The Way of All Flesh

Aug 03, 2012 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature

I think I would've mistakenly thought this book overly pedantic had I read it ten years ago. But now I find it quite wise. Butler seemed to sense a number of the larger changes that were on the horizon in this autobiographical coming of age story. He saw the individual gaining a new economic footing as the old, rigid class system of England began to dissipate during the mid 19th Century. And at different times it almost feels like you're reading a work of sociology, not an impeccably written wor...more

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Feb 16, 2009 Carrie rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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...more 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.

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.

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.

*And seriously, who reads an erotic book at work??(less)

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Apr 09, 2013 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2010, book-club

When this book came up as the October selection for the Classics Book Club (a "real life" book club here in Toronto rather than an online one, run by Chris of Eclectic Indulgence), I was pretty pleased because it meant getting around to reading a book I've had on my shelf for about fifteen years. The reason I had this - which, let's face it, isn't one of the more famous Classics you've heard of - is rather silly but I'll tell you all the same. I grew up watching A Room With a View - I've probab...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Estott rated it 4 of 5 stars

Slight spoiler

I first read this years ago and it affected me deeply- and the best parts still do, though I now find it a very uneven work. As I see it (after recently rereading his Erewhon books) is that Butler was a divided character: he was a good writer who could tell an entertaining story, but he was also a bitter man who wanted to be didactic - and he couldn't manage to do it without the narrative grinding to a halt at intervals. This is a very good book which could be edited into a great...more

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Sep 03, 2008 Brandon rated it 3 of 5 stars

I mean, yes it was a harsh upbringing, Butler, but did you have to take it out on us, the readers? I would have gladly taken a beating for you if you had just shortened the book by about 400 goddamned pages.

Were you supposed to be Ernest? So after all that, you abandoned your own kids to explore the world? Ugh. True, you married a prostitute, so you scored a few points there with me, and you forgave your batshit mother, but you abandoned your own kids after suffering through a shitty childhood....more

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Feb 18, 2013 Marvin chester rated it 4 of 5 stars

Flesh is what governs the soul. Much of the book contains a scathing, satirical appraisal and condemnation of church, clergy, christianity, and the hypocrisy, dogma and deliberate self-delusion of religion. Pretty outrageous for 1884.

"the story that Christ died, came to life again and was carried from earth through clouds into the heavens could not be accepted ... He (Ernest) would probably have seen it years ago if he had not been hoodwinked by people who were paid for hoodwinking him." p.293

"...more Flesh is what governs the soul. Much of the book contains a scathing, satirical appraisal and condemnation of church, clergy, christianity, and the hypocrisy, dogma and deliberate self-delusion of religion. Pretty outrageous for 1884.

"the story that Christ died, came to life again and was carried from earth through clouds into the heavens could not be accepted ... He (Ernest) would probably have seen it years ago if he had not been hoodwinked by people who were paid for hoodwinking him." p.293

".. he had been humbugged and the greater part of the ills which afflicted him were due to ... the influence of Christian teaching.." p. 298

Of Ernest's clergy parents: "They had tried to keep their ignorance of the world from themselves by calling it the pursuit or heavenly things and then shutting their eyes to anything that might give them trouble." p.288

It matters little what a man professes "provided only that he follows it out with charitable inconsistency" ... p.314 I love this profound observation - that principle can be an ugly thing without charitable inconsistency.

The book is about a slow witted bumpkin who, because of his genteel birth, must be saved from poverty by a secret inheritance. Ernest, the hero, learns at a painfully slow pace that his beliefs are mere witless prejudices devoid of truth.

The author has Ernest find salvation later in the idea that expediency of belief trumps veracity - that accepting christianity is expedient, its truth is not relevant. I'm sure Butler, the author, would exempt his personal finances from that principle - that expediency trumps veracity.

Unfortunately, those not endowed with a class birthright - like Ellen, Ernest's false wife - are not worth saving.

Writes Butler: "We set good breeding as the corner-stone.. That a man should have been bred well and breed others well ... so that no one can look at him without seeing that he has come of good stock .. this is the desiderandum."

The class divide is as unbridgable to Butler as is the theological divide to his Theobald Pontifex character. Thus the book itself ends up being a monumental hypocrisy. Exactly the kind of unthinking narrow prejudices that his anti-hero Theobald Pontifex has about religion, the author, Samuel Butler, has about class. He has Ernest cured of his idiotic stupidity by having money thrust upon him. He has poor lower class Ellen condemned to be incurable from drink. To be in poverty is to be uncivilized. Ernest, upon getting money, gets back to civilization. (Butler's phrase)
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Apr 20, 2012 Smcleish rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Originally published on my blog here in April 1999.

