The Passionate Friends: H.G. Wells

[poliphilo]

An early 20th century Tristan and Isolde- featuring two rather stuffy lovers- stuffy even for their era (but wasn't the Edwardian age actually quite raffish and fast?)- whose tragic destiny is very largely of their own fat-headed making. Did Wells mean them to come across as such duffers? Perhaps- because his people are rarely as costive and conformist as these two are. Otherwise a rather beautiful book, acute on the subject of sexual possessiveness, impassioned in the case it makes for female emancipation, fascinating for the sometimes edgy dialogue between Wells the student of human nature and Wells the Utopian.