Edmund Gosse: Father and Son

We are not averse to some tough challenges over here at teadevotee; and today, I am going to attempt to persuade you that 1) an Edwardian memoir about growing up in a religious cult is much better than it sounds 2) the most important ‘Father and Son’ that was ever written was not by Cat Stevens and later covered by Boyzone.

(Just as an aside though, please put your hands in the air and croon ‘it’s not time to make a change, just relax and take it eeeeeasy….)

OK. So. Edmund Gosse was brought up in the Plymouth Brethren in the 1850s (the Brethren also featured in the recent film, Son of Rambow). He grew up to be a major literary bod, but is now mostly remembered for this biography/autobiography, which started a mini-trend for debunking Victorian heroes.

For the first few years of his life, it is just him, his mum and his dad. His dad is a famous naturalist, his mum writes very successful evangelical books. And there is God. Not a kind and compassionate God, either, this God is all about the hellfire and judgement and vengeance. When he’s about seven, his Mum dies very sadly and painfully of breast cancer. Then it’s just him and his Dad and they move down to the South Coast where they hook up with some other brethren; and the rest of the book is mostly about the scales falling from Junior’s eyes and becoming disillusioned with religion and his Dad. It’s very Oedipal.

Sounds terrible, doesn’t it – an Edwardian misery memoir. But believe me when I say this book is FUNNY. Intentionally funny, that is – its all about the absurdities and ironies of being so rigid and dogmatic. Young Edmund is a sanctimonious, pompus prig and knows it. I have tried to write out some of the funny incidents, but I do not have the sparkle of Gosse. One example: a particularly righteous member of the Brethren is praised for going around smashing up graven idols (or, priceless sculputures) with her parasol – which seems a peculiarly English form of vandalism.

The humour makes the book all the more hardhitting. The poignant moments are all the more heartrending and the angry moments are all the more sucker-punching. The real tragedy of this book is the way that Dad is at heart, such a lovely man, but he lets that be sacrificed to the most austere, rigid, judgemental, self-righteous religion. Edmund is not allowed to read a book until he is 11 because ‘making up stories is a sin’. He doesn’t know what imagination, creativity, or playing is. He can’t make friends, because it’s hard to just hang out when you are supposed to be converting people. Dad has a minor crisis when he encounters Darwinism, and has to come up with a ludicrously elaborate way of reconciling the two (involving God littering the world with fossils in order to throw people off the scent). Edmund’s ultimate disillusionment comes from discovering literature and culture – a new form of truth.

This is not a book which is against religion at all. It is against fundamentalism, and sacrificing humanity to abstract belief, because “encourages a stern and ignorant spirit of condemnation; it throws altogether out of gear the healthy movement of the conscience; it invents virtues which are sterile and cruel; it invents sins which are no sins at all, but which darken the heaven of innocent joy with futile clouds of remorse.” Could there be a more relevant sentiment today? But don’t be put off by the big ideas. Trust me. Funny.