Books we like ... and books we're not too fussed about
HG Wells
Penguin 2005
This quietly subversive novel tells the story of Mr Polly (surprisingly enough), a south coast shopkeeper who, frustrated by the dullness and loneliness of his existence, “does a Reggie Perrin”, and finds happiness away from the rat race. Much of the novel details how he got into the doldrums: an education which left “[t]he nice little curiosities and willingness of a child … in a jumbled and thwarted condition, hacked and cut about”, and a romantic infatuation with a (very!) young girl. The end product is a man who loves reading but cannot express himself except in mangled words, and whose maths is so poor that it leads him to bankruptcy. Worst of all, on the rebound from his unrequited love, he rushes into a marriage he knows from the start will be unhappy . Wells was very much a man of ideas, and what he does well here is to reveal how upbringing and society’s expectations can lead us into a spiritual cul de sac. Polly’s final embracing of the simple, good life is therefore both moving and invigorating, What worked less well for me is the comedy: Polly’s mangling of words was perhaps hilarious when this novel was first published, but I found it less than side-splitting one hundred years on. Nevertheless, an interesting read, not least for the picture it gives of the lost world of Edwardian England.
25 August 2010
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jwells.htm
See also: Love and Mr Lewisham
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