A review by latepaul
Love and Mr. Lewisham by H.G. Wells

3.0

I'm not really sure why I started reading this book a couple of weeks ago. I have it because a bought a Wells Collected Works some time back. I guess I was intrigued to read something non-SciFi by him.

Mr Lewisham is an ambitious young teacher who has grand plans for his future. Indeed he has written up a Plan or Schema as he calls it and has committed himself to daily study to improve himself.

We follow him as he moves to London and becomes a student. He also gets married and the later part of the novel is about how his naive beliefs about himself and the world survive this transition. (mild spoiler: they don't).

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised but like Turnabout that I read recently, this has some old-fashioned language and references that I just didn't get. But the human emotions were still apparent. Especially the self-deception, or the way in which naivety turned to anger and then acceptance.

I did enjoy it quite a bit but I felt that it wasn't up there with his great books. Also about the ending:

he has a choice of two women: an intellectual peer (who nonetheless sees herself as being the person who will spur him on to great things, and a woman who he met much earlier but who he is attracted to. He marries the later. I was somewhat disappointed with that. It was like the message of the book was that a wife may not match your high expectations but love, comfort, sweetness etc are more important. But it was probably a bit much to expect such an old book to be more progressive.