David Lodge

David Lodge; HG Well; A Man of Parts Blackheath Halls, Wednesday, November 21, 2012 Fictional biography is currently in vogue, a life story woven in fact. The attraction is clear with invention superfluous, the writer connecting the dots. Sir David Lodge, a major exponent, spoke eloquently of his love for his art; “ it’s underrated, controversial and I am implicitly defensive”… of this medium which “brings characters back to life”. Lodge most recent book - A Man of Parts – is a voluminous work (556 pages) the life of the author HG Wells. “For years I’ve admired him, this writer and scientist… but I am not really sure that I liked him”. The book opens with Wells near the end of his life (1866-1946) looking back on his past with mixed feelings. An impoverished childhood in a shop down in Bromley, an apprenticeship he is said to have hated. Small and rotund, sickly and weak, his future looked decidedly bleak. But then an epiphany – “I decided to stop dying” - and he started to write and 100 books later he stopped. The Time Machine (1895) brought him immediate fame, The Invisible Man (1897) quickly after. The War of The Worlds (1898) had people fleeing their homes when read on the radio in New York. Lodge warmed to his subject, to this most unusual of men, a literary and articulate scientist. He foretold the future from TV to (atom) bombs and has “blazed in the firmament…for decades”. But Lodge’s delivery lacked warmth and engagement too instructive to connect with the audience. Wells too was didactic on evolution and politics, a socialist till the end of his days. In his dealings with women he was surprisingly liberal describing sex like “tennis or badminton”. Free love, open marriage were the rules of his game – 2 marriages and over 100 partners. “However did he find the time”, Lodge mused. The book is well written, well researched and flows strongly, author / subject affinities - lower middle class, south London childhoods – quite intriguing. But while he brings Wells back to life with both affection and power there are question marks over the medium. Wells imagined, he invented, he foresaw and foretold, Lodge recounts what the other man wrote. Lodge started, continued and concluded with Wells, not even his epitaph was off limits.“ I told you so, you damn fools”, Wells is said to have written; how appropriate and utterly correct. Good if not gripping. 6/10. Dick Morgan, November 2012