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didactylos's review against another edition
4.0
Read several of his works as a child. Had no idea about the back story and his other political activities. Fascinating to read this. I now have a completely different view of his - not the stuffy science fiction writer from the Edwardian times any more.
lola425's review against another edition
3.0
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.
ciska's review against another edition
2.0
Author
Professor David Lodge is a graduate and Honorary Fellow of University College London. He is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, where he taught from 1960 until 1987, when he retired to write full-time.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was Chairman of the Judges for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989, and is the author of numerous works of literary criticism, mainly about the English and American novel, and literary theory. He is also the author of The Art of Fiction (1992), a collection of short articles first published in the Independent on Sunday.
David Lodge is a successful playwright and screenwriter, and has adapted both his own work and other writers' novels for television. His novels include The Picturegoers (1960), The British Museum is Falling Down (1965), Changing Places (1975), Therapy (1995), Thinks... (2001), and his most recent, Deaf Sentence (2008).
He lives in Birmingham.
Review
I never read a book by H.G. Wells. I do know about his works but they are not really books I would pick up for a fun read. After reading several pieces in this book I knew I was right. Still when I saw this book on the shelves in the bookstore I got intrigued and decided to buy it.
I am in doubt if that was a good or bad decision. This really is a book going from one place to another. Parts are brilliant others are long. It is clear Lodge gathered a lot of information on Wells to build a frame of facts filling the big holes he left on purpose with the story.
As Lodge did a brilliant job in mixing those up it is hard sometimes to separate the facts from the fiction and you just have to take that for granted. This did disturb my reading experience at points.
The characters in the book really come to life. You can easily imagine them in the various places. And combined in truth and fiction the character Wells does not really deserve a nice description, but lets keep this civil. For a man taking position for woman rights he has a weird way of dealing with them. The simple example that he can have multiple relations and his wife has to deal with it but the woman in his life should be loyal or he will be jealous. In the brain of a woman that is a one way ticket to the dislike corner for a man.
Written in two styles the story starts in the last years of Wells life where he reminiscing about the decisions he made in his love life. Parts of the story are written while he is being interviewed by his own conscious and though some of the questions he is asking himself are funny I found these parts difficult to read. I did enjoy the other parts better where the story was "being told".
Overall I experienced the read as bumpy disturbing my experience of the story making it hard for me to decide on the star rating. I am afraid I will have to give this book two stars, cause I will not even consider reading it a second time. Still I think people can easily enjoy this book or experience it different depending on how a person reads. Meaning.. if you are interested find a copy and read two pages to see if you can handle the bumps if yes the story offers enough entertainment to read it, if not do not pick it up cause it will keep you busy.
Professor David Lodge is a graduate and Honorary Fellow of University College London. He is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, where he taught from 1960 until 1987, when he retired to write full-time.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was Chairman of the Judges for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989, and is the author of numerous works of literary criticism, mainly about the English and American novel, and literary theory. He is also the author of The Art of Fiction (1992), a collection of short articles first published in the Independent on Sunday.
David Lodge is a successful playwright and screenwriter, and has adapted both his own work and other writers' novels for television. His novels include The Picturegoers (1960), The British Museum is Falling Down (1965), Changing Places (1975), Therapy (1995), Thinks... (2001), and his most recent, Deaf Sentence (2008).
He lives in Birmingham.
Review
I never read a book by H.G. Wells. I do know about his works but they are not really books I would pick up for a fun read. After reading several pieces in this book I knew I was right. Still when I saw this book on the shelves in the bookstore I got intrigued and decided to buy it.
I am in doubt if that was a good or bad decision. This really is a book going from one place to another. Parts are brilliant others are long. It is clear Lodge gathered a lot of information on Wells to build a frame of facts filling the big holes he left on purpose with the story.
As Lodge did a brilliant job in mixing those up it is hard sometimes to separate the facts from the fiction and you just have to take that for granted. This did disturb my reading experience at points.
