The Water Babies (Collins Classics)

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Last line: "But remember always, as I told you at first, that this is all a fairy tale, and only fun and pretence: and, therefore, you are not to believe a word of it, even if it is true." When I read that Charles Kingsley and Charles Darwin had been friends, I was so disappointed. Why? Why didn't dear Mr. D pull aside Mr. K and gently offer a sort of "I say old boy! This is bananas!" You know. Like they do. Or should have. Although it occupied a familiar place in British children's literary history, a modern day reader might find parts of the book surprising fare for children -- then or now.

A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That is the very reason why this story was written. There are a great many things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever hear of, at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all things. 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. Fuera bromas, la verdad es que se percibe que el sinsentido de Kingsley procedía de poemitas infantiles tontos y canciones de cuna con tintes grotescos y misteriosos. Leyendo Los niños del agua podemos observar numerosos ejemplos de poemas, tanto autoría de Kingsley como de otros autores, que refuerzan la teoría de que este tipo de textos fueron una influencia decisiva en la historia y en su trabajo artístico.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 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] Popes" are listed among Measles, Famines, Despots, and other "children of the four great bogies." [5] 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 ] Humphrey Carpenter's "Secret Gardens: A Study of the Golden Age of Children's Literature" sounds like something I ought to have read. The period it describes runs from the mid-19th century to the early 20th, placing The Water-Babies right near its start and certainly an influence on everything from "Alice In Wonderland", a few years later, to "Peter Pan". It is also one of those children's books which contains "much that is unintelligible to children", as one reviewer put it; Kingsley was an Anglican minister who was nonetheless a follower of Darwin and, it is said, spent much of his intellectual life reconciling the two.

Darwin, C. (1887). Darwin, F. (ed.). The life and letters of Charles Darwin, including an autobiographical chapter. London, UK: John Murray . Retrieved 20 July 2007. (contains The Autobiography of Charles Darwin)

MORAL.

Ugly people are described as "like the poor Paddies who eat potatoes"; an extended passage discusses St. Brandan among the Irish who liked "to brew potheen, and dance the pater o'pee, [e]

There is a repeated declaration in Water Babies, first stated when poor soot-covered Tom wishes he could wash: “Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be; and those that wish to be foul, foul they will be. Remember.” Life is terrible for Tom. He’s an ordinary boy and he’s in an ordinary situation. Granted, it’s a tough situation but it’s still rather ordinary for the time. His master beats him and overworks him. This is the only life Tom knows; thus, when he grows old he will follow the same path. It’s not his fault; he hasn’t known any different. For him, his master is the embodiment of manliness: it’s what Tom thinks he has to be. So he’s on a dangerous path, and then he drowns.

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.