A great read about Tom a chimney sweep in Victorian times, who escapes
his terrible life by being transformed into
a water baby by the Queen
of the Fairies, and then his
journey to redemption,as he is no saint
himself after the upbringing he has had with Mr Grimes as his master.
The story covers a lot of mythology, pokes fun at evolution comparing
Darwins ideas with transformations in nature, that seeing isnt always
believing. There are beautiful descriptive scenes of nature, of the sad
beauty of autumn and the profound wisdom told by the authors voice. For
example page 135, "Besides, people who make up their minds to go and
see the world as Tom did, must needs find it a weary journey. Lucky for
them if they do not lose heart and stop half way, instead of going
bravely to the end as Tom did". There are other strange undercurrents
in the book, the reasons for which might have been more obvious back
when it was first written. The beautiful Irish woman who is also the
Queen of the Fairies as well as Mrs Be-done-by-as-you-did and Mrs
Do-as-you-would-be-done-by. Perhaps he made her up to make up for all
the derogatory remarks about the Irish in the book and the swipes at
Irelands Roman Catholicism and the politics of the time. Tom's
development from savage behviour to realising that he was doing wrong
are shown marvellously and Mrs D and Mrs B are a stroke of genius for
learning how to behave. They
work by clock work machinery, wound up
never to stop, as old as eternity and as young as time. Then in the
final chapter the author sends up a lot of childhood/adult
misconceptions, from the Land of Do-as-you-likes who came from the
country of Hardwork to the Other-end-of-nowhere which is the North Pole by
the sounds of it and Tom mets a variety of creatures along the way.
Then Tom helps someone he doesn't like and is reunited with
his love and grows up to be a man of science and engineering.