period it describes runs from the mid-19th century to the early 20th, placing The Water-Babies right near its start and certainly an influence on everything from "Alice In Wonderland", a few years later, to "Peter Pan". It is also one of those children's books which contains "much that is unintelligible to children", as one reviewer put it; Kingsley was an Anglican minister who was nonetheless a follower of Darwin and, it is said, spent much of his intellectual life reconciling the two. Tom embarks on a series of adventures and lessons, and enjoys the community of other water-babies on Saint Brendan's Island once he proves himself a moral creature. The major spiritual leaders in his new world are the fairies Mrs.Doasyouwouldbedoneby (a reference to the Golden Rule), Mrs.Bedonebyasyoudid, and Mother Carey. Weekly, Tom is allowed the company of Ellie, who became a water-baby after he did. I have no idea what edition I read as a child, but I do know that I harbor huge nostalgia about the book's weird adventures and pen and ink illustrations. Every time I see the title at a used book sale, I reflect on my childhood.

Fuera bromas, la verdad es que se percibe que el sinsentido de Kingsley procedía de poemitas infantiles tontos y canciones de cuna con tintes grotescos y misteriosos. Leyendo Los niños del agua podemos observar numerosos ejemplos de poemas, tanto autoría de Kingsley como de otros autores, que refuerzan la teoría de que este tipo de textos fueron una influencia decisiva en la historia y en su trabajo artístico.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] The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see." It's even horrific at times. A poor, exhausted Tom is led to a stream and transformed into a water-baby by the fairies, feverish and feeling he needs to wash himself to be clean. Mr Grimes is rescued from a fate in his afterlife, but the solution is just as bad if not worse. The fairies drive one kindhearted professor who didn't believe in him near insane. There's a very distasteful undercurrent even beyond the overt things. For good fairies, they do an awful lot of bad things.

Se han de tener algunas consideraciones presentes antes de hablar sobre la obra de Kingsley. Para empezar, este caballero británico de pura cepa publicó dos años antes que Lewis Carroll su Alicia, por lo que se trata de un precursor del sinsentido y no de un influenciado. Aunque el viaje del deshollinador de Kingsley puede traernos ecos de las aventuras de Alicia, Kingsley no tuvo un delirio artístico tras leer a Carroll ni tampoco trató de imitar o superar a Lewis Carroll. A no ser que fuera un viajero en el tiempo, claro. 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. Dear Grandpater – Have you seen a Waterbaby? Did you put it in a bottle? Did it wonder if it could get out? Could I see it some day? – Your loving Julian. [12]Grimes, his old master, drowns as well, and in his final adventure, Tom travels to the end of the world to attempt to help the man where he is being punished for his misdeeds. Tom helps Grimes to find repentance, and Grimes will be given a second chance if he can successfully perform a final penance. By proving his willingness to do things he does not like, if they are the right things to do, Tom earns himself a return to human form, and becomes "a great man of science" who "can plan railways, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, and rifled guns, and so forth". He and Ellie are united, although the book states (perhaps jokingly) that they never marry, claiming that in fairy tales, no one beneath the rank of prince and princess ever marries. Although it occupied a familiar place in British children's literary history, a modern day reader might find parts of the book surprising fare for children -- then or now. The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he appears to drown and is transformed into a "water-baby", [4] as he is told by a caddisfly — an insect that sheds its skin — and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes. So what irritated me? Well, the awful patronising tone of Kingsley the narrator who writes as if everyone is a) male and b) white Caucasian and c) wealthy, educated, clean and morally superior. It’s patronising and prejudiced in the extreme and pulls no punches in its portrayal of the Scots, the Irish, the Jews, etc. The most wonderful and the strongest of things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.'