A Man of Parts

by David Lodge

'The mind is a time machine that travels backwards in memory and forwards in prophecy, but he has done with prophecy now...'

Sequestered in his blitz-battered Regent's Park house in 1944, the ailing Herbert George Wells, 'H.G.' to his family and friends, looks back on a life crowded with incident, books, and women. Has it been a success or a failure? Once he was the most famous writer in the world, 'the man who invented tomorrow'; now he feels like yesterday's man, deserted by readers and depressed by the collapse of his utopian dreams.

He recalls his unpromising start, and early struggles to acquire an education and make a living as a teacher; his rapid rise to fame as a writer with a prophetic imagination and a comic common touch which brought him into contact with most of the important literary, intellectual, and political figures of his time; his plunge into socialist politics; his belief in free love, and energetic practice of it. Arguing with himself about his conduct, he relives his relationships with two wives and many mistresses, especially the brilliant student Amber Reeves and the gifted writer Rebecca West, both of whom bore him children, with dramatic and long-lasting consequences.

Unfolding this astonishing story, David Lodge depicts a man as contradictory as he was talented: a socialist who enjoyed his affluence, an acclaimed novelist who turned against the literary novel; a feminist womaniser, sensual yet incurably romantic, irresistible and exasperating by turns, but always vitally human.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Novels, British Literature, Literature, Roman, Historical

565 pages, Hardcover

First published March 31, 2011

About the author

David John Lodge was an English author and critic. A literature professor at the University of Birmingham until 1987, some of his novels satirise academic life, notably the "Campus Trilogy" – Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work (1988). The second two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Another theme is Roman Catholicism, beginning from his first published novel The Picturegoers (1960). Lodge also wrote television screenplays and three stage plays. After retiring, he continued to publish literary criticism. His edition of Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1972) includes essays on 20th-century writers such as T.S. Eliot. In 1992, he published The Art of Fiction, a collection of essays on literary techniques with illustrative examples from great authors, such as Point of View (Henry James), The Stream of Consciousness (Virginia Woolf) and Interior Monologue (James Joyce), beginning with Beginning and ending with Ending.

Reviews

[Valeriu Gherghel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probabil că orice scriitor în toate mințile, ajuns la capătul vieții, e copleșit de îndoieli. Acesta a fost momentul ales de David Lodge ca debut / incipit al romanului său biografic, consacrat lui H. G. Wells (1866-1946). Bătrînul scriitor bolnav și obosit - care nu a părăsit Londra în timpul bombardamentelor germane - privește înapoi necruțător și e cuprins de întrebări dureroase.

Știe că a făcut greșeli și că publicul aproape l-a uitat. Se plimbă și vorbește în camera de lucru de unul singur. Tot ce fusese limpede cu cîțiva ani în urmă s-a întunecat. Izbînzile literare nu mai par atît de mari. Conchide că n-a reușit mai nimic în viață. A avut căsnicii ratate (cea mai cunoscută cu Rebecca West), o mulțime de relații trecătoare (peste 100), a căpătat faima dubioasă a unui Don Juan (de care e bine să-ți ții fiicele și soțiile departe), și-a îndepărtat prietenii, admiratorii l-au părăsit. În anii 30 ai secolului trecut a publicat tot mai rar și cu tot mai puțin succes, inspirația și puterea de creație i-au secat: gloria de odinioară s-a risipit.

Pentru a redacta acest roman, David Lodge a studiat minuțios documentele. A folosit scrisorile și jurnalul lui Wells, memoriile celor care au trăit în preajma lui ori care l-au cunoscut îndeaproape. N-a inventat personaje noi, nu era nevoie, iar replicile lui Wells provin din propriile sale epistole și articole. Într-un moment de bună dispoziție, H.G. Wells și-a compus un necrolog (destul de amar), din care Lodge citează cu satisfacție:

„A fost cu adevărat unul dintre cei mai prolifici «scriitori de duzină» ai acelor vremuri... S-a descris pe sine însuşi la începutul anilor ’30 ca pe un personaj adus de şale, ponosit, şleampăt şi de la o vreme înclinat spre obezitate, şontîcăind cu bastonul prin grădinile din Regent’s Park şi vorbind de unul singur. „Într-o bună zi“, putea fi auzit spunînd, „o să scriu o carte, una adevărată“. Textul acesta a fost scris şi interpretat, în general, ca un jeu d’esprit, un dezarmant exerciţiu de autoparodiere, dar în clipa de faţă nu părea prea departe de realitate”.

[Ana Cristina Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

En esta biografía novelada de más de 600 páginas, David Lodge no sólo nos retrata al 'hombre' del título - el escritor H.G. Wells - sino toda una época de cambio y transición. En realidad, la vida de H.G. (1866-1946) es el punto de partida para un interesante análisis del cambio social y político que experimentó Inglaterra, desde la época victoriana hasta el final de la segunda guerra mundial. H.G. tuvo una voluntad firme de ser motor del cambio social y seguramente sus obras contribuyeron a la evolución de las costumbres, aunque las más conocidas sean las clásicas de CF como La guerra de los mundos, La Isla del Doctor Moreau o El hombre invisible.

Hay mucho espacio dedicado a su relación con los fabianos, una sociedad fundada en 1884 cuya finalidad era promover la implantación del socialismo, no mediante la revolución sino introduciendo reformas graduales. De ella formaban parte personas muy conocidas como el dramaturgo Bernard Shaw o la sufragista Emmeline Pankhurst. También aparecen sus viajes a Rusia y entrevistas con personajes como Lenin y Stalin. Me ha llamado la atención todo el esfuerzo que dedicó a nivel literario a temas sociales y políticos, de hecho escribió muy poca CF, sólo al principio de su carrera, pero la mayoría de su obra refleja sus preocupaciones por transformar y mejorar la sociedad.

Mucha parte de esta biografía la ocupa su vida amorosa, absolutamente volcánica y diversa, que se correspondía con sus concepciones filosóficas sobre el amor libre. Se casó dos veces, matrimonios que simultaneó con una larga lista de amantes, muchas de ellas conocidas intelectuales, y dos hijos nacidos de estas relaciones. Eran relaciones largas y complicadas, como la que tuvo con la escritora Rebecca West que duró 10 años, aunque en todo momento siguió casado con su esposa Jean, que conocía y toleraba sus amores. A ratos la lectura se hace extenuante porque el hombre no paraba de meterse en problemas, por ejemplo seduciendo a las hijas de sus conocidos y desafiando todas las convenciones sociales. En su defensa hay que decir que le atraían las cualidades intelectuales más que el físico, y que valoraba a las mujeres por lo que le aportaban como compañeras que compartían sus inquietudes e intereses.

