The Water Babies (Award Gift Books)

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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. When you grow up I dare say you will be one of the great-deal seers, and see things more wonderful than the Water Babies where other folks can see nothing. [12] Adaptations [ edit ] 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 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. The overwhelming multiplicity of the natural world and the persistence of wonder is the dominant theme (as well as a very Anglican kind of moralism). The swirling, rapidly-changing surrealism of the underwater environment and the number of fantastic creatures would make a good subject for the animator Hayao Miyazaki. Alasdair Gray lists it as an influence on Lanark. 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. 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.In the book, for example, Kingsley argues that no person is qualified to say that something that they have never seen (like a human soul or a water baby) does not exist. 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. La necesidad del autor de justificar que existen los niños del agua no me pareció del todo mal, pero la forma de proceder no me gustó nada. Su crítica estaba llena de comentarios despectivos y pedantes hacia los racionalistas o aquellos que se abisman en la fantasía sabiendo que son una ficción. Esta humilde pagana cristiana debe confesarle, señor Kingsley, que ve completamente lícito abismarse en una ficción conociendo su naturaleza irreal. ¿O es que acaso es menos valioso el objeto que nace de mi mente que el que es obra de la Naturaleza? Mi principal problema con este libro es que no tiene una intención muy clara. El absurdo carece de intención, pero este libro parece que tiene alguna clase de pretensión. Además, la historia tiene tres tonos que no terminan de fusionarse bien: el fantástico, el crítico y el pedante. Reading this once was enough. Future self, if you ever forget what reading it was like and consider giving it another go? Don't.

The book had been intended in part as a satire, a tract against child labour, [7] as well as a serious critique of the closed-minded approaches of many scientists of the day [8] in their response to Charles Darwin's ideas on evolution, which Kingsley had been one of the first to praise. He had been sent an advance review copy of On the Origin of Species, and wrote in his response of 18November 1859 (four days before Darwin’s book was published) that he had "long since, from watching the crossing of domesticated animals and plants, learnt to disbelieve the dogma of the permanence of species," and had "gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made", asking "whether the former be not the loftier thought." [9] Kingsley, Charles (7 September 1998). The Water Babies (audio cassette). BBC Radio Collection. BBC Audiobooks. ISBN 978-0-563-55810-1. A BBC Radio4 full cast dramatisation. 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.

CHAPTER V

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. Initially written for Kingsley’s four-year-old son and published just three years after Darwin's ' On the Origin the Species', which shook Victorian Christian beliefs. Like Darwin, Kingsley took a keen interest in nature and science, some would even argue that this novel mirrors Darwin's theories on evolution, only in this case in the afterlife. Tom evolves due to education by his elders and experience. However, this is also a Christian parable that warns against the dangers of not being baptised in the Christian faith and the merits of treating others as you would want to be treated and the notion of eye for an eye. 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. This is a book that I tried to read many times as a child but could never get through the first chapter. Seeing it on the shelf while visiting my parents I was determined to give it another shot. Although I got through it, to be honest it really wasn't worth it.

this parent-to-child approach is maintained throughout. In a playful manner, Kingsley always makes sure that his readers see the point. For example, at the end he states that “we should learn thirty-seven or thirty-nine things” from the tale, but “I am not exactly sure which.” The Water-Babies is essentially a charming fantasy with a serious, consistently developed moral purpose. 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. A young chimney sweep, who is mistreated by his master accidentally frightens a young girl in the house they are working in. He runs off, fearing he'll be in trouble, and ends up drowning. 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.

CHAPTER VII

In a wealthy estate in the North Country of England, an abusive chimney sweeper, Mr. Grimes, sends his mischievous apprentice, Tom, into a chimney. The boy becomes lost in a labyrinth of interconnected tunnels and eventually exits through the fireplace in a little girl’s bedroom, where he sees (for the first time in his life) pictures of Jesus Christ. The girl, Ellie, wakes up suddenly and screams, prompting Tom to flee through a window. He makes his way to a neighboring town, to the house of the local schoolteacher, who gives him food and a place to sleep. That night, Tom sleepwalks to a stream and in effect drowns himself. In a symbolic baptism, he washes out of his soot-covered body and becomes a water-baby among the fairies.