Samuel Butler's posthumously published novel has been described as the first twentieth century novel (it was in fact completed in the 1880s though not published until the early 1900s). In its iconoclasm, it certainly marks a break with the mainstream of the nineteenth century, and foreshadows the way that the twentieth century has seen criticism and questioning of just about every conventional value.

Butler's style and language are, to my mind, f...more Originally published on my blog here in April 1999.

Samuel Butler's posthumously published novel has been described as the first twentieth century novel (it was in fact completed in the 1880s though not published until the early 1900s). In its iconoclasm, it certainly marks a break with the mainstream of the nineteenth century, and foreshadows the way that the twentieth century has seen criticism and questioning of just about every conventional value.

Butler's style and language are, to my mind, fairly resolutely nineteenth century; the novel more closely reminds me of Vanity Fair than anything else. It is much more savage than Thackeray's work, and it should be remembered that Vanity Fair caused something of a scandal when first published.

The Way of All Flesh is principally about the relationship between Ernest Pontifex and his father Theobald, and is strongly autobiographical. One of Butler's chief concerns, writing soon after Darwin's The Origin of Species (the book contains material composed over a twenty year span), was with the importance in the eventual character of heredity and environment, what we sometime today call the nature vs. nurture debate. Thus he puts the relationship that is his main concern in the context of Theobald's relationships with his own father and grandfather.

Theobald is a harsh parent and a hypocrite, and he brings up Ernest in the strictest of orthodox Protestant homes, the smallest lapse being punished with a severe beating. Taught to believe himself destined, like his father, to enter the church, Ernest does so, but hates his life, ending up in prison. Being cut off by his family because of this is described as being one of the best things that happened to him, and he finishes his term of hard labour, emerging into the world determined to make a fresh start as a layman.

Although few of her actions directly affect the plot, Ernest's mother Christina is even more unpleasant than his father. She (for example) wheedles confidences out of him as a child, which are then passed on to his father to be the occasion of further beatings; she writes Ernest letters full of pious hypocrisy.

Butler attacks the major institutions of nineteenth century England - the family, the church, the idea of class - because of their stifling effect on those people who do not - can not - fit into the accepted picture of how things are. It is in this that The Way of All Flesh is most powerful, and this is how it foreshadowed much of the writing which followed the effective destruction of these institutions in their nineteenth century form which followed the First World War.(less)

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Jun 07, 2009 Anne Hawn Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, literature, history, comfort-read, favorites

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.

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...more

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May 15, 2009 Chad rated it 4 of 5 stars

I enjoyed Butler’s semi-autobiographical novel far more than Sons And Lovers. (And much more than A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man. Was there some requirement that turn-of-the-century novelists from the British isles write such a work?) Although written some 30 years earlier, I found it much more accessible to the modern reader. Framing the entire story as a second-hand account from someone who was occasionally involved in the plot but in general was told about things long after the fact...more

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Sep 20, 2010 Veronica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Veronica by: Modern Library's 100 Best Novels

What a pleasant surprise this book turned out to be. I must admit I wasn’t looking forward to reading a book written in the 1800′s and published in 1903 about repression and family life in mid-1800′s England.

This is a book to be read with focus as much could be lost without careful reading. One can certainly not steamroll through this novel without missing out on great humor from its marvelous author, Samuel Butler. Each page requires longer than usual time for reading, however, the payback is w...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Greg Deane rated it 4 of 5 stars

Butler's narrator rarely asserts his identity, and it would be easy to miss his name, Overton. But in fact he is a very valuable actor in the life of his godson, who is ever present as a safety net ready to save his godson, Ernest Pontifex, by lending him money that comes out of the inheritance due to him from his well-disposed aunt. Old John Pontifex, a simple man who earned a private fortune, bequeaths both a capacity for accumulating wealth and for enjoying the things he earns. But these capa...more Butler's narrator rarely asserts his identity, and it would be easy to miss his name, Overton. But in fact he is a very valuable actor in the life of his godson, who is ever present as a safety net ready to save his godson, Ernest Pontifex, by lending him money that comes out of the inheritance due to him from his well-disposed aunt. Old John Pontifex, a simple man who earned a private fortune, bequeaths both a capacity for accumulating wealth and for enjoying the things he earns. But these capacities are corrupted in the most of the children in the generations that follow him, beginning with the brutal, hypocritical alcoholic George. Samuel Butler provides interesting insights into the cycles of abuse that extend from one generation to another. He implies that such cycles can be broken by more abject suffering that redeems the final victim.

