The way of all flesh

In the English literature of the second half of the XIX century. Samuel Batler (1835-1902) belongs to a prominent place. In the genre of a fantastic grotesque, he revived the Swift tradition, and in the genre of the novel of education anticipated trends that fully developed in European psychological prose of the 20th century. When creating a "path of all flesh" with an inconceivable frankness for that time, the writer used personal life experience. Autobiography gives his narrative special acuteness. The novel traces the formation of the character and the spiritual formation of the son of a priest. Before the reader, paintings by the sad, crippled by the despotistical arbitrariness of childhood educators, complete deprivation and disappointments of youth and, finally, maturity are pores when he gains himself in creative work - writing.
The author’s huge erudition and masterful possession of the word allow him to skillfully weave into the fabric of the narrative and in the speech of heroes biblical, Shakespearean and other classic quotes and allusions, very often presenting them so that well -known, common phrases begin to sparkle with new colors. No less elegant and their own paradoxes and allegory of the writer are. The skillful combination of all these techniques made it possible to create one of the best Victorian novels, where original philosophical thoughts are adjacent to bright genre scenes, and the lifting satire and caustic irony - with soft, purely English humor