The Water-Babies

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 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 show more 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 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.

Words cannot express the depths of my loathing for this story. The only redeeming thing about this particular volume is that it has lovely painted illustrations by Jessie Willcox Smith (but the drawings on every page rarely match the story). The fantasy/political commentary that Lewis Carroll perfected so beautifully 10 years later is a disaster of disjointed obnoxiousness in Kingsley. He is the king of the run-on sentence. His story-telling reminds me of a six year old little boy on a fast-moving train describing everything he sees without pausing for breath. For 400 miles.

Besides the fact that it's just a horribly-written piece of mind-numbing blathering, it angered me in other ways. Kingsley was a preacher but he obviously thought he show more was too smart for his Bible. The story is very pro-evolution ("water is the mother of all living things"). In fact, the story gives us a good look at how the theory of evolution caused the church to fall away. Kingsley is writing to families and at least two generations grew up influenced by this popular book until its racist bits moved it, rightfully so, to the back of the classic literature shelf. It's funny (in a sad way) how ignorant "learned" people can sound talking about science contrary to reason.

One thing, ONE, actually intrigued me: the reference to the Cheshire Cat. I thought this was a creation of Carroll's, but it's not even a creation of Kingsley's. In fact, "grinning like a Cheshire Cat" had been a popular phrase for awhile and is believed to have it's roots in an 18th century cheese brand who used a smiling cat as its logo.

To top it all off, biographical research tells me he insulted Nathaniel Hawthorne. That's an immediate dismissal from me. He and Mark Twain (who insulted Jane Austen) can go pick their arrogant noses in a corner somewhere and let the masters remain.

I suppose if there's anything positive to be said on the story it's that Kingsley takes the side of the underdog in many conversations on social injustice. Many of the Water-Babies are like Tom---neglected and orphaned children who are given a better (after)life. But why would a Christian preacher mention Heaven and the Lord? Oh no...Kingsley brings them back to the primordial soup from which they began.

At least I crossed another book off my 1001 Books to Read Before You Die list. However, I think I could have died happily not wasting my time on this drivel. show less

Here's something that's been on my TBR shelf literally since before I was born. My mother kept her own copy, an award from a 1925 school essay contest in Ottawa, at the cabin we went to in Quebec every summer. I don't recall her ever reading it to me, but since her death it's been on my own shelves and I finally decided I couldn't let another 70 years go by without reading it.

10-year-old Tom, a poorly treated chimney sweep, completely uneducated and social untrained, loses himself in a complex chimney system and comes down in the bedroom of a family's young daughter. He's assumed to be a thief and is chased hither and yon by a crowd, finally escaping them only to drown not too far away. He's taken in hand by fairies and turned into a show more water baby, promptly forgetting his past and having numerous adventures with all sorts of real and (to us) unreal creatures. Along the way he's taught good behavior in ways some educators might find useful. Two of his teachers are Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid and her sister, Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby.

It's a charming book, with but a few phrases that are now politically incorrect. I was actually surprised it wasn't worse, to be honest. The content that I found most jarring was the occasional veiled reference to a holy child, which seemed completely out of place in the middle of a fairy tale. I went back and read the book's description in "1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die", which pointed out that this was written only a couple of years after publication of "On The Origin of Species" and was very much concerned with evolutionary progression and regression.

At any rate, it's a charming tale and it was a pleasure to finally read it. show less

In parts a political tract, a scientific satire, and a Christian parable as well as a children’s fantasy, Water Babies by Charles Kingsley is an uncomfortable book when read as child, and is even more unsettling when read as an adult. It emerged from a sense of social outrage, took on the big questions of belief and biology, and is eye-catching for a work by a 19th-century vicar who managed to write a moral fable, a response to the theory of evolution and a satire on Victorian attitudes toward child labor and religion.

The story follows Tom, a young chimney sweep who falls into a river and transforms into a small bug like water-baby, and then embarks on a weird educational journey. A word of warning in that even as the author takes Tom show more on a moral journey with the purpose of teaching him to be an upright Christian boy, he still manages to include some negative portrayals of Jews, Americans, and the poor. He also uses Tom’s transformation as a way of discussing some of the social problems of his day such as the brutal treatment of children and other labor issues. After Tom helps his former master repent of his sins and change his ways he is granted a return to human form by his three fairy spiritual guides.

I was thoroughly confused and rather impatient with this heavy-handed and strange story. I know it is considered a classic of Victorian literature but I think it is just too far out of date to be relatable in this day and age. Water Babies is certainly a product of it’s time, but I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone today. show less

It's one of those books I loved as a child, but it's well-and-truly past its use-by date now. Not even the nostalgia factor can save it...with its heavy handed didacticism, flimsy plot and nerdy characterisation, it is interesting only as a museum piece for those interested in 19th century campaigns against the industrial exploitation of children.

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.

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, show more etc.

There’s this kid Tom who ends up going up one chimney and coming down the wrong one in some massive house which just happens to border some land which contains a stream where, for fear of his life, he flees and, somehow, becomes a Water Baby, some kind of waterbound fairy.

He then undertakes, for reasons not apprent to me, some epic quest to get to the Back End of Somewhere or the Bottom Side of Everywhere or somesuch meaningless location. Along the way, he meets a range of fantastic beings who are loosely based on magical interpretations of real life beings. Most are as patronisingly moralising as Kingsley himself so there’s really no let up. The story’s really not that interesting actually. You certainly don’t really care what happens to Tom. If he’d been eaten by a pike, I don’t think I would have noticed actually.

Of course, he achieves his aim, but this is by means of passing some kind of moral litmus test of doing something right even though it’s not something he wants to do. The implication is that our highest moral deeds are those which are done in the face of extreme distaste.

That’s a great shame for people like Mother Theresa whose entire life’s work count for nothing because they actually love people and want to help them. Bummer. Yep, next time I actually want to inconvenience myself for the sake of others, I’ll think twice before doing so and wait until I really, really, deep, deep down in my heart don’t want to at all. Then it will count.

But, count for what exactly? For nothing at all of course. Kingsley seems to have believed that you attain some kind of moral status by piling up good actions one after another (all without wanting to of course). What a sad fallacy for such an intelligent man to propound. No matter what we do in this life, we’re all so far short of moral perfection that we all pretty much look the same from the viewpoint of moral purity.

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.

Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are so, so much better at giving us a satirical insight into ourselves and our lives than The Water Babies there’s hardly any comparison between them. Lewis Carrol was a genius who took Kingsley’s timebound witterings and made them into a timeless literary classic which both children and adults will treasure for hundreds of years to come, long after the last person has read that pointless last line of The Water Babies for the last time in human history. show less