It is obviously no accident that Alethea's name is the Greek for truth, nor that Pontifex is a Latin word for priest. For Samuel Butler, perhaps writing as a deliberate successor to Anthony Trollop and his satire on the Church of England in "Barchester Towers". Butler's sly parody seems to undermine the claims to piety of the pastor Theobald pastor who is consumed by greed and ambition, and pretences to theological intellectualism. His wife Christina, and mother of Christina uses her own religiose affectations as a justification for her own vain reveries of social and spiritual elevation.

Though the generations of the Pontifexes all follow the way of flesh, it is only Ernest who truly goes on a journey of self-discovery, in quest of a genuine understanding of alethea or the truth bequeathed him in his aunt's name. In his bid to be a good minister, Ernest strives to live up to his mind. He lives among the poor who shun him; he works to set up a theological college for genuine inquiry but is embezzled by another curate; he delves into various sects. But he does not find any certainty until he falls into the way of all flesh and mistakes a respectable girl for a prostitute. He is imprisoned for six months apparently for the indiscretion of a misdirected proposition. But in prison, he follows Christ, by studying carpentry. A skill that neither of them may have ever used for gain.

After living with the alcoholic mother of his children and coming to know more of the ways of the world, or the flesh, Ernest is eventually saved when he comes of age to receive his aunt's bequest. Unlike his father and grand-father, he uses his wealth to develop his mind without affectation, earnestly. But most importantly, he uses his money to provide a happy way of life for his children.

The novel is unsatisfactory in that Ernest is able to redeem itself even though it seems he abandons the upbringing of his children to another family. Another criticism is that the book races through 5 generations 400 pages, so that it is hardly possible to offer any points of view except that of the narrator, Overton, who is no more than a mouthpiece for Butler. Still, the work is interesting as an early example of intergenerational study, combined with criticism of ecclesiastical practices.(less)

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Greg Deane Butler's narrator rarely asserts his identity, and it would be easy to miss his name, Overton. But in fact he is a very valuable actor in the life of...more Butler's narrator rarely asserts his identity, and it would be easy to miss his name, Overton. But in fact he is a very valuable actor in the life of his godson, who is ever present as a safety net ready to save his godson, Ernest Pontifex, by lending him money that comes out of the inheritance due to him from his well-disposed aunt. Old John Pontifex, a simple man who earned a private fortune, bequeaths both a capacity for accumulating wealth and for enjoying the things he earns. But these capacities are corrupted in the most of the children in the generations that follow him, beginning with the brutal, hypocritical alcoholic George. Samuel Butler provides interesting insights into the cycles of abuse that extend from one generation to another. He implies that such cycles can be broken by more abject suffering that redeems the final victim.

It is obviously no accident that Alethea's name is the Greek for truth, nor that Pontifex is a Latin word for priest. For Samuel Butler, perhaps writing as a deliberate successor to Anthony Trollop and his satire on the Church of England in "Barchester Towers". Butler's sly parody seems to undermine the claims to piety of the pastor Theobald pastor who is consumed by greed and ambition, and pretences to theological intellectualism. His wife Christina, and mother of Christina uses her own religiose affectations as a justification for her own vain reveries of social and spiritual elevation.

Though the generations of the Pontifexes all follow the way of flesh, it is only Ernest who truly goes on a journey of self-discovery, in quest of a genuine understanding of alethea or the truth bequeathed him in his aunt's name. In his bid to be a good minister, Ernest strives to live up to his mind. He lives among the poor who shun him; he works to set up a theological college for genuine inquiry but is embezzled by another curate; he delves into various sects. But he does not find any certainty until he falls into the way of all flesh and mistakes a respectable girl for a prostitute. He is imprisoned for six months apparently for the indiscretion of a misdirected proposition. But in prison, he follows Christ, by studying carpentry. A skill that neither of them may have ever used for gain.

After living with the alcoholic mother of his children and coming to know more of the ways of the world, or the flesh, Ernest is eventually saved when he comes of age to receive his aunt's bequest. Unlike his father and grand-father, he uses his wealth to develop his mind without affectation, earnestly. But most importantly, he uses his money to provide a happy way of life for his children.