En conjunto es un retrato muy humano, muy creíble y bien documentado, que me ha revelado cosas interesantes sobre este autor, a quien tenemos encasillado como escritor de CF, pero que intentó ser mucho más que eso.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

H G Wells you are a slut, an excellent writer but an unadulterated slut....though perhaps any conjunction of the prefix un and any word in the slightest bit similar to adultery is not appropriate as far as you are concerned.

The book is a fascinating read and Lodge has written a really clever dissection of the man's talent and lifestyle and uses the device of Wells arguing with himself over his behaviour and the highs and lows of his literary output to move the story into a different dimension.

The story leaps back and forth across continents, lecture halls, decades oh and beds.....oh so many beds. Indeed, 'A man of parts' seems a title with its tongue heavily inserted into Lodge's cheek. There is only one part of this man which features to any great extent and he does appear to do most of his thinking with it. Indeed were it flexible enough, he probably would have used it to do his typing had he not been using his frankly wet and doormat of a wife to do so and that is another thing....Jane Wells grow a pair. Bloody hell she should have slapped him on any number of occasions, instead she left him free to do what came extraordinarily naturally to him.

His oft cited free love creed was mightily convenient. It struck me on any number of occasions that the no strings thing suited him perfectly and whenever the woman around whom he had thrown his quite frankly well used lasso began to yearn for something more he always seemed to find a way of blaming her for the awkwardness. There was also the quite breathtaking double-think involved where he tarted his way through any number of liasons and dabbles and felt put upon when the long term bed companion of the moment expressed annoyance or....shock horror ...betrayal and yet he himself could not stomach the idea that one of his bedfellettes might stray towards another 'man with his part'......

Mark, when will you learn.....it does not pay to 'meet your heroes' !!

[Kansas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me ha gustado mucho esta biografia novelada del visionario HG Wells y tan caraceristico del estilo de David Lodge, no podía faltar esa veta de humor socarron en torno a Wells y sus conquistas femeninas. Pero al mismo tiempo es reveladora y muy jugosa la forma en que David Lodge se desliza por la época en que vivió H.G. Wells, dos guerras mundiales, circulos de escritores de la época y toda una forma vida en un momento de transición en el que mandaron a paseo la represión de lo victoriano y se lanzaron a vivir la vida muy libremente y me refiero a HG Welles y su circulo. Es interesante también como Lodge pone en evidencia la hipocresia de todos esos fabianos, un movimiento que aunque abogaba por un socialismo diferente con reformas graduales y defendía de alguna forma un amor más libre, bajo la superficie no dejaban de ser tan puritanos como el resto, pero no H.G.Wells, él iba por libre.

Una novela soberbia sobre un escritor diferente y de lo más interesante en su concepción de la vida y del universo.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

[3.5 really, but I'm in a generous mood, so I'm rounding up today]

It was David Lodge who observed that 'literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children and real life is the other way around'. If Lodge is to believed, HG Wells' life had more than it's fair share of both.

Being only dimly familiar with Wells' work (I read 'The Time Machine' when I was about 12, and like many others, was introduced to The War of The Worlds via Jeff Wayne's musical, which my Dad had on a C90 for long car journeys) I was perhaps less bothered than some other readers might be by the extent to which the book focused on his rather complicated personal life, at the expense of his literary career.

The book begins by introducing us to an elderly and seemingly spiritedly curmudgeonly Wells, seeing out the blitz of the Second World War in his central London terrace, having a bigger '13' painted on the wall next to his front door, in keeping with a lifetime's contempt for superstition. We are soon introduced to the book's interlocutor (it is suggested that this is Wells' own conscience, looking back with some doubt and uncertainty on his life, though I couldn't help but wonder if this was really the voice of Lodge himself. From there the book takes us back, in flashback, to Wells' unremarkable childhood in 1870s London and tells the story of how Wells went from lower-middle class nobody to toast of the literary world by the turn of the century. And around a quarter of the way through the book, with the sexual spark gone from Wells' second marriage, the book begins to focus increasingly on Wells' ever more complicated personal life. First there is the ill-advised affair with Rosamund Bland, the teenage daughter of Edith Nesbit (of Railway Children fame), which causes a minor scandal and leaves him somewhat at odds with other members of the Fabians, a non-revolutionary socialist group with whom he and his wife were active in at the time after . Which appears to be a warm-up for a later affair with another daughter of a prominent Fabian, Amber Reeves, the consequences of which are altogether more long-lasting as Reeves becomes pregnant by Wells – in the book at least – as a deliberate ploy by the pair of them in the face of familial opposition to their relationship (there's more than a hint of the Australian soap opera, except as far as I can tell, it's not an invention. I went off to wikipedia to look her up and it turns out their daughter only died in 2010...) Later comes the relationships with literary critic and prominent suffragette, Rebecca West, and with German heiress Elizabeth Von Arnim. A fling with Margaret Sanger merits only a passing mention, and Lodge decided to omit any mention of Martha Gellhorn, perhaps for fear of libel suits, or perhaps because he didn't believe the source material (an appendix to Wells' autobiography published 40 years after his death, detailing his sexual life)

Inevitably, with a book based on a close reading of historical sources, I couldn't help wondering exactly where biographical fact and later authorial invention merged. One assumes that some of the sexual details must be speculative, but on the other hand, it appears that Wells and Rebecca West's habit of calling each other 'panther' and 'jaguar' (and, faintly absurdly, their calling their son, Anthony panther West) is no invention.) But if there was one thing that nagged at me throughout, it was the question of what Wells' wife, Jane (as he re-named her, her given name being Amy Catherine) made of it all. In the fictional 'conversations' with the un-named interlocutor, Wells insists that Jane was unconcerned by her husband's affairs, and she is never more than a background character in the novel. But I couldn't help wondering how accurate this portrayal was. And whether Lodge's lack of much material about her untimely death, some twenty years before Wells, affected him at all. It's all strangely fascinating. Like reading a one hundred year old gossip column, safe in the knowledge that the real lives that might have been affected are now long over and no harm can come of the revelations contained within.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

H.G. Wells is described as a comet that arrived out of obscurity in the late 19th century, blazed over the literary firmament for the next few decades and then faded away, perhaps to return sometime in the future.

