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Havsbarnen (1863)

av Charles Kingsley

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MedlemmarRecensionerPopularitetGenomsnittligt betygOmnämnanden
2,903454,775 (3.31)165
The adventures of Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, who is stolen by fairies and turned into a water baby.
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Visa 1-5 av 45 (nästa | visa alla)
Simon Vance did a fabulous job narrating this dear classic. I had to pick this up after reading Mother Carey's Chickens with my book group. A very old fashioned morality tale. I was a little startled to have an otter be evil and whales to be bad guys. Interesting how these animals have come to be more friendly and acceptable. I enjoyed it. ( )
  njcur | Jan 16, 2024 |
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 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. ( )
1 rösta classyhomemaker | Dec 11, 2023 |
Have just re-read this, maybe for the first time since childhood (about 10?) It is much stranger than I remembered, and the second part, where Tom wanders about having impromptu and rather dull adventures/conversations, is not as good as the first. I can see that Kingsley genuinely wanted to improve the lot of chimney sweep children, and was trying to marry Darwin's theory of evolution with Christian ethics (evolution = moral improvement), but he is so bossy and hectoring and full of himself. Also quite cruel in some scenes, despite advocating kindness, and as for the racism.... !
This edition has Edward Linley Sambourne's rather scary and vivid illustrations from 1885 (not credited however).
  PollyMoore3 | Aug 18, 2023 |
Short and interesting as a fairy tale but there is a lot to cringe about when the narrator talks about Irish and Scottish folks. There are also a lot of words, places, etc, that are either completely made up or beyond my knowledge. You are assumed to be English when reading this book and apparently a child too. Therefore, it's more a thing to study as to the time of Charles Kingsley than to read for pleasure. I can't imagine me understanding a thing when I was a child.
  jeshakespeare | Sep 10, 2022 |
"The most wonderful and the strongest of things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.'

First published in 1862 Reverend Charles Kingsley’s classic novel about a young chimney sweep who after falling into a river finds himself transformed in to an aquatic creature, a 'Water Baby'. The tale begins relatively realistically, and when Tom plunges into the water in becomes a mix of social and scientific satire.

This story is far more than a simple fairy tale, in parts it's a political tract. Kingsley was appalled by the plight of the young sweeps, condemned by their brutal masters to a life of misery and, often, early deaths, if not from falls then from lung disease or cancer. This book so horrified its readers, young and old alike, that it was instrumental in a new law reforming the working conditions of countless young boys forced to crawl up inside chimneys in order to clean them.

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.

This book is undoubtedly an important piece of social history but it's also an uncomfortable read. It's littered with archaic phrases and bloated sentences but most worryingly of all is the almost nonchalant use of sexist and racist (especially against the Irish) undertones throughout that simply would not be acceptable today. I personally would never recommend it being read to youngsters, hence the lowly mark. ( )
1 rösta PilgrimJess | Mar 6, 2022 |
Visa 1-5 av 45 (nästa | visa alla)
In parts political tract, scientific satire, Christian parable as well as children’s fantasy, it is a moving and 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 in that reveals a world created and ruled not by gods, but by goddesses. Not only did it have a huge effect on young readers, it also helped to reform legislation that relieved the suffering of innumerable young people such as Tom, who had been forced to crawl inside chimneys to keep them clean.
tillagd av KayCliff | ändraThe Guardian, Richard Cole (Jul 11, 2016)
 
His most famous work, The Water-Babies, is an odd book which is at once a children’s classic, a moral fable, a response to the theory of evolution, and a satire on Victorian attitudes to child labour and religion.
tillagd av KayCliff | ändraInteresting Literature
 

» Lägg till fler författare (52 möjliga)

Författarens namnRollTyp av författareVerk?Status
Charles Kingsleyprimär författarealla utgåvorberäknat
Attwell, Mabel LucieIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Beards, Richard D.Redaktörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Fry, Rosalie K.Illustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Goble, WarwickIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Italiander, MikeIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Johnstone, Anne GrahameIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Johnstone, Anne GrahameIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Johnstone, Janet GrahameIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Kirk, Maria L.Illustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
MacDonald, RobertaIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Mozley, CharlesIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Robinson, W. HeathIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Sambourne, LinleyIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Smith, Jessie WillcoxIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Tarrant, Margaret W.Illustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Vihervaara, LyyliÖversättaremedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
Wall Perné, Gust van deIllustratörmedförfattarevissa utgåvorbekräftat
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Once upon a time there was a little chimney-sweep, and his name was Tom.
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No one has a right to say that no water-babies exist, till they have seen no water-babies existing.
And whither she went, thither she came.
It's so beautiful, it must be true!
If my story is not true, something better is.
Wise men know that their business is to examine what is, and not to settle what is not.
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The adventures of Tom, a sooty little chimney sweep with a great longing to be clean, who is stolen by fairies and turned into a water baby.

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Medelbetyg: (3.31)
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