INTEREST IN BOOKS

Taranaki Daily News, 23 February 1935, Page 14 (Supplement)

INTEREST IN BOOKS

PUBLISHERS’ CHOICE MR. H. G. WELLS’ AUTOBIOGRAPHY. METICULOUS SELF-ANALYSIS. “Experiment in Auto-biography,” by H. G. Wells- Victor GoUahcz, Ltd., atid the Cresset I*reSs, Ltd., London. A. J. Fyffe, Ltd., New Plymduth. Midway in this volume Mr. Wells tells of the thrill, inspiration and satisfaction he received as an immature student from the study of biology. There is a good deal Of the biological form of investigation to this history of his earlier struggles, disappointments and success. He puts himself on the bench as ah interesting specimen of humanity, traces the effects of his breeding and environment, the dullness, of intellect that uncongenial occupation can bring, the lowered mental capacity that comes of an ill-nourished body and the quickening influence of the feeling that there is something wrong in a social system Which condemned so many like himself to a lifetime of servitude both of body and brain. Son of an unsuccessful small shopkeeper and a former lady’s-maid H. G. Wells seemed to have had the dice loaded against him by the Fates during his boyhood and adolescence. They were spent in a period when the “Manchester” School of Economics, “each for himself and the devil take the hindmost” was at ite zenith. To buy cheap and sell at a profit was the whole duty of the successful business man, and if you were Unfortunate enough to be' broken in the process it was probably your fault as much as your misfortune, In social affairs it was the -age of gentility. The distinctions began in the servants’ hall, they extended to trades and professions, and the terror of “what people would think” afflicted households in every strata of society, save that of the old aristocracy. Education was scarcely recognised as the children’s right, though the first rays of the dawn were appearing, and the national system was just emerging from the sect-ridden influences that had prevented very real progress. Individualism overruled community effort, the jerry-builder and the creator of Slums flourished, and the idea that the working man or woman had a right to something more than was obtainable by working long hours for others—or by becoming an even harsher employer—, was regarded as something akin to treason or impiety. In such an environment the specimen of. humanity Mr. Wells observes, checks arid experiments with, made his appearance. He shows how -step by step the boy Struggled against circumstances that to his kindred seemed part of the workings of Providence; how he revolted from the sordidness Of life in a small town with much of the ugliness and none of the stimulus of the metropolis a few mites away; and how the struggle was the keener because of the fear of hurting those for whom he felt affection. In the mere facts of Mr. Wells’ career there is not touch that is out of the ordinary. A fairly hardworking schdolboy, beginning to feel that somehow what he was given aS education was poor Stuff, then an apprentice in a draper’s shop, failure there, an attempt at teaching, another return to the hated drudgery of the Shop, a second and more successful essay as a teacher, the chance it brought of becoming a student at a technical college, the widened mental Outlook of student days, more teaching tad the discovery that he could write. Those are the steps Wells took to the threshold of the success he afterwards achieved. In private affairs he was first a disappointing and then a loyal sori and brother; his first marriage a failure ending in divorce, his second a happy Companionship during his years of best literary Output; a man who lost his belief in religion to adolescence but never his belief in humanity; a socialist who remained, as Lenin told Trotsky, "hopelessly middle-class”; a successful writer who tried to show not only that things were wrong in “Merrie England” and elsewhere but the Way to improvement; these are the bare bones of his career. They indicate a remarkable achievement to individual effort, but Mr. Wells has chosen to regard them as constituting the specimen of a type of the youth df England to his generation. His analysis of the -reasons for his actions and views is exceedingly thorough, but he cannot always satisfy himself as a Scientific investigator that his conclusions are based upon the irrefutable evidence necessary to any biologist who would be treated seriously. He wonders whether the desire of the originative intellectual Worker to lead a supernormal life does ftdt take him out of the clas§ of normal human beings, and whether he eta therefore be regarded as a true type from which study will give proveable deductions. The method Chosen is quite to Mr. Wells’ best Style. Soliloquy and analysis are interwoven with personal happenings and contacts in a manner which prevents dullness by keeping human interest in the foreground. The subject may be a study but the reader’s interest in the life of the boy and the man, his parents, his employers, his friends and his work is never allowed to flag. The development of the education system in England as described by Mr. Wells is an interesting study in itself. It justifies the constant reaching out for better'methods that is the most notable feature of good educationists to-day. The evolution of teaching Was no easy growth. Prejudice and penury were giants to the path for many days arid even to-day can show signs Of life in New Zealand. as Well as in Great Britain. Whether Mr. Wells will find a place to the history Of British literature will be for time to determine. It can be asserted, however, that this first part of his auto-biography sOeftis likely to add to his chances of doing SO. It makes an interesting, provocative and refreshing volume.