A brilliant futurist who foresaw events like the World Wars (he saw only one, occurring in the 1950’s), World Government (the United Nations and its predecessor, the League of Nations), the birth of Socialism, and air power that would globalize warfare. Born to humble origins, he became a world-famous novelist who never had trouble getting his books published and who lived an affluent life off his writing. His vision of the utopian world bordered on Nazism: run by professional managers, where the People of the Abyss (poor, sick, unemployed, criminals et al) would be eliminated, and where free love would proliferate.

It is his vision of free love that overpowers the book, for we delve into his complex world of love affairs more than into his vast oeuvre. Wells was sexually obsessed and needed a woman to look after him and provide him vigorous sexual exercise all the time, even if they were not one and the same person. It was unfortunate that the two women he married were weak in the sack, yet they provided the perfect cover of a respectable marriage behind which he could engage in his pasades. And there are many lovers: from the wives of his friends to the daughters of his friends, to ardent students struck in awe of his artistic vision. And when these women are in short supply there are also prostitutes. Children born out of wedlock are provided for, as are their unfortunate mothers. This short man with a high pitched voice, given to fumbling over his words, possesses a magical sexual charisma and he does exploit it well in this book.

We get a glimpse into the conflicts at the Fabian Society, a precursor to the Labour Party in England. Wells is a promising star in this organization until his various affairs bring unwarranted attention and his concepts of free love and professional management run afoul of stalwarts in the organization such as George Bernard Shaw. There is also an exchange of letters throughout the novel between Wells and Henry James, a face-off between the practical novelist and the literary one. James admired Wells’ commercial success, something he could never achieve in his lifetime, yet he was critical of Wells wanting to change the world in his novels while James wanted to only describe it. Just as he was pilloried many times with damaging reviews by those closest to him (including lovers), Wells permanently damages his relationship with James by releasing a book, Boon, that caricatures the dying literary writer.

David Lodge uses a clever device to intersperse Wells’ life story with a fictional interview between the ailing author and an interviewer (who is also Wells) taking place in 1944 during the London blitzkrieg, two years before Wells died. In this interview, we discover that Wells has declined as an author, his books, the ones published after World War I, are no longer being read, his visionary powers have dimmed and the insignificance of death is creeping upon him. And his women have died or deserted him. The interviewer holds the mirror to Wells, and the dying author defends himself where he is able to, and eats crow when he has no other option. The Fall of Man, indeed.

Wells was a dreamer indeed, trying to forge the world to conform to his extreme appetites. And yet, Free Love does not account for greed and jealousy which Wells himself was prone to, especially when his former lovers married younger men. But he was a very lucky man indeed, to have wives and lovers - whom he constantly betrayed - faithfully edit and type his manuscripts, to have his novels catch the zeitgeist nearly every time, and to escape reputational damage from his dangerous liaisons.

As much as he is loathsome, he is enigmatic and engaging, and is indeed a passing comet, the likes of which we will not see for a long time, perhaps never.

[Alex Doenau · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is a huge relief in having finished this. For a week and a half (with two books and a hundred pages of short stories in between) I slogged it out with Lodge, trying to figure out what his intention was, whether he had a central thesis in his meandering account of H.G. Wells' life. Turns out he didn't. This novel is actually a fairly straightforward and dry biography of Wells given some of the trimmings of a novel.

Wells basically writes books of varying success and feasibility, while entertaining sexual liaisons with a series of women who aren't his wife. The episodic encounters are well researched but dull, and Wells' approach to sexuality was both progressive and cursed by double standards. Men may take as many lovers as they desire, but a woman is only ever permitted one man at a time. It's only proper! According to Wells.
The women, Rebecca West in particular, are intriguing figures who produced vital and lasting work, but they get little of a look in beyond being sources of fleeting love and ultimate frustration for Wells.

Two stars implies a kind of contempt for the novel, but I want to make it clear that I didn't hate this book; it just didn't interest me in the slightest. I felt a duty to Lodge to complete it, because I've enjoyed his past work, but I think that it was too much of a pet project of his for the common man (i.e. me) to penetrate.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

man of many parts and many conquests
“A Man of Parts” is a big, nervy book of more than 550 pages devoted to H. G. Wells, a writer not too much remembered in America except for his two Saturday afternoon entertainments “War of the Worlds” and “Time Machine.” Nervy because David Lodge’s decision to devote a big chunk of his own life researching and writing about Wells was risky. Very risky. Would his subject be compelling enough to attract sufficient interest to make the effort worthwhile? The answer is, well sort of.

Wells (1866-1946) lived a long, productive life and it comes as pretty much a surprise that as well as being a prolific writer of a hundred-odd books of fiction and nonfiction, the man was a sex machine, a fin de siècle chick magnet.

Lodge describes Wells as not particularly attractive. Late in life Wells humorously described himself in an “auto-obituary” as “bent, shabby, slovenly and latterly somewhat obese figure.” Still, he was as successful in his conquests as a rooster in a henhouse.

Married twice, Wells was a socialist who believed in, was an activist for and practiced free love (ardently and often and with a score or more of women who were married, single, young and not so young, including birth control advocate Margaret Sanger).

Lodge suggests that one of the reasons for Wells’ appeal was his scent. Yes, his scent. His longtime lover the writer Rebecca West, nearly 30 years his junior, said he gave off the aroma of English walnuts, and another of his dalliances, the novelist Elizabeth von Arnim, said he exuded the smell of honey. Whatever the reason for his allure, throughout his life when he approached a potential conquest he was usually eagerly received.

I don’t know how best to describe the book. It’s either a fictionalized biography or a novel that passes itself off as something very true to life. In a front page, Lodge says the truth is “elastic” and nearly everything he writes about Wells is “inferable from” or “consistent with.” The book begins and ends in 1944 at the end of Wells’ life when in his late 70s he’s ill and in a mood to defend his reputation and define a legacy by talking about his life and works. Between those bookends, Lodge tells his subject’s story in flashback.

Wells was not born to privilege. But his origins weren’t like something from Dickens either. His father was a shopkeeper and his mother worked as a servant to the more prosperous. He struggled to get an education, worked as a teacher and apprenticed as a draper. He began writing while young and relatively quickly found a following. Money and prosperity followed soon after.