The characters in the book really come to life. You can easily imagine them in the various places. And combined in truth and fiction the character Wells does not really deserve a nice description, but lets keep this civil. For a man taking position for woman rights he has a weird way of dealing with them. The simple example that he can have multiple relations and his wife has to deal with it but the woman in his life should be loyal or he will be jealous. In the brain of a woman that is a one way ticket to the dislike corner for a man.
Written in two styles the story starts in the last years of Wells life where he reminiscing about the decisions he made in his love life. Parts of the story are written while he is being interviewed by his own conscious and though some of the questions he is asking himself are funny I found these parts difficult to read. I did enjoy the other parts better where the story was "being told".
Overall I experienced the read as bumpy disturbing my experience of the story making it hard for me to decide on the star rating. I am afraid I will have to give this book two stars, cause I will not even consider reading it a second time. Still I think people can easily enjoy this book or experience it different depending on how a person reads. Meaning.. if you are interested find a copy and read two pages to see if you can handle the bumps if yes the story offers enough entertainment to read it, if not do not pick it up cause it will keep you busy.
soupy_twist's review against another edition
4.0
This book was really fascinating. I love David Lodge anyway, but this was really different from his other books that I have read. There was so much I never knew about H. G. Wells!
smardiros's review against another edition
1.0
consciously decided to stop reading this, so I guess I'm as finished with it as I'll ever be
kansass's review against another edition
4.0
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.
Una novela soberbia sobre un escritor diferente y de lo más interesante en su concepción de la vida y del universo.
nwhyte's review against another edition
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2915999.html
This is a fictional biography of H.G. Wells, by David Lodge, many of whose novels I read in my early 20s and none since. Wells comes across as a well-meaning and very intelligent chap, not very self-aware, committed to his writing, to his politics, and to liberating women from the shackles of conventional sexuality; this last activity left several of them pregnant. Since it's a novel rather than a biography, it's a bit difficult to judge by the standards of biographies: all I can say is that I was entertained by it, I learned a lot about Wells' life and work from it, and I hope that most of what I learned was true.
This is a fictional biography of H.G. Wells, by David Lodge, many of whose novels I read in my early 20s and none since. Wells comes across as a well-meaning and very intelligent chap, not very self-aware, committed to his writing, to his politics, and to liberating women from the shackles of conventional sexuality; this last activity left several of them pregnant. Since it's a novel rather than a biography, it's a bit difficult to judge by the standards of biographies: all I can say is that I was entertained by it, I learned a lot about Wells' life and work from it, and I hope that most of what I learned was true.
schopflin's review against another edition
3.0
Overall I enjoyed this and am glad I read it. There were times when I felt it was weighed down with too much written archival material, too many letters, too much detail for a novel. But the descriptions of Wells's three great love affairs were compelling and enjoyable.
unabridgedchick's review
4.0
What I love about historical fiction is that the past is given color and brought to life in a way that feels real, that invites me to see myself and my own life in the actions and events of the characters -- or, forces me to examine my own assumptions and biases (more on that later).
This was my first David Lodge novel so I didn't know what to expect; I've long wanted to read his take on Henry James but haven't gotten to it (someday, someday). This novel, centered on H.G. Wells, covers my favorite historical eras and features many historical figures I like.
The novel opens in 1944 with Wells' diagnoses of liver cancer. I wasn't immediately sucked in as I found Lodge's narrative style a bit awkward and I wasn't sure I was going to like any of the characters. On page 12, the story turns into an interview essentially, as Wells imagines someone grilling him about this life. I originally resented this technique: it felt too clever, too meta, too 'on last week's episode'... but as the novel progressed and the interviewer started asking pointed, hard questions (the kind I wanted asked), I had this grateful a-ha! The interviewer injected some accountability and culpability I needed in order to respect the problematic character of H.G. Suddenly, I found him less unappealing; I found some places to understand him.
I wasn't wild about Lodge's writing style. There were long chunks in which I forgot I was reading a novel; this could have been a biography lacking footnotes. Which isn't to say the book was bad, but rather, there was a lack of drama. It was at these times I missed our interrogator: I wanted a foil, or a mirror, something to slice beneath the well researched biography to expose the nerves. There's quite a lot of quoted correspondence and excerpts of reviews, which again gave the impression of nonfiction. Where the book worked for me was when Lodge focused on Wells' romantic and sexual relationships; much of the last portion of the novel focused on Wells writing and as I haven't read much of him nor enjoyed what I have read, I found the section dry and a bit boring.
