The Way of All Flesh cover art

The Way of All Flesh

 Preview

Audible Standard 30-day free trial

Try Standard free
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Get unlimited access to bingeable podcasts.
Standard auto renews for £5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Way of All Flesh

By: Samuel Butler
Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
Try Standard free

£5.99 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for £16.86

Buy Now for £16.86

About this listen

 This brilliant satirical novel, tracing the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex, has continued in popularity since its original publication in 1903. Every generation finds in The Way of All Flesh a reaffirmation of youth's rightful struggle against the tyranny of harsh parents and its admirable will for freedom of personal expression.

This is one of the most fascinating character studies you will ever read, the story of a young man who survives the baleful influence of a hateful, hypocritical father, a doting mother, and a debauched wife, to emerge as a decent, happy human being. It is also a stinging satire of Victorian gentry, their pomposity, sentimentality, pseudo-respectability, and refined cruelty, a satire still capable of delivering death-blows to the same traits that exist in our present world.

(P)2000 Blackstone Audiobooks Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction Comedy Witty
All stars
Most relevant
I can see why this was such an influential book on Huxley, Graves Waugh etc. It even anticipates Larkin's 'they f**k you up your mum and dad.' Hugely satisfying

undiscovered masterpiece

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I have already read this book a lot so I knew the story and the writing would entertain me. Butler writes about the behaviours of difficult parents and takes the reader through an entire generation of a family, and life of Earnest, very stylishly. The reader does justice to butler and makes the overall experience of this audio book a great pleasure. If you haven't yet read or heard this book please do. it's one of the greats.

Read very well and the book itself is fantastic

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The quality of Butler's writing is up there alongside the likes of other Victorian greats such as Dickens and Collins, quite superb.

And, as for the narrator, I don't think that they could have picked anyone better.

Fabulous

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
To be honest, I couldn't get into the story at all because of the narration. His dialogue is ok, but with overall narration he keeps going up in pitch at weird times, which made for a bizarre, oddly monotonous and distracting narration that really made it impossible to take in what was happening. I've come across this narrator before and had the same problem. He also mispronounces an awful lot of words, even reasonably common ones.
It's not as pronounced if you listen to it at a slow speed, but I can't stand listening to the drawn out drawling of slow speeds, so I guess this narrator is never going to work for me.

Hated the narration

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.