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Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday: The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

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I’m still reading The Way of All Flesh, the semi-autobiographical novel written by Samuel Butler. At Butler’s request, it was published posthumously because it chronicles Butler’s oppressive childhood and boldly attacks the hypocrisy of Victorian society.

Here is another not so random quote:

The Way of All Flesh“Fortune, we are told, is a blind and fickle foster-mother, who showers her gifts at random upon her nurslings. But we do her a grave injustice if we believe such an accusation. Trace a man’s career from his cradle to his grave and mark how Fortune has treated him. You will find that when he is once dead she can for the most part be vindicated from the charge of any but very superficial fickleness. Her blindness is the merest fable; she can espy her favourites long before they are born. We are as days and have had our parents for our yesterdays, but through all the fair weather of a clear parental sky the eye of Fortune can discern the coming storm, and she laughs as she places her favourites it may seem in a London alley or those whom she is resolved to ruin in kings’ palaces. Seldom does she relent towards those whom she has suckled unkindly and seldom does she completely fail a favoured nursling .”

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
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Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday: The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler

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I set a goal in 2011 to read (or re-read) the books on the Modern Library’s Top 100 list.  My goal this year is to make 10 of the 50 books I plan to read from that list. It’s been since September that I’ve read any from the list so I thought I’d better return to it. The last two I read (1984 and Brave New World) ranked high on the list (13 and 5, respectively), and I enjoyed both. The Way of All Flesh is ranked # 12, so hopefully I will like this one just as much. Plus, George Orwell, the author of my favorite read from 2013 (1984) praised the book. Here is an excerpt:

The Way of All Flesh“Those were the days in which all great things seemed far off, and we were astonished to find that Napoleon Bonaparte was an actually living person. We had thought such a great man could only have lived a very long time ago, and here he was after all almost as it were at our own doors. This lent colour to the view that the Day of Judgement might indeed be nearer that we had thought, but the nurse said it was all right now, and she knew.”

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!