Now: about my assumptions and biases and those romantic and sexual relationships. Reading this book was an experience in self-reflection, as my puritanical self went nuts hating on Wells for his sexual relationships. Lodge's H.G. saw his relationships and passades (Wells' term for his flings) as something necessary, sustaining, and inspiring; he perceived his wife and numerous lovers as being (essentially) comfortable with his attitudes about Free Love. I couldn't help but see the inequality in both his philosophy and practice of Free Love and I'd get all huffy every handful of pages or so, irritated on behalf of the numerous women he ran through. Still, every time I thought I'd quit reading, the interviewer would emerge and ask some scathing question that echoed what I was thinking, and it gave me a place to be vindicated and see Wells' angle.
At the end of this book, I found myself feeling very conflicted. As in my favorite historical novels, I found myself caught up in the life of the main character, and in this case, I didn't (couldn't, didn't want to) hate H.G. I still felt strongly for his lovers, quite protective of them, and yet, a bit sad as the story wound down and I was faced with H.G.'s death. I was made uncomfortable, provoked, soothed, entertained, and educated by this meaty novel (nearly 500 pages) and I heartily recommend it to anyone who likes literary hist fic.
This was my first David Lodge novel so I didn't know what to expect; I've long wanted to read his take on Henry James but haven't gotten to it (someday, someday). This novel, centered on H.G. Wells, covers my favorite historical eras and features many historical figures I like.
The novel opens in 1944 with Wells' diagnoses of liver cancer. I wasn't immediately sucked in as I found Lodge's narrative style a bit awkward and I wasn't sure I was going to like any of the characters. On page 12, the story turns into an interview essentially, as Wells imagines someone grilling him about this life. I originally resented this technique: it felt too clever, too meta, too 'on last week's episode'... but as the novel progressed and the interviewer started asking pointed, hard questions (the kind I wanted asked), I had this grateful a-ha! The interviewer injected some accountability and culpability I needed in order to respect the problematic character of H.G. Suddenly, I found him less unappealing; I found some places to understand him.
I wasn't wild about Lodge's writing style. There were long chunks in which I forgot I was reading a novel; this could have been a biography lacking footnotes. Which isn't to say the book was bad, but rather, there was a lack of drama. It was at these times I missed our interrogator: I wanted a foil, or a mirror, something to slice beneath the well researched biography to expose the nerves. There's quite a lot of quoted correspondence and excerpts of reviews, which again gave the impression of nonfiction. Where the book worked for me was when Lodge focused on Wells' romantic and sexual relationships; much of the last portion of the novel focused on Wells writing and as I haven't read much of him nor enjoyed what I have read, I found the section dry and a bit boring.
Now: about my assumptions and biases and those romantic and sexual relationships. Reading this book was an experience in self-reflection, as my puritanical self went nuts hating on Wells for his sexual relationships. Lodge's H.G. saw his relationships and passades (Wells' term for his flings) as something necessary, sustaining, and inspiring; he perceived his wife and numerous lovers as being (essentially) comfortable with his attitudes about Free Love. I couldn't help but see the inequality in both his philosophy and practice of Free Love and I'd get all huffy every handful of pages or so, irritated on behalf of the numerous women he ran through. Still, every time I thought I'd quit reading, the interviewer would emerge and ask some scathing question that echoed what I was thinking, and it gave me a place to be vindicated and see Wells' angle.
At the end of this book, I found myself feeling very conflicted. As in my favorite historical novels, I found myself caught up in the life of the main character, and in this case, I didn't (couldn't, didn't want to) hate H.G. I still felt strongly for his lovers, quite protective of them, and yet, a bit sad as the story wound down and I was faced with H.G.'s death. I was made uncomfortable, provoked, soothed, entertained, and educated by this meaty novel (nearly 500 pages) and I heartily recommend it to anyone who likes literary hist fic.