Edmund Gosse (1849–1928)

Not a Victorian scientist novel... but a novel about a Victorian scientist. Well, a memoir told novelistically at any rate. You may know Edmund Gosse's father as Philip Henry Gosse, the man who did not say that God put the fossils there to test our faith, but whom everyone thought said that. Father and Son is a great read, but it had less to say about science and seeing scientifically than I had expected. If anything makes Philip Gosse a terrible dad (and he sure is, at least as Edmund tells show more it) it was his religious piety, which Edmund said left only "what is harsh and void and negative" (248). Philip was a self-denying emotionless man, but because he thought that was spiritually correct, not because of scientific training. A far cry from the mix of Christianity and science employed by Philip's friend Charles Kingsley. show less

Beautifully written, and a wonderful document about the late nineteenth century clash between 'religion' and 'science.' Also, Gosse goes out of his way to present his father as a decent human being, not something that can be said about the other books in this tradition.

At the risk of showing my biases here, I can't help but see this as a quiet and deeply sad chronicle of the ways religious faith and the expectations it engenders in parents for their children can drive wedges between them and hollow people out. Or primarily that; it's also a record of the practices of a particular fundamentalist sect, the Plymouth Brethren; a historical document of one corner of the evolution controversy (the thing where humans and dinosaurs lived on earth at the same time show more and the geological evidence was put on earth by God to trick us was not actually attributable to Philip Henry Gosse; it was a nasty caricature of his Omphalos by the press--funny how now it's considered fair comment and worthy of respect in some quarters); an examination of the furtive imaginations and priggish unpleasance of the stifled and melancholy child. But mostly it's the wedge-driving thing. Love your kids anyway--and that "anyway" should cover everything. show less

This memoir broke ground in the early 20th century by presenting generational conflict in an apparently frank, dispassionate, indeed "scientific" way. In its restrained way, it helped lead Gosse's countrymen from the piety of the Victorian vision of family life to Philip Larkin's definitive statement: "They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you." The truly fascinating part of reading show more this book is in the inexorable build up of the tension in the central relationship, a tension that is not fully realized until the extraordinary "Epilogue." It is also touching to witness the long-term effects of the father's indefatigable judgmentalism on the son's ingrained self-criticism. I am now going to provide an extended quote that will chill the blood of anyone possessed of an abundant super-ego in the form of an insistent voice of a strong parent figure. The fact that the author himself is not aware of life-blighting process that is just now beginning makes it all the more poignant: "But of all the thoughts which rushed upon my savage and undeveloped little brain at this crisis, the most curious was that I had found a companion and a confidant in myself. There was a secret in this world and it belonged to me and to a somebody who lived in the same body with me. There were two of us, and we could talk with one another. It is difficult to define impressions so rudimentary, but it is certain that it was in this dual form that the sense of my individuality now suddenly descended on me, and it is equally certain that it was a great solace to me to find a sympathizer in my own breast." That this "sympathizer" will mature into the child's most intolerant critic and implacable enemy is never recognized. "Ah, the pity of it Iago." show less