Charles Kingsley (1819–1875)

Two Years Ago is the story of Tom Thurnall, the son of a doctor, and himself a physician-- and, like many physicians of his period, an amateur naturalist. So of course I was obligated to read it for my exams. Kingsley's big emphasis on what makes Tom as a scientist different from the people around him is his method of observation: he sees well. He doesn't conform to the stereotype of the scientist as socially clueless; rather, he's the sort of person who sees others very, very keenly. But show more not quite well enough: "He had watched human nature under every disguise, from the pomp of the ambassador to the war-paint of the savage, and formed his own clear, hard, shallow, practical estimate thereof." He understands people very well, especially their weaknesses... but is often unable to see their strengths. He can manipulate them, but not love them.

If you guess that this results in the novel being about Tom learning to see the goodness within people, you'd be right. But though the narrator always has time to stop and drop a moral judgment on Tom ("the possession of power, sought at first from self-interest, has become a passion, a species of sporting, which he follows for its own sake"), Tom is actually a very good scientist and a very good person, bringing a number of positive changes to the town where he takes up residence, and handling tricky situations in a way to fair to all-- even the terrible people! A lot of the last chapter is about his fear of an approaching cholera epidemic, and he does a lot to stop it from hurting anyone.

Running alongside his hijinks is a subplot about his love for Grace, who is (surprise) a religious woman. She loves him, too, but he suspects her of theft, and she can't tell him what she thinks did happen, so separate they shall remain. A lot of the novel's threads come together at the climax at the end of the first volume... but the cholera is still on its way and no one can stop it. Thankfully there's a whole second volume to drag his reformation out through. show less

This book was read to me when I was five years old, horrifying me then and ever since. As the story goes, chimneys were difficult to clean so they sent a small boy up inside it to do the cleaning. Why? It was his job. Why wasn't he in school? School was only for fortunate children. What did his parents do about it? No mention. Who looked after him? No one. Did the boys die up the chimney? Sometimes.

Then it goes on to describe babies in a weedy pond, the illustrations showing them peering show more out of their watery prison that is like a giant green goldfish bowl. I never found out why. Just how bad do you have to be to live in this world?

I have since found out the story was part of Kingley's "scientific theory" on human origins. Oh, perfect for a child's entertainment!

Kingsley was a priest of the Church of England and evidently believed that horror stories would keep his congregation into line. He was the worst kind of Victorian patriarch.

My grade one teacher has a lot to answer for by giving me this lifelong nightmare. show less

This classic was a discovery for me. It's definitely a multi-tiered read: Tom's adventures, a moral fable for hard work, atonement and forgiveness, but also a social critique of child labour and conditions. There's also the embracing of children's mortality (so many dead babies!) which spoke to a grim reality and possibly also the Victorian's obsession with death. Despite some of these more sombre themes, the story remains accessible, structured as a classical quest and explores all the show more emotions (Tom as angry, scared, naughty, happy) in an engaging and thoughtful way. Finally I was glad for the short introduction to set the book in its context, and the illustrations were a lovely addition. show less

The impending cholera epidemic felt like a game-changing storm at the end of the first volume of Two Years Ago, so it's disappointing when it actually hits and turns out to be a few people getting sick (except for one). What does cast a long shadow over the rest of Two Years Ago is the Crimean War. I think that this is the first Victorian novel I've read to actually deal with this in a substantive way; almost all the characters end up serving in the war in some way, shape, or form. (Though show more it's not as hard-hitting as something like Master Georgie, that's for sure.) Beyond that, there's just a lot of moralizing here, both from the narrator and Tom's father, but don't you worry: Tom soon learns that his keen scientific gaze can be used in the service of God and not just money (even he was functionally kinda doing this already). It turns out that atheistic cunning is best as tying itself up!

It's not quite so one-note as I'm making it sound, as there's a minister who learns from Tom that sitting around thinking about dogma isn't terrible useful; this novel led to the coining of the term "muscular Christianity" and it shows. show less