The novel is unsatisfactory in that Ernest is able to redeem itself even though it seems he abandons the upbringing of his children to another family. Another criticism is that the book races through 5 generations 400 pages, so that it is hardly possible to offer any points of view except that of the narrator, Overton, who is no more than a mouthpiece for Butler. Still, the work is interesting as an early example of intergenerational study, combined with criticism of ecclesiastical practices.(less)
Mar 20, 2013 06:28am

Nov 11, 2012 Stephanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: top-100-lists, adult-nonfiction

I wasn't familiar with Samuel Butler prior to borrowing this book from the library, but it makes me want to dig up some of his plays. This book is an autobiography that tells the story of the Pontifex family culminating on the focus of Ernest. Butler spends the entire book mocking Victorian Era behaviors for their hypocrisy. Ernest has spent his life with some intolerable characters {namely his totally weird and self-absorbed parents}, and Butler examines what that has done to the outcome of his...more

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Aug 02, 2009 Nikki rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, guardian-1000-novels

At first I was really enjoying this book, for I like the prolixity of Victorian novels and their comments on society. However, as the story of Ernest Pontifex wore on, and on and on, I found too much philosophizing with only occasional bits of dialogue, action and humor to break it up. The book was not published until 1903, years after the author's death, and is a good argument for the editor's blue pencil, which might have improved it. It was a book that was supposed to blow the lid off the Vic...more

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Mar 17, 2012 Courtney H. rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Way of All Flesh is a scathing indictment on Victorian middle-class society, its religion, and its religious practices. The ideas contained in the novel are worth considering, and the narrator is certainly gives thoughtful voice to many of the extremes of the time. And one cannot fault Butler for wanting to indict his parents, who subjected him to the same sort of physical, mental, and emotional assaults that Ernest endured. The problem was that Butler couched his ideas in a novel, and used...more The Way of All Flesh is a scathing indictment on Victorian middle-class society, its religion, and its religious practices. The ideas contained in the novel are worth considering, and the narrator is certainly gives thoughtful voice to many of the extremes of the time. And one cannot fault Butler for wanting to indict his parents, who subjected him to the same sort of physical, mental, and emotional assaults that Ernest endured. The problem was that Butler couched his ideas in a novel, and used semi-autobiographical fiction as a mere vehicle for his ideas. Neither is this bad; it is done often, and often successfully. Many books are vehicles for ideas. The problem with The Way of All Flesh is, first, that Butler (via his narrator or protagonist) often resorts to lecturing us or pondering to us, and neither the narrator nor Ernest is as interesting as Howard Roark. So that's problem #2. Books that do this successfully don't have to lecture (much), and they create excellent pieces of fiction that happen to have a purpose, rather than being an article that happens to be couched in fiction. The Way of All Flesh is the latter. Butler's characters all served a purpose, and it made them dull or predictable. They were chess pieces, being moved in order to teach us something, in an obvious way, and they weren't even that interesting. At least if you're going to lecture us, make fascinating characters; it cushions the blow of the paltry storyline that serves as the facade for your lecture.
The novel isn't irredeemable, of course. I thought it interesting how far back Butler traced the family's development, its rise to its plateau. Never mentioned after Ernest's grandfather left the house, it was fascinating to look back to the trajectory from great-grandparents to children, and the course that enlightenment took. It made me wonder if there was a seed of the cycle beginning again. And Butler is a good writer; I still would like to read more by him (perhaps something with less overt purpose). But ultimately, this just was a fine novel with a then-groundbreaking purpose. It is interesting comparing it to Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence -- another book that served as a social indictment of her era and society. Wharton was more subtle, and her characters were better developed and more carefully crafted. They were real, rounded, fleshed out. Butler did that somewhat with his characters, but he gave them back story; Wharton gave her characters life.
I can see why it falls into the realm of literature, because it warrants respect if only for giving a dissenting voice to an era not often challenged. But as for being the actual best literature? There are better options. (less)

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Mar 23, 2013 David Alexander rated it 4 of 5 stars

Reading Samuel Butler's autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh, I was immediately confronted very early by a somewhat antagonistic view not just of Victorian society and Victorian Christianity, but of extrapolations from it to judgments about Christianity in general. However, at the same time I was confronted by a humane, humorous and reflective voice. I should clarify that Butler's position toward Christianity in the novel is complex and not like "new atheists" in tone or venom. For instan...more Reading Samuel Butler's autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh, I was immediately confronted very early by a somewhat antagonistic view not just of Victorian society and Victorian Christianity, but of extrapolations from it to judgments about Christianity in general. However, at the same time I was confronted by a humane, humorous and reflective voice. I should clarify that Butler's position toward Christianity in the novel is complex and not like "new atheists" in tone or venom. For instance, in describing the complacency of the denizens in a certain area, he says that they would be as surprised to hear Christianity questioned as to see it lived out, something which may imply but does not demand a high view of authentic or lived Christianity. On the whole, it seemed to me that Butler's view was like that of his main character, Ernest, for whom Christianity was not a matter of fact or truth but was purely a matter of faith, so it's practitioners should leave well enough alone those preoccupied with the practical world. I bring this subject out to identify why I had a certain ambivalence as I read the novel, since it is somewhat antagonistic to me, because I am a Christian. That said, I found much that was worthy in this novel and much that Christians perhaps in particular could benefit from. The book too, I might say, is not primarily an attack on Christianity but is focused on how a child overcame a cruel, even sadistic, and self-centered upbringing that was covered over by a veil of moralism and Pharisaical uprightness.