West summed up Well’s life this way: "HG was like a comet. He appeared suddenly out of obscurity at the end of the 19th century and blazed in the literary firmament for decades, evoking astonishment and awe and alarm, like the comet of ‘In the Days of the Comet’ which threatened to destroy the earth, but in fact transformed it by the beneficial effect of its gaseous tail.”

Wells said of himself “I want to change the world not just describe it.” Whether he succeeded is open to debate. Lodge’s life of Wells is long and although the book is interesting I wanted it to be something more, engaging enough to hold my interest page after page and affair after affair. I’m still not convinced that it measured up.

[Stela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, it was interesting - this second biography I've read, and it seems it establishes a pattern of how Lodge thinks a biography should be written.
First of all, the idea around which the main character is built: in Author! Author! it was the secret ambition of Henry James to become a famous playwright; here, - the women who defined different parts of Wells.
The narrative construction is also similar: both books begin and end with the last moments of the writers.
We can add the creation of an image that synthesizes the hero: the bow for Henry James and the comet for H.G. Wells.
The rest of it contains all the mixture of fiction and reality that creates the illusion of authenticity of a good biography: letters, diary files, articles, etc.
I'm not sure I'll re-read this book, but no doubt I enjoyed it.

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A novel about H. G. Wells' sex life. He sometimes claims his ideal is uncomplicated pleasure, but what gets most page space are attempts at a sort of polyamory, sentimental enough to be plenty complicated, but the complications are entirely self-generated and generally don't threaten to be disastrous to anybody. Those parts were some of the most boring stuff I've read in years. For a hundred and fifty pages or so Wells is part of the Fabian Society, an extremely non-revolutionary socialist group, and there his sex life and political life complicate each other. If that were the whole book, I would have counted it as pretty good. I thought Lodge does a good job of letting you see Wells' flaws a lot more clearly than he does without making them reflect poorly on his ideals. Although it wasn't fun to read, it alerted me that the nonfictional Wells could be quite interesting to read about, and the acknowledgements include a big bibliography to start with.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a tribute to David Lodge’s writing skill that I found this novel absorbing and poignant even though I’ve never read anything by H.G. Wells and have no particular interest in him. This is a thorough introduction to Wells’s life and works; an interesting narrative strategy has Wells, now an old man, answering the questions of an imaginary interlocutor. His many love affairs make for a juicy, gossipy pseudo-biography.

[Shirley Revill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Audiobook. A very thought provoking life.

[Angie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly lengthy book but a rewarding read. David Lodge has cleverly and thoroughly presented his 'interview' with H G Wells amongst a narrative thread of Well's entire life.

At times I felt like I was going through the same cycles of events but this is because Wells was not only a prolific writer but also a lover of women - many women at that. The descriptions of each of his novels as he writes them are usually twined with his latest liaison or love affair. He practised free love during a long sexless marriage (with his wife's full knowledge)and his celebrity status at the time no doubt added to his sexual attraction (many of his mistresses were talented and brilliant women of their day including Rebecca West).

I enjoyed learning more about Well's very humble origins, his apprenticeship to a drapers store, his desperate attempts to free himself from a life of service through his aptitude to learning and opportunity to become a student teacher. His vision which is most evident in his fantastical works - most obviously War of the Worlds and Time Machine came about from his love of science and his ability to contemplate advancements in the future. At one point a quote of his regarding how he envisaged a giant encyclopaedia which is constantly updated by all who use it on a 'world-wide' basis was nothing short of staggering.

Wells was involved in politics and a supporter of the emancipation of women. There is also a lot of detail about his associations with other famous writers of his day: George Bernard Shaw, Henry James, Arnold Bennett, E. Nesbitt and Maxim Gorky to name a few. I really enjoyed his letters and reviews of his contemporary's new works, as they also did for his. I came away intending to check out some of his novels I don't know (Ann Margaret is the one mentioned most)and ones which caused scandal at the time for their descriptions of free love and sexual liberation for strong female characters

The book comes full circle to where it started: London after the blitz, Wells in his very old age, his work now out of fashion and his spirits despondent about the futility of war.

Overall I did enjoy this, hence the 4 stars but it was more of a 3.5 for me due to the length and sometimes repetitive subject nature. I'm not sure I would have liked H.G. had I met him but his spirit, intelligence and imagination are unquestionable after reading this very interesting work.

[Mircalla · Rating 4 out of 5]

la guerra al principio borghese di proprietà sentimental/sessuale

bio di H.G.Wells molto accurata e scritta con un bel tocco lieve, riesce ad avvincere anche il lettore più riluttante a infilarsi, oltre che nella mente rutilante di invenzioni, anche nella stanza da letto del celebre H.G., famoso socialista, promulgatore del Libero Amore ma solo per gli uomini, forse femminista, ma di sicuro donnaiolo e grande anticipatore delle politiche sociali e delle derive militariste, certo un personaggio affascinante e Lodge lo rende anche molto più umano di come deve essere apparso ai suoi contemporanei, merito forse delle lettere e dei post scriptum da pubblicare solo dopo la morte dell'autore e delle donne coinvolte ;-)

[Andrew McClarnon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was looking forward to reading this having enjoyed 'Author Author' (and indeed all the other David Lodge books I've read in the past), and having had a teenage fondness for HG Wells's science fiction stories.

The book was like a great big, cosy sofa of a read, a bit overstuffed in parts, but somewhere to settle down and put your feet up. Yes there were a few moments of ennui, after all this was a long life with a certain repetative theme, but the writing was direct, well paced and painted in the people and times of an era just out of reach. I'll be dusting off my HG Wells in the near future, and hoping that David Lodge is making good progress with whatever he is looking at now.

[Carl Rollyson · Rating 2 out of 5]

H. G. Wells (1866–1946) is one of those protean modern writers who are destined to last, no matter how critics lament his slapdash prose or deplore his involvement in dubious movements such as eugenics and Fabian socialism. Not even the ire of feminists can ultimately bring down this “womanizing” colossus of concepts and causes and books (he penned more than a hundred of them), not to mention the biographies and critical studies that continue to pullulate around this seminal figure.

Wells was truly a breathtaking writer. He broke into public consciousness with his early science fiction novels, The Time Machine (1895) and The Invisible Man (1897), virtually creating a new genre. Kipps (1905) and The History of Mr. Polly (1910) retain their status as greatly admired comic novels. Even with its flawed ending, Ann Veronica (1910) is one of the first English novels to explore the consciousness of the “new woman,” and it is still in print. The heavily autobiographical Tono Bungay (1909)—Wells’s bid to be taken seriously not only for his subject matter but also his style—has its place in the history of the English novel and on college syllabi. His Experiment in Autobiography (1934) and the posthumously published H. G. Wells in Love (1984) set a new standard for candor in discussing both public and private life. His Outline of History (1920), little read today, nevertheless had an enormous impact on the reading public and became a staple of household libraries, making world history a popular form of study.

