Rebels Unite! Unraveling the Forbidden Threads of Samuel Butler
The 12th Best Novel: The Way of All Flesh
Are you loving these old book covers I found? Don’t these look a bit… salacious!
When published in 1903, The Way of All Flesh scandalized high society. It pushed everyone into having a cultural conversation about morality, religion, and society’s conventions. The novel is somewhat autobiographical. What Butler was writing about was so provocative at the time, that he refused to publish it until after he was dead, hahaha. #SquadGoals
This novel, #12 on our Top 100 list, is a social satire, like Brave New World and Catch-22. YA’LL KNOW THESE ARE MY FAVORITE!
In this case, Butler is satirizing Victorian society at large, and all the heavy and absurd conventions with which it saddled its citizens.
Ernest Pontifex is our protagonist. Ernest becomes the vessel for Butler’s satire as he navigates the expectations placed on him by his family and society. Ernest’s father, Theobald Pontifex, is overbearing and hypocritical. He serves as a symbol of the oppressive Victorian moral code.
Assumptions and conventions about marriage are scrutinized through Ernest’s wife, Christina, as she too struggles to conform to society’s expectations.
The Way of All Flesh is often called the first twentieth-century novel. I enjoy exposing hypocrisy, don’t you? I hope you’ll join me in giving it a read!
RSVP to the virtual discussion event on March 13. ❤️
Read more from the Mirror in the Sky publication, which celebrates spending time with our best albums, novels, and movies.😍
Peace.
