A Man of Parts

The mind is a time machine that travels forwards in prophecy and backwards in memory, but he has done with prophecy nowa Sequestered in his battered house on the rim of Regent's Park, as the second war he has lived through moves into its final phase, 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; now he feels ignored or misunderstood, and depressed by the failure of all his utopian dreams for mankind. He recalls his unpromising start in life, and his early struggles to acquire an education and make a living; his meteoric rise to fame as a writer with a prophetic imagination and a comic common touch, success 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 active 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. David Lodge draws a riveting portrait of a remarkable man, many-talented, extraordinarily energetic, and riven with contradictions: a socialist who enjoyed his affluence, an acclaimed novelist who turned against the literary novel; a feminist womaniser, sensual yet incurably romantic, as generous as he was selfish, lovable and exasperating by turns, but always vitally human.