There will always be more to say about H. G. Wells because he was a writer who always had more to say, traveling the world as a journalist interviewing Theodore Roosevelt and Vladimir Lenin, for example, as well as reporting on the establishment of the League of Nations and many other political events. No writer today could possibly command this kind of attention or stand athwart so many different public venues while carrying on the kind of provocative private life Wells enjoyed, one that included affairs with young women who were part of what was called the “Fabian nursery,” as well as with writers as diverse as Dorothy Richardson, Elizabeth von Arnim, and Rebecca West—not to mention the birth-control advocate Margaret Sanger.

It is not surprising that David Lodge—already the author of a novel about Henry James—should want to have a go at Wells, who was in many ways James’s counterweight. To paraphrase Rebecca West’s Henry James (1916), Wells preferred the straightforward declarative sentence to meandering paragraphs swathed in subordinate clauses. Wells wanted the novel to be a shaper of public events, not a pristine art object. As a biographer of Rebecca West, Wells’s most significant lover, I was keen to see what Lodge made of the evidence and commentary amassed by so many critics, scholars, and biographers. What can a novel, a biographical fiction, reveal that these nonfictional narratives and analyses cannot?

Lodge actually hampers the novelist’s advantages over the biographer by deciding to adhere to the documentary record, citing biographies and studies of Wells, West, and other figures in his acknowledgments, as well as confessing where he has made up letters when evidence is unavailable. In other words, rather than boldly using all of the novelist’s resources, he relies slavishly on what Wells and others wrote in order to bootstrap their authentic voices into a novel that often sounds like just another biography. Rather than using the creative power of a novel to challenge received accounts, to provide an alternative history, he does a sort of mash-up of the available sources (using only one technique: the invented interview) to catapult his narrative into territory biographers cannot tread without incurring accusations of excessive speculation.

But these interludes of interviews are ultimately unsatisfactory because we learn nothing about the interviewer, and Wells is allowed to back away in rationalizations of his behavior. The interviewer might as well be just any reporter or biographer about whom we know nothing. Novelists are not supposed to rely on first-person narrators and interviewers about whom we cannot form an opinion. The raison d’être of the novel—at least of a modern novel—is precisely to question the teller of the tale, because achieving a trustworthy point of view has become a problematic enterprise.

And it gets worse for Lodge when he simply relies on the testimony of West, whose ten-year affair with Wells is given full play, and who returns at the end of Wells’s life to provide the coda to his biography. Once again, Lodge is faithful to the documentary record, but his novel never questions West’s veracity. Lodge takes her at her word in a way no biographer can afford to do. To say that she was a liar is not quite the point. Let’s just say she loved to contort the truth, utilizing the wonderful kaleidoscope of her imagination to transform life into a grand drama. Her husband Henry Andrews once cautioned her, “Rebecca, you’re making a scene,” to which she replied, “Me? Making a scene!” To put it baldy, she did not seem to realize when her powerful reportorial gifts were overwhelmed by a need to bend reality to her interpretation of it.

No inkling of this side of West (surely fertile ground for a novelist) intrudes into Lodge’s sedate novel. What went on inside West and Wells remains as inaccessible in this novel as in a biography. Lodge does, occasionally, get a bit intimate, as in this scene when Wells, approaching eighty, tells West he does not want to die: “A tear trickles from one eye down his cheek and loses itself in the roots of the moustache, now grey and rather straggling, with which in his prime he would tickle intimate parts of her anatomy.”

As the biographer of Martha Gellhorn, I confess to deep disappointment that she does not appear in this novel. Wells included her among his inamoratas in a volume of his autobiography intended for posthumous publication. Gellhorn threatened G. P. Wells, H. G.’s son, with legal action if her name should appear in what became H. G. Wells in Love, and so a compliant G. P. bowdlerized his father’s book. Gellhorn, like other ambitious young women writers, got to know the world-famous author, stayed in his London home, and allowed him to guide one of her books through to publication. But she vociferously denied any sexual liaison and treated Wells’s account of their love affair as the fantasy of a doddering old man wanting to boast one more time of his conquests. I never detected anything in Wells’s behavior that would justify her scornful rejection of his account. He did not boast about his passades (as he called them) or make them up. He did not need to. Here then, it seems to me, we have the very case for a novelist to pursue, creating a definitive portrayal in fiction that a biographer can only envy.

To put it another way, what we look to in a novel is the deepest possible exploration of personhood. As wonderful as any biography might be in terms of its narrative scope and the biographer’s access to intimate materials, only the novelist has license to go beyond the facts, the testimony, and the documents to move into the bedroom and the brain, the heart and the soul, of his characters, so that his work stands by itself instead of on a heap of evidence.

[gufo_bufo · Rating 3 out of 5]

La prima sensazione, all’inizio della lettura di questa biografia, è di sollievo e gratitudine perché Lodge scrive molto meglio di Wells, che fu scrittore molto veloce e prolifico, e che viene ancora ricordato soprattutto per i suoi primi lavori - La macchina del tempo, L’isola del dottor Moreau, L’uomo invisibile, La guerra dei mondi - mentre lui sperava di lasciare la sua impronta nel mondo con lavori che propugnavano teorie socialiste e libertarie, nel tentativo di salvare l’umanità da ignoranza, miseria e ipocrisia. Questi mali avevano marchiato la prima parte della sua esistenza, e tutta la sua vita adulta sembra un tentativo di rivalsa sull’ambiente delle sue origini. Il ritratto di Wells che esce da queste pagine è quello di una persona arrogante, egoista, amorale, impulsiva, decisamente antipatica, una persona insomma il cui fascino non mi ha conquistato.

Non ha aiutato la lettura la traduzione italiana (Mary Gislon e Rosetta Palazzi), di cui non metto in dubbio la fedeltà, ma che sembra avere qualche problema con la grammatica e la sintassi italiana: “mi cava fuori storie lubriche della società londinese che lui è troppo impaurito per scoprirle da solo” (p. 311), “Sebbene quando si incontrassero lei lo salutava cordialmente e sorrideva quando lui le baciava la mano con ostentata galanteria (…), non c’era più tra loro la stessa intimità” (p. 247), e così via. Sarò una vecchia inacidita, ma frasi come queste abbassano parecchio il piacere della lettura.

[Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog · Rating 4 out of 5]

Over 25 years ago I began to read every David Lodge book I could acquire. The three books now available in the package The Campus Trilogy made of me a dedicated fan.The Campus Trilogy: Changing Places; Small World; Nice Work Other works like: The British Museum Is Falling Down , Therapy and Home Truths kept me coming back for more. Soon I developed a sense when a new Lodge book was due and I would seek them.

His early works were always wry, thoughtful, and seemed autobiographical enough to be credible testimony about the time he lived in. I liked the typically small scale , intimate world his books lived in. I trusted him to have an entertaining mix of humor, and insight. He can be edgy. He freely questions icons and trends without being shrill or preachy. His main characters tend to be go along , get along kinds of (usually) men but who are aware that they will need to grow and that much of the world they live in is less than it should be.

His Souls and Bodies (King Penguin) a pointed book, still charming and humorous, relating the the life of his generation of Catholics and their problems with contraception. As it looks like his mother church wants to re fight this battle, this could be a gentle enlightenment for those who never knew the world before the pill and why many will not like being forced back into it.

The light slim volumes that David Lodge used to produce seem to be no more. Some where around Thinks Thinks . . .and Deaf Sentence Deaf Sentence: A Novel, he appears to have shifted to thoughts of - perhaps of his own decreasing allotment of days. He has turned to the example of favorite writers and their last years. Author, Author, was such a book, giving us a fictionalized biography of an elderly Henry James and now we have Lodges' take on the last days of H G Wells.

I have just posted several paragraphs on HG Wells as part of my review of: H. G. Wells in Love: H. G. Wells in Love: Postscript to An Experiment in Autobiography. I will not reproduce them here.

In scanning the existing reviews of this book, I find myself in general agreement with others. Cranky and I agree that Biography and Fiction are not always such a good idea. On the specifics we disagree. I also agree that this not a bad book and perhaps not David Lodge at his best. If it helps, I was extremely happier with this book and far more engaged than I was with Author, Author.

In this book we meet HG Wells in 1944, he is about 2 years from death and in declining health. He is increasing dependent on house servants and nurses who have only a dim idea of who is in their charge. The great HG wells, a fiery man of the political left. A man greatly admired for his predictions about the future, is now marginalized, dependent and weaker by the page. Age and infirmaries force Wells to live in his mind and here we the reader get to learn about his life and loves. Again, as someone else wrote, who knew he was such a stud?

David Lodge can be trusted to not write sexy- meaning graphic sex. In this he keeps to a style that would have had Wells' approval. Lodge is only slightly more titillating than Wells in Postscript, but then Lodge has always handled matters of the flesh with restrained exuberance. Side note: The ability to compare Lodges' version of Wells and Wells on the same topics and his own words is an option I recommend to fans of this book. That is, follow this book with Wells' Postscript.

That Lodge needed Wells to be deep into his final decline clearly served Lodges purposes, but I found it depressing and too constraining. Wells had been more actively engage in the larger world, in early WWII and I would liked to have had some of that Wells in the "present" time of the book. The visits of the various women, all former lovers tended to read like duty visits rather than expressions of abiding love or motivated by the remains of past affections. His former lovers may have spent all passions, but there is reason to believe that they continued to have real feelings for what was then a shadow of a former love. Ultimately this is a book about dying, back filled with the story of a remarkable life. As a fan of biography, I prefer to enjoy the story of the subject's life, and not have his death waved at me every few paragraphs.

My Kindle edition performed as advertised. $9.99 is a reasonable price. David Lodge is a skilled writer and here he has a very readable book. I miss his early humor, but every writer has the right to reach past his early self. I will continue to look for new works by Mr. Lodge and encourage you to sample widely from his catalog. Start with Man of Parts or arrive here from his other books.

[Elpida Petmeza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Το μόνο βιβλίο του H.G. Wells που θυμάμαι να έχω διαβάσει είναι η Μηχανή του Χρόνου, κάτι αιώνες πριν. Γιατί λοιπόν καθησα κ βασανίστηκα σε 400 τόσες σελίδες σε μια βιογραφία του; Γιατί αγαπώ τον David Lodge. Έχω διαβάσει σχεδόν τα πάντα από αυτόν και είναι ένας από τους αγαπημένους μου συγγραφείς. Τα 3 αστεράκια, παρόλο που η γραφή ήταν αρκετά διαφορετική από αυτήν που γνωρίζω, είναι καθαρά για τον Lodge. Η ιστορία σαν ιστορία είναι μάλλον ανυπόφορη, όχι ωστόσο τόσο ανυπόφορη όσο ο ίδιος ο Wells ο οποίος κατέληξα πως ήταν ένας κρετίνος ολκής του οποίου δεν έχω πλέον καμία διάθεση να διαβάσω ούτε αράδα.

[Felice · Rating 2 out of 5]

My favorite novels by David Lodge combine the comedy and suffering that ambitions, greed and life in general surprise people with in telling and entertaining ways. Books like Nice Work, Small World and Deaf Sentence are quick and entertaining reads that leave you with very memorable characters that experienced situations that cut a little too close to home. In A Man of Parts, like his novel about Henry James, Author, Author, Lodge fictionalizes the life of seminal novelist whose work straddled different eras. A Man of Parts the more (much more) successful of these two fictionalized biographies is about H.G. Wells.


Wells was born in 1866 and died in 1946. Could he had lived that long in any other time period and seen as many changes as occurred between 1866 and 1946? I do not think so. Some changes Welles predicted in his fiction: tanks, aerial warfare, the atom bomb, television and even a sort of primitive internet/library of worldwide knowledge banks with door to door airplane service delivering information to the public. In private Welles was way ahead of the curve on one change in particular what was called in more repressed times Free Love.
Wells was born into a struggling family. His ascent was like that of some of his characters, a Horatio Algier story. He was born the son of a housekeeper, as a young man he was a draper’s assistant, then a science teacher and soon after a bestselling novelist.

Given the vast number of things H.G. published in his lifetime, the one hundred novels and thousands of essays and articles, you might think that his Free Love was somewhat curtailed. You would be wrong. Apparently when H.G. wasn’t writing he was indefatigable in collecting wives, mistresses and lovers. Smart women, celebrity hounds, political allies, daughters of friends, Wells seductions and seducers ran the gamut. That might be business as usual today but in the 80 years that he was alive this was a no-no and many times he came close to scandalous ruin.