The novel is in part driven and clearly largely autobiographical. Butler had a terrible childhood, from what little I have read on it, in which he was often harshly punished and beaten many times by authoritarian parents, in a way that apparently was not uncommon for the time. The antagonism developed to a dramatic rupture with his parents in adolescence. Butler is driven in his protest against a cruel upbringing of children and he deservedly ought to be valued for this and the rare facility with which he manages it to portray it. He is also valuable to Christians particularly by portraying from an outsider's perspective an unflattering picture of what Christians can and have been and pitfalls of rationalized and self-serving moralism that we can fall into, even if we do not agree that this is the whole story or the heart of the story.

The book is also a sometimes delicious satire of Butler's Victorian society like Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility was of an earlier age. Butler often made me laugh with his ironic portrayals and exposures.

Butler's character Ernest gives up on becoming a clergyman precipitously, it all having been a self-deception that he desired to be one. His dad had tried to coerce him in high-toned "will-waving", threatening in fulsome language to disinherit him if he refused to do what he, the father, desired, while at the same time professing to respect Ernest's freedom to choose. What precipitates Ernest's fall is rather weak, in my view, and constitutes one of the few actual arguments presented in the book against Christianity: Ernest's inability to harmonize the Gospel accounts in their details. After attempting to do this for a short period of time and finding he couldn't, he immediately let his Bible drop to the floor and tried to sleep with a woman near at hand he mistook for a prostitute, ending up in jail and disinherited and on the road to redemption from his crippling upbringing. (Butler himself frequented a prostitute for many years of his life).

I myself have tried to make the Gospel stories line up in every detail and found in some details I could not but this does not seem to me the devastating blow that Butler and the Biblical higher critics" of Tubingen, etc. seem to take it for. Examining the claims of Scripture, I for one would not be interested if in minor details there appears to be a discrepancy, or if the stories are told in different chronological order. (In fact, we have the writing of Polycarp, I think it was, who described how the compiling of one of the Gospels was not done with careful attention to chronology. I need to check on the specifics of what I'm referring to here as it is from vague memory.) To say for a history to be true it must be up to the rarefied standards of modern historiography seems a stretch and given the claims clearly propounded in all the Gospels about Christ, it is like saying, "Christ could not be the Son of God and Savior of mankind because those who purported to be eyewitnesses or recorders of eyewitnesses did not comport their telling of what happened according to modern standards of criticism." (Of course, these modern standards are not generally used in modern life when judging the veracity of a testimony). As Karl Barth said of the eighteenth century, "It framed the question posed to it by Christianity in such s way that it fitted the answer which it, in the train of it's particular genius, could or would give. It made the question into a topical one. And by so doing this, in faith in the omnipotence of human capability for even this question, in faith that man had the power and the right to reshape this question in a deliberate way, it inevitably made the very question into a further expression of man's omnipotence." (Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, pg. 69.)

Butler holds an odd position now in intellectual history. He was an avid enthusiast for the works of his contemporary Charles Darwin, but enjoyed a freedom to question evolutionary theory which is no longer allowed. So he is perhaps suspect for bearing the mark evolutionary questioning, even though in many respects he believed as Darwinists. The latest example of this sort of rigid complacence is the savaging of philosopher Thomas Nagel for his recent provocative book questioning aspects of evolution by the likes of Steven Pinker, etc. One criticism Butler had of Darwin was that he did not acknowledge sufficiently his indebtedness to his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, who had written poetic dream sequences with evolutionary motifs. It is interesting that Butler would take Darwin to task for this. Butler seems to have a tension regarding the relations of forbears to children. Its alright to cut the father off but honor the grandfather? No, that is a ridiculous simplification on my part. I don't know Butler enough to sound the Wikipedia outlines of his life very deeply.

I do know his writing now, however, well enough to think it quite possible that I will read another of his classic novels, Erewhon, a science-fiction book steeped in evolutionary theory that is at the same time a satire of Victorian society.

Butler's position, one largely of liberalism, seems to me largely justified as a reaction against past excesses, and so a position not truly justified in it's own right. But then, isn't every age somewhat in reaction to another? But shouldn't we strive to know eternal truth even if we ultimately should fail? A characteristic motion of liberalism is the downplaying of moral discernment by a hermeneutic of suspicion, pointing to moralizing perpetrators of heinous acts. It is often accused of moral relativism, and often justly so. One can see a kind of epistemological humility on the one hand and on the other a succumbing to acedia or lethargic betrayal of the highest and best and truest we are capable of grasping. Is reaching for our highest us at our worst? Perhaps... If we do it as absolutist man, thinking ourselves the final arbiters of all. Perhaps insouciant postmodern man is better then in crucial ways to the absolutist go-getters, but, in the end, is still stuck with himself, "just a slouch trying to make his way home." The absolutist man refuses the question put to him by Christianity by reshaping it according to his assumed supremacy but the more modern, Butler-like man rejects the question of Christianity as solved by absolute man, or unanswerable, or answerable glibly and patly, without a first or second thought.

