Read as part of my ‘book-et list’ in homage to HG whose science fiction and romances lit up my adolescent reading half a century ago. This book falls in the latter category and is set in 1900s London.
The story is simple enough, narrated in the first person by Richard Remington. His childhood, schooling, and university leads to a growing interest in becoming a mover and shaker in society. Moving in political circles, he meets and marries Margaret Seddon, gets into parliament, and seems set for a glittering career. One of his staunchest supporters is young Isabel Rivers.
However, Remington’s mission to improve the lot of mankind, or at least Imperial Britain, goes beyond the narrow party-line parameters. Frustrated and disillusioned, he finds comfort in Isabel’s like mind, then in her comely body. It is Edwardian London and a scandal such as this would mean the end of his political career. So, a choice must be made. Respectability, Margaret, and high office; or passion, Isabel, and obscurity.
It is a wordy 400 pages, though the words are well put together. To be honest, it is a little dull. The affair is hardly racy, and the politics of 1906 are remote. The social attitudes that Remington rails against, which I suspect was the purpose of the book, are largely long gone.
So, thanks HG for
the good stuff of my youth; but I missed nothing here.
No comments:
Post a Comment