At the start of A Man of Parts it is 1944 and Lodge has his Wells looking back on his life. Wells is responding to an interviewer only he can hear. His careers as a novelist, an aggressive member of the Fabian Society, his acquaintance with virtually every public figure of his day and especially his tangled relationships with women are the main topics of recollection. The encounters with the good and the great that Lodge details are numerous and interesting as in Wells butting heads with fellow Fabians George Bernard Shaw and E. Nesbit and sometimes funny as in his awkward friendship with Henry James but it is the many and wide ranging love affairs in Wells life that dominate the novel. Knowing next to nothing about Wells I have no idea how much of what Lodge tells is true and how much is cut from whole cloth but instinct can be a good guide.

My favorite passages in A Man of Parts are about Wells writing. It is worth remembering how influential Wells was and is. Lodge conscientiously addresses Wells many, and justly famous books but unfortunately in A Man of Parts H.G.’s creativity with a pen takes a back seat to his more salacious endeavors. This perspective might have been more engaging if the novel contained more historical background or if at this point revealing a Victorian as a sex maniac was surprising. The shopping list of events, conquests and titles that Lodge details are interesting but Lodge does not provide any insight into Wells the man, the writer, to explain why he was such catnip to all of these women or put each of those things in the context of the incredibly changing times in which Wells lived.

[Huw Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about a genius - by a genius.

I can honestly say that prior to reading this book, I didn't know much at all about HG Wells. I know he'd written the original "War of the Worlds", and although I've seen film, theatre, radio and musical adaptations of this story, I'm pretty sure I've never read the book. "The Invisible Man", "The Time Machine" and something to do with Dr Moreau would have been all I could have dredged up from the depths if I'd pulled HG Wells' works as a question on "Pointless" - and as for precisely when he'd written these, what else he'd written, and anything else he'd done in his life - I wouldn't have had a clue.

My loss up until I read this book then. And what precisely is this book? It's not a biography per se, which is quite obvious from the amount of reported speech here - it's more, as David Lodge says, how he has imagined many of the events which coloured this quite kaleidoscopic life might have transpired.

So it's a slightly fictionalized account of a brilliant life. David Lodge lists well over 4 pages of literary sources as his research base though - so if there are elements of this book fictionalized, it is all nevertheless based on meticulous background reading. So HG Wells' life story is pretty accurate. If I'm labouring the point a bit - it's because it's hard to believe that one man could fit quite so much into one life!

At over 560 pages in length, this might sound like a long book - but it isn't - it flies by. It reveals a central figure who not only wrote genre defining science fiction novels, but also a man who wrote and spoke on a huge canvas - politics (he was one of the main movers in the early days of the Fabian Society), ethics, biology, history, social commentary and gaming theory were all subjects in which he excelled. He published over 50 novels - and well over 70 factual works, on a very broad range of topics. He published almost 100 short stories in various publications - and a further 40 or so collections of short stories. He wrote hundreds of articles for publication in academic circles. He wrote screenplays and dramas. He was an artist, painting pictures and penning sketches that appeared in all sorts of different formats.

He was married twice, had 4 children by 3 different mothers, and had a string of high profile affairs with the apparent blessing of his wife. He broke bread with most of the great literary figures of the late 19th/ earliest 20th century, managed to fall out with most of them, and yet still managed to have a broad influence over the thinking of his times due to the force of his personality and the brilliance of his intellect.

And David Lodge manages to convey most of this within these pages, with a lightness of touch and purpose of style which leaves us begging for more by the end. This was a great life of a great author - captured wonderfully by another author of similar standing.

[Frank Paul · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, this is my first one star review. I don't like to be a hater, so I will first explain why I read this book. The book is a novel about the love life of H.G. Wells, a writer with whom I am not terribly familiar. (I read the children's versions of The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine, but nothing as an adult.)

The premise of the book struck me as intersting-it claims to lean heavily on historical records to recreate the story of Wells' various lovers and romances. The narrative alternates between conventional prose and brief simulated interviews with the book's protaganist. Some of the interviews are intersting because they at least touch on the ideas that interested Wells-some related to sex but most related to politics.

The conventional portions however are tedious. The guy fucked a lot of people for a man of his generation but there is almost no reason to think that he was passionate about any of them or that they ever got up to anything interesting-in or out of bed.

The structure of the narrative is also disorienting. The first chapters are set during Wells later years, as a dying man during World War 2. It introductes his two adult sons and their wives and then barely mentions them again. For a few pages towards the end, I thought we might get an intersting pay off, but no. The last 20 pages of the book introduce yet another boring girlfriend and a brief recitation of every man she ever slept with. We learn that she probably cheated on him probably with another famous writer, but who the hell cares? Wells didn't love her and he wasn't excluse with any of the women we meet in this book and he never seems to really care when any of these relationship end.

The very last page of this book reads like a 5th grade book report on H.G. Wells' wikipedia page. In that spirit, I will end my review by stating the moral of this book- even an unconventional sex life can be boring and joyless. The end.

[Whimsical Bear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I must start with a little story about how I came to read this book. My book shop has a 'Blind Date with a Book' where you buy a book, covered in brown paper, with the first sentence typed on the front. I picked up a book with 'IN the spring of 1944 Hanover Terrace, a handsome row of Nash town houses on the western perimeter of Regent's Park, is looking distinctly war-worn'. So, if you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't judge it by its first sentence either!
Would I have picked up this book had I known all about it? Probably not, but I think it was a good challenge for me to read something different.

I had little knowledge of H.G. Wells, the subject of this book, before reading. While billed as a novel, much of the book is based on fact, and the author is clear to outline the difference between the two.
The novel has a roughly chronological plot, with flashes of elderly Wells' conversations with himself/his conscience, and the plot rollicks along quite reasonably. I probably found it a bit easier to read as I was on time off and read through it quite quickly. Had I been reading it more slowly, I think I would have become fed up, not any fault of the author's, but more the subject's. H.G. Wells was not a pleasant man! Talented he may have been, but the novel is called 'A Man of Part's for a reason, largely due to the starring role of his errant and very busy penis. I'm not quite sure what else to say about that.

This is an interesting book, and evocative of the literary set and social circles of the early twentieth century. The easy writing style belies the research and scholarship involved. An enjoyable and stimulating read, even if I was not over fond of the man (or all his parts!) myself.