It is certainly true for me that one book often leads to another. I am reminded by reading Butler and others from his time about the whole question of German higher criticism and the deconstruction of the Bible. Who better can I turn to to explore this subject than Karl Barth in his Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Cwntury, Karl Barth who together with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Confessing Church, took a stand against another savagery, that of Nazism and its race theory, in this case based squarely on his belief that the Bible is the Word of God?
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Nov 24, 2012 Ruben rated it 5 of 5 stars

I discovered this book accidentally, trying to improve my English reading/writing skills. At that time, I was a graduate pharmacy student suffering under heavy scientific books and ignorant of "real life". Maybe pushed my gloomy situation me into reading particulary this book, because of the title. Immediatly I could recognize most of the described situations into my own world, which was a fantastic experience. Reading the book was a long discovery of new ideas to me, like a new world was reveal...more

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Jun 03, 2009 Tyler rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone

Shelves: 19th-century

I'm of two minds about this latest addition to my classical reading because the book has uneven qualities. Depending on what you're looking for in a novel, you may like this one or dislike it.

What it's about: A narrator details the incidents of a young man's coming of age in Victorian England, that young man being his godson, Ernest. The satirical angle of this bildungsroman skewers to pointed effect an unctuous and self-righteous society.

The good: Butler manages good satire. Take this example,...more I'm of two minds about this latest addition to my classical reading because the book has uneven qualities. Depending on what you're looking for in a novel, you may like this one or dislike it.

What it's about: A narrator details the incidents of a young man's coming of age in Victorian England, that young man being his godson, Ernest. The satirical angle of this bildungsroman skewers to pointed effect an unctuous and self-righteous society.

The good: Butler manages good satire. Take this example, where the young boy refuses to be baited into further admissions of wrongdoing to his mother, who invariably reports him after swearing her confidence:

...there were other associated ideas that returned also, and the mangled bones of too many murdered confessions were lying whitening round his mother's dress, to allow him any possibility to trust her further.

Nicely put, that was. The satire doesn't just complain, it also suggests a solution, a kind of liberal ethical pragmatism, to replace the era's clutching puritanism. The narration is especially good throughout at comparing "now" (ca. 1880) to "then" (the early part of the century), giving modern readers an unusual point of view on that century from within it.

The bad: Ernest elicits lessening sympathy as the book drags out, with the obstacles the author places in the boy's path seeming more and more contrived. The older narrator's interest in Ernest's welfare is too mawkish and, in the tradition of Horatio Alger, slightly creepy. Ernest's explicit avowal of bachelorhood may have delighted discerning Victorian sensibilities by its clever winks. But modern readers are more likely to be irritated by it and annoyed at way Ernest frees himself from family. In the passive narration, Ernest doesn't really "do" anything; things just happen to him with the narrator noting their effects. As a result, the freedom of action due a bachelor is dissipated by a passivity that gives Ernest's adult life a tiresome, mediocre patina.

The verdict: Butler expresses what he has to say with skill. The real question is whether the story, at 430 pages, simply goes on too long and turns the filler into a liability. I thought it did, but readers must consult their own personal levels of patience. It's not all that, but it's not all that bad, either.
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Jun 22, 2012 Dominic rated it 3 of 5 stars

I love how this book can make it to The Modern Library's Top 100, when a classic like Gone With the Wind doesn't even get honorable mention. The reason I bring up Margaret Mitchell's classic is because it is fine example of how a story can be "time specific" and still be relevant for contemporary readers. In GWTW, the character's motives and passions are enough to stand the test of time. The Way of All Flesh is opposite of this. Samuel Butler was specifically writing about characters that were...more

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Aug 13, 2012 Ty mader rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, realism-naturalism

reminiscent of james joyce's "ulysses". not in the fact that it is difficult to read by any means. it is rather simplistic in that respect. depicting mid 19th century England in a no "frills" manner. the truth is laid out on the page as the narrator saw it. suspense in my opinion isn't large in this book, neither is much action. but i feel as though that is what is able to give this book such charm. i would recommend this book, but the reader should know that it wont be extravagant in many, if a...more

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Dec 02, 2008 D.M. rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: boring, awful prigs with horrible families.

