The Way of All Flesh

by Samuel Butler Narrated by Ethan Reynolds

Overview

"The Way of All Flesh" is a semi-autobiographical novel by Samuel Butler, published posthumously in 1903. The narrative critiques Victorian society, particularly its hypocrisy surrounding family, religion, and education, through the lens of the Pontifex family across four generations

The story begins with John Pontifex, a carpenter whose ambitions lead him to become a wealthy but morally questionable businessman. His obsession with social status sets the stage for the struggles faced by his descendants, particularly his son George and grandson Theobald.

The central character, Ernest Pontifex, emerges as the great-grandson of John. Raised in a repressive environment by his domineering parents, Theobald and Christina, Ernest grapples with the expectations placed upon him to follow a path in the clergy. Despite initial enthusiasm for religious life, he becomes disillusioned during his time at Cambridge and later as a curate. His attempts to reform the Church lead to personal crises, including a misguided sexual advance that results in imprisonment.

Editorial Reviews

V.S. Pritchett

One thinks of it lying in Samuel Butler's desk for thirty years, waiting to blow up the Victorian family and with it the whole great pillared and balustraded edifice of the Victorian novel.”

P. N. Furbank

[Butler] uses ordinary conversational English idiom, managing to seem perfectly at ease in it, and continually showing how rich in expressive turns and formulations and apt and vivid words it really is…This is the perfection of what one loosely thinks of as the ‘plain’ style and which of course is not ‘plain’ at all, but fashioned with hard labor and the most sensitive and resourceful skill. In writing Butler attained that ‘grace after the flesh’ for which Ernest pined in vain.”

New Yorker

If the house caught on fire, the Victorian novel I would rescue from the flames would be not Vanity Fair or Bleak House but Samuel Butler’s The Way of All Flesh. It is read, I believe, mostly by the young, bent on making out a case against their elders, but Butler was fifty when he stopped working on it, and no reader much under that age is likely to appreciate the full beauty of its horrors, which are not the horrors of the Gothic novel but of family life.”

George Bernard Shaw

One of the summits of human achievement.”

FEBRUARY 2024 - AudioFile

A.A. Milne called THE WAY OF ALL FLESH the second-best novel in the English language, but it remains one of the least known. In this audio version David Timson brings out all of its wit and charm, although some knowledge of Victorian Britain may be necessary to appreciate the extent of its satire. Among the five generations of the Pontifex family, there are a fair number of important characters, but the book eventually concentrates on Ernest and his immediate family, including his godfather, Edward Overton, the novel's narrator. Through accent, tone, and some modest vocal gymnastics, Timson keeps all the major and a great many minor characters alive and individualized, maintaining listeners' engagement all the way to the end. D.M.H. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2024, Portland, Maine

Product Details

BN ID:	2940193582991
Publisher:	Robert Larson
Publication date:	10/07/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged

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