What is your all-time favorite book?
By paleshelf
I’ve got quite a few, but Animal Farm and 1984 are probably my favorites. What about you?
Reader discussion: The Way of All Flesh
Public reader discussion about The Way of All Flesh in the WeRead Catalog by Samuel Butler.
Disney making $1 billion investment in OpenAI, will allow characters on Sora AI video generator
By Page-Walks
Honestly I feel like I’m all in on the whole “videos of Donald Duck smoking weed” thing.
The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler [Classics](1903)
By redFeather
I’m not totally sure where people rank this, but The Way of All Flesh is often treated like it was basically the first real twentieth-century novel. It’s Butler telling his own story in a way that really calls out the kind of hypocrisy you’d see in a Victorian clerical family’s home life, and it makes you wonder if the whole “respectable” set of values was just going to fall apart later on. Same deal with The Way of All Flesh—plus, it’s kind of wild that it connects to those later post–World War I feelings about what people are supposed to believe. And apparently George Bernard Shaw even praised it a ton. Then there’s the whole Ernest Pontifex / Theobald focus across generations, and the way it talks about heredity and environment like that’s what shapes who someone becomes. Also, it doesn’t pull punches when it comes to taking shots at Victorian England: the family, the church, and that super rigid class setup.
92/100 The Way of All Flesh
By volume_atlas2000
Out of all the Centaur 100 books I’ve been reading lately, this is one I’m not sure I’d recommend. The writing is pretty smart, but the main character is really hard to get behind. It’s got that Thomas Hardy sort of tragic vibe, and the whole thing only kinda creeps out of the darkness into loneliness. And Ernest’s childhood is basically torture.
What book(s) did you read when you were young that have influenced you throughout your life (other than religious texts)?
By EnvelopeRapid
Just a heads-up—please don’t reply to this unless you’re Gen X or older (1980 or earlier). The rules and sidebar should explain it, and yeah, I’m seeing this as an automatic message. If there’s an issue, I guess you’d contact the mods.
Old, calming book?
By Bucket-Bridge69
I’m trying to find a novel (or a couple) from an earlier century that feels calm and comforting—nothing super intense or scary. Basically something I can curl up with on the couch with a hot cup of tea. I started Les Misérables by Victor Hugo and I really liked his tone. The way he writes makes it feel like you’re just hanging out with him while he shows you the setting and the characters, and it’s kind of gentle when he’s being gentle. But yeah, I know that book still has heavier stuff going on, so it’s not exactly the cozy vibe I want all the time. I don’t even mind if the story isn’t super fast or if there are tangents, since I feel like that’s pretty normal for 1800s books. If it’s a classic that’s pretty well-known and something people often read in English class, that would be a plus too, but I’m not picky about whether it was originally written in English.
Has anyone read The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler?
By Letter-Autumn30
I picked up a copy of this book and I’m about halfway through. If anyone else has read it, I’d really like to hear what you thought—do you feel like it’s worth it? I’m curious what other people think.