Man, am I glad that's over! This had to have been one of the dullest, most tedious books I've ever read (excluding perhaps Sade, the painfully detailed biography of the Marquis de Sade...which I couldn't even finish).
This is a fictionalised autobiography which apparently has maintained a dignified status for being among the first books to capture the psychological mindset of the Victorian English. If that's true, then those Victorians must have been boooring!
Reading the misadventures of Ernest...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Greg Chin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-library-100, literature

Witty, sarcastic attack on the institutions of Victorian England published in 1903 (but written decades earlier). Most of the humor still holds up, and I really enjoyed most of the book. I don't seek out novels of that period as a rule, because I generally dislike their prolixity and find their themes dated and uninteresting. This is an exception. It's on the 5 side of 4 stars.

SORTA SPOILER ALERT

I found the description of how alcohol destroys one poverty-stricken female character to be annoying,...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Patrice Sartor marked it as gave-up-on

I hereby vow to myself to never again pick up random titles in the Classics section of a used bookstore simply because I have a credit at the store that is burning a hole in my pocket, and because I live 30 minutes away and do not wish to return any time soon.

That's how I picked this up, some years ago, and after only a few pages have decreed it not something I wish to read. If that makes me less of an intellectual, I embrace my shallowness.

If this was a movie, and I watched it in my home theate...more

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Jul 21, 2009 Stephen sangirardi rated it 4 of 5 stars

A classic, obviously, but Butler is too chatty and didactic. His intrusiveness gets in the way of his narrative. We don't want to know the history of England's nineteenth-century High and Low churches and its concomitant preachers. Yes, we may want to know a thing or two, but not ten-pages worth! The book, ultimately, is more essay than novel. And yet, Butler is a brilliant stylist and satirist as he exposes Victorian hypocrisy. For example, a father may viciously flog his son for not knowing h...more

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Nov 25, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler (1903) #12

May 21, 2006

This was one of those books that took forever to read. I have been pretty busy as of late, but there was something about this one that made it a slow reader.
Finished in 1884, this book was published posthumously in 1903, which in my opinion disqualifies this book from being in the Modern Library list (although we have seen other examples of disqualifiers with other books, so I will look the other way for the time being). I feel that twen...more The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler (1903) #12

May 21, 2006

This was one of those books that took forever to read. I have been pretty busy as of late, but there was something about this one that made it a slow reader.
Finished in 1884, this book was published posthumously in 1903, which in my opinion disqualifies this book from being in the Modern Library list (although we have seen other examples of disqualifiers with other books, so I will look the other way for the time being). I feel that twenty-odd years in literature makes a big difference in style and that was marked especially in this book. This piece is very 19th century, albeit late century. This book falls under the literary trademark of being late 19th early 20th century English literature of being long, hard to understand and having no action whatsoever. At one point in time I confused this story with a D. H. Lawrence story and had to flip back to the beginning to make sure I wasn’t reading Sons and Lovers again. Not that the book was hard to read, I just don’t understand why Butler chose this particular story to get his point across. Why the narrator of the story would choose to chronicle the life of the fictitious Ernest Pontifex, I have no clue.
The main point of this story stands upon the fact that although Earnest Pontifex had bad, uncaring, selfish parents, and couldn’t really ever succeed in anything in life, he had an unknown safety net of an inheritance and everything (much to the chagrin of his own family) worked out pretty much all right for him.
Like most of my reviews I start out harsh, then lighten up a bit. This is no exception. I felt that despite lack of interesting plot or story, this book did have redeeming qualities. I really liked how the story was written (I’m kind of a sucker for this style of writing). I also think that the main goal of this (and possibly any) story is for the author to interject little nuggets of knowledge and philosophy that (s)he has gleaned. For instance Butler (through the narrator) states “He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most”. I think that that’s a brilliant bit of Hedonism.
Another passage of philosophic import is “rare virtues are like rare plants and animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.”
Again: “Everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will have to work off and get rid of before he can do better – and indeed the more lasting a man’s ultimate good work is, the more sure he is to pass thorough a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seems very little hope for him at all.”
I love philosophic crap like this, and Butler seems to be after my own heart when he writes “…just as wort will in time ferment itself, but will ferment much more quickly if a little yeast be added to it. In the matter of knowing what gives us pleasure we are all like wort, and if unaided from without only ferment slowly and toilsomely.” Wow
5.5
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Jul 16, 2012 David rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics

The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler (1903) #12

May 21, 2006

This was one of those books that took forever to read. I have been pretty busy as of late, but there was something about this one that made it a slow reader.
Finished in 1884, this book was published posthumously in 1903, which in my opinion disqualifies this book from being in the Modern Library list (although we have seen other examples of disqualifiers with other books, so I will look the other way for the time being). I feel that twen...more The Way of All Flesh Samuel Butler (1903) #12