[Lorri Steinbacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book did not read like a novel and that was not necessarily a good thing. I feel like I learned a lot about things I did not know and introduced me to another side of H.G. Wells, but it was not very compelling and I had to pep talk my way through it. I came away feeling that for all Wells' talk about sexual liberation for women that it was all lip service because the second that the "liberation" became troublesome for him or threatened to disturb his comfortable status quo, he encouraged the women in his life to accept more traditional roles. It is no wonder that most of his conquests were younger women, not because as he saw it, they were the only ones able to act on his vision, but because they truly did not know any better. They did not have the life experience to see through him. I imagine his wife spent a lot of time rolling her eyes behind his back. Strangely, I did not feel sorry for her, because she came across to me as strong, as if she saw Wells as he was, made a bargain with herself, and accepted her life as it was.

[Marcus Speh · Rating 4 out of 5]

picked this up a few days ago and been reading it ever since. starts a little slowly but my reading is helped along by the fascination for the subject matter of this book, the writer h g wells. the novel is an odd mixture, attractive to me, of literary criticism, memoir and story. in many places i found the wit that i so love about lodge's writing. enjoying this. will continue/finish review when i'm done.

[Rosarinho · Rating 2 out of 5]

Que bom que acabei. Finalmente.

[Bonnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a novel with H.G. Wells as the main character. Clearly, he was a genius and Renaissance man, but he was also so irritating, with his unrealistic idea of Free Love, i.e., screwing around. His wives weren't that interested in sex, which gave him the excuse for affairs, mostly with women much younger than he was (how'd he manage it, I wonder) but even when he got with Rebecca West, who adored sex, he couldn't fully commit to her. Fear of intimacy? Childishness? I would have liked to know more about his creative processes -- how he chose his topics, how he came up with his original ideas.

[Agnes Fontana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Qui l'eut dit ? Qui eût dit que, moi qui me jetais sur le nouveau Lodge comme sur le nouveau Woody Allen à l'époque, j'en laisserais un mariner deux ans avant que de le lire, et lui donnerais poussivement deux étoiles ? Ce livre retrace la vie de l'écrivain anglais HG Welles, essentiellement sous l'angle de ses relations avec les femmes. Celles-ci sont placées sous le signe de la goujaterie et du consumérisme, maquillés en théorie de la libération sexuelle (libération à sens unique comme souvent : il aurait fait beau voir que son épouse prenne la même liberté). HG Wells a le talent de transformer des femmes aimantes et assez courageuses pour braver la vindicte sociale et l'épouser, en gestionnaires transparentes de son foyer, pendant que lui va voir ailleurs. Il écrit à une de ses maîtresses que sa femme n'a pas plus de vie qu'un hareng saur : charmant !! Il déclare également fort vite que sa femme et sa maîtresse "s'entendent à merveille" (ben voyons !!) et se croit grand prince à faire des concessions à sa femme : il ne trombine pas sa maîtresse dans la maison familiale quand elle s'y trouve, et la maîtresse n'interfère pas dans la gestion du foyer. Monsieur est vraiment trop bon !! Non, les tableaux de la société littéraire et politique de l'époque (les Fabiens...) sont intéressants, on croise quelques personnages sympathique, comme Ambre (il se soucie peu de savoir que cette aventure trop précoce avec un homme trop âgé va ruiner sa vie pourtant prometteuse) ; on rencontre des auteurs anglais qu'on a lues (Elisabeth von Arnim) ou qu'on veut lire (Rebecca West). Mais la plupart du temps, on s'ennuie, une performance vu le sujet !! Soyons honnête, un récit érotique bien troussé peut être un régal, mais là c'est plat, sans charme, on dirait la description d'un dégustation de viande. Non, si vous aimez les biographies d'auteur par Lodge, lisez "Author ! Author ! " sur Henry James, et si vous vous intéressez à HG Wells, lisez ses Selected Short Stories, en particulier "the door in the wall" et "the flying machine" qui sont des merveilles. Mais pas ça.

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

J'ai lu plusieurs romans de David Lodge. J'aime son humour tellement britannique! Et c'est la raison pour laquelle j'ai acquis ce livre bien qu'il s'agisse d'une biographie plutôt que d'un roman.

Je n'ai pas retrouvé le "ton" qui me plaît tant chez cet auteur. Le sujet ne s'y prêtait pas. Au niveau de la forme, l'auteur nous propose un mélange de récits dans un "présent" d'après-guerre qui culminent avec le décès de Wells et de retour en arrière, agrémentés de séquences de soliloques où le sujet, se questionne sur le bien fondé de ses actions et comportements passés.
L'écriture de Lodge est agréable à lire et on reconnaît son talent. Mais en ce qui a trait au thème de ce livre, je dois dire que je n'ai pas trouvé la vie de cet homme intéressante. Je comprends qu'en son temps, il était un cas d'espèce compte tenu de ses nombreuses conquêtes amoureuses qui ont fait scandale. Je comprends aussi que ses livres étaient souvent prémonitoires et qu'il anticipait l'avenir dans ses nombreuses publications. Mais H.G. Wells n'est pas passé à l'histoire pour toutes sortes de raisons. Je soupçonne que son écriture n'était pas très originale et que seuls les sujets choisis lui ont valu cette immense réputation. Quand à la vie sexuelle de Wells, cela n'a plus rien de scandaleux au XXIe siècle. Alors, bof, je n'en retire pas grand chose.

[Jean-marc Depreux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yes I can say that I really liked "A Man of Parts", it was the first time that I read a book by David Lodge and although it doesn't quite situate itself as a novel, it reads much easier than a real biography. There seems to be a new trend these days for writers to write biographies in a novelistic manner, like Jéromine Pasteur with her new book "Les Femmes Oiseaux", I think this is a good thing as it's an easier way of learning about things or people. But to get back to David Lodge's achievement of writing a book of 500 pages on H.G. Wells without tiring his readers and I must admit that I wasn't ever bored. I suppose that this is in part because H.G Wells had quite an interesting life but also due to the talent of the writer. I haven't seen any comment in these columns about the antagonized relationship that the author seems to underline in his book between Henry James and H.G. Wells. Although Wells held a certain amount of esteem for Henry James, he couldn't help criticizing his pompous style ( I don't think he actually wrote this in those words, but that's how I used to remember Henry James in my school days),radically different from his own. I'll pass on the womanizer that he was as being a big flaw to this otherwise great man.