The Water Babies (Collins Classics)

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No es una mala obra, pero no creo que pudiera recomendarla a cualquier persona. Incluso si el interesado disfruta el humor absurdo tendría serias dudas de si recomendarla o no. Creo que su público específico serían aquellos lectores que quieran ver la evolución histórica del absurdo y los que no tuvieron suficientes idas de olla con las obras de Carroll. I have seen Babies in water and Babies in bottles; the Baby in the water was not in a bottle and the Baby in the bottle was not in water. My friend who wrote the story of the Water Baby was a very kind man and very clever. Perhaps he thought I could see as much in the water as he did. – There are some people who see a great deal and some who see very little in the same things.

The book ends with the caveat that it is only a fairy tale, and the reader is to believe none of it, "even if it is true".

CHAPTER VI

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. The real word is escape because Tom gets turned into a Waterbaby and goes on an adventure of discovery. He sees things that many though were mere fictions and in the process learns a little about life in the process. And that’s the key here, learning. This is a children’s book and all children’s books are full of didacticism of some variety. This one is full of Christian dogma and Victorian world values. Tom gets to experience the meaning of life, at least from the perspective of Kingsley and the imperialistic attitude that went with him.

A water-baby? You never heard of a water-baby. Perhaps not. That is the very reason why this story was written. There are a great many things in the world which you never heard of; and a great many more which nobody ever heard of; and a great many things, too, which nobody will ever hear of, at least until the coming of the Cocqcigrues, when man shall be the measure of all things. The protagonist is Tom, a young chimney sweep, who falls into a river after encountering an upper-class girl named Ellie and being chased out of her house. There he appears to drown and is transformed into a "water-baby", [4] as he is told by a caddisfly — an insect that sheds its skin — and begins his moral education. The story is thematically concerned with Christian redemption, though Kingsley also uses the book to argue that England treats its poor badly, and to question child labour, among other themes.A thought: I've never read Alice in Wonderland, but when I think of the children's movie I recall it being a string of one fantastical event after another. Would I have the same reaction reading that? Or are the worlds and characters created therein enough to carry a haphazard plot? The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see."