May 21, 2006

This was one of those books that took forever to read. I have been pretty busy as of late, but there was something about this one that made it a slow reader.
Finished in 1884, this book was published posthumously in 1903, which in my opinion disqualifies this book from being in the Modern Library list (although we have seen other examples of disqualifiers with other books, so I will look the other way for the time being). I feel that twenty-odd years in literature makes a big difference in style and that was marked especially in this book. This piece is very 19th century, albeit late century. This book falls under the literary trademark of being late 19th early 20th century English literature of being long, hard to understand and having no action whatsoever. At one point in time I confused this story with a D. H. Lawrence story and had to flip back to the beginning to make sure I wasn’t reading Sons and Lovers again. Not that the book was hard to read, I just don’t understand why Butler chose this particular story to get his point across. Why the narrator of the story would choose to chronicle the life of the fictitious Ernest Pontifex, I have no clue.
The main point of this story stands upon the fact that although Earnest Pontifex had bad, uncaring, selfish parents, and couldn’t really ever succeed in anything in life, he had an unknown safety net of an inheritance and everything (much to the chagrin of his own family) worked out pretty much all right for him.
Like most of my reviews I start out harsh, then lighten up a bit. This is no exception. I felt that despite lack of interesting plot or story, this book did have redeeming qualities. I really liked how the story was written (I’m kind of a sucker for this style of writing). I also think that the main goal of this (and possibly any) story is for the author to interject little nuggets of knowledge and philosophy that (s)he has gleaned. For instance Butler (through the narrator) states “He has spent his life best who has enjoyed it most”. I think that that’s a brilliant bit of Hedonism.
Another passage of philosophic import is “rare virtues are like rare plants and animals, things that have not been able to hold their own in the world. A virtue to be serviceable must, like gold, be alloyed with some commoner but more durable metal.”
Again: “Everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will have to work off and get rid of before he can do better – and indeed the more lasting a man’s ultimate good work is, the more sure he is to pass thorough a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seems very little hope for him at all.”
I love philosophic crap like this, and Butler seems to be after my own heart when he writes “…just as wort will in time ferment itself, but will ferment much more quickly if a little yeast be added to it. In the matter of knowing what gives us pleasure we are all like wort, and if unaided from without only ferment slowly and toilsomely.” Wow
5.5
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May 09, 2012 ☯Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to ☯Emily by: NYU Literature class

Shelves: classics

I was looking forward to reading this book. I enjoy reading classic literature from little-known authors. However, I was overall disappointed. There were long discourses in the book, where Samuel Butler ranted about things in Victorian life which irritated him. His main ire was directed toward the Church of England. Many of his criticism were spot-on, but didn't really need several papers of ire to make his point. These discourses disrupted the plot line on several occasions.

Butler had reasons t...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Moses Kilolo rated it 5 of 5 stars

After reading Theodore Dreiser's introduction to this book, I put it back to the library shelf and consciously staid away for well over two months. I had my reasons, but one of them was not that I didn't want to 'sink my mental teeth' into this, one of the finest and simple yet complex literary pieces. My main reason was Dreiser himself. It stands that one of the books that had a most profound effect on me was Sister Carrie, one among Dreiser's masterpieces. If he, - Mr. Dreiser, at whatever tim...more

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Sep 23, 2012 Dara Salley rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was a little concerned about this novel when I read in the preface that Samuel Butler spent a decade and half writing it and the only reason he stopped was because he died. I was worried it might be some sort of long-winded, rambling manifesto about the meaning of life. In some ways I was right. It is indeed a summation on Butler’s view of life. It is not long-winded or rambling, however. It is interesting, even thrilling, right through to the end.

Butler couches his philosophical ponderings in...more

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Nov 29, 2011 Mary rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone

This book was amazing, and I had a hard time putting it down, even when I was being sort of rude. I took it with me when I visited friends in Florida and kept picking it up whenever I could. It's about a child's emergence from a childhood with abusive and controlling parents into a confused early adulthood and ultimately rational manhood. Apparently, the author meant the book as a condemnation of certain Victorian views, especially about religion. The main character's father is a deeply flawed c...more

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Jul 14, 2011 Miriam rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is #12 on the list that started this whole project in the first place: the Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century. And it's...fine. I wonder if the Modern Library had a bunch of copies in the warehouse that needed selling. My copy has footnotes by an editor who actually says that the book's final third is not that great because Butler never edited it. Methinks an admittedly weak ending is not a great place to start for a book so high on this list. Mostly, this means, "Screw...more

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