Customer Reviews

Mr. Britling Sees It Through

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The title says it all. "Mr. Britling Sees It Through" ... gosh, it's almost a parody of a H.G. Wells title. It's the story of how Mr. Britling makes it through World War One; although I should point out that he never once leaves England nor even, so far as I can remember, his study.

Look, I really liked this book, and I wish I could give it a higher rating; and Wells is a good enough writer to ensure that the book has some good things in it (Mr. Britling's "affair" with a theatrically emotional woman is hilarious); but in all fairness I must say that (a) Not all that much happens - I know Mr. Britling has a son at the front, but the resulting tension isn't enough to build a novel out of, and (b) There's something a touch self-indulgent about Mr. Britling's armchair angst, and so as a result (c) Wells sometimes misses the point of his own fable. But if anyone has any desire at all to read this book, I say, give in to it.

I'm a huge H.G Wells fan. On this one he steps outside the science fiction genre and gives us a compelling look into the mind of a man as he and his nation are pulled into war. It's actually very similar to the process I've seen the American psyche going through since 9-11, previously opposed to war, then whole-heartedly engaged, then questioning it.

I think this book would be a good choice for history buffs, since it does such an excellent job of showing us how things were during World War I and what the mood was like during that time.

Wells himself followed a similar course to his character. His leaned philosophically in the direction of pacifism, but when the First World War began he supported it at first, then after a while he gravitated back to his more pacifistic views.

This is an excellent book and I really enjoyed reading. Wells was a wonderful writer and very talented at telling a great story. I highly recommend this book.

I got this book as a gift from my brother. I have always loved H.G. Wells' books, and though this one is not in the same genre that I'm used to, I really loved it. It's sad and brilliant and sometimes hilarious. The message is deep and timely. Even though it's about a different war, the sentiment is still the same. What war does to the psyches of individuals and nations does not change. It unites us for a time only to eventually leave us feeling dirty. H.G. Wells shows us this process works in this excellent book. I really enjoyed reading it, and I would recommend it to anyone.

This novel was published in 1916, right in the middle of WWI, when that conflict seemed interminable. Thus, its appearance was timely, and it still serves as an authentic portrait of how the war on the home front affects a middle-class, well-educated family and its father, a writer who, while basically patriotic, feels himself to be tolerant, pacific, and reasonable. The Britling family even employs a German tutor, Heinrich, for their son. Yet Heinrich must leave as war gathers; he does so damning conflict and nationalists. This is where the book serves as history: while many did not think Germany would actually go to war, it was likewise expected. Germany's rising military power would eventually collide with others. Mr. Britling blames Germany nonetheless for lack of self-control, of disrupting the balance, of not playing the game. Perhaps forgotten is the fact that Germany's invasion of Belgium pushed some Flemish to flee to England as refugees. The Britlings even put a family up, with believable though containable culture shock. There are Zeppelin raids, food rationing, everyone doing their bit and, finally, the news that Hugh, the Britling son, has been killed on the Western Front. It is in how Mr. Britling tries to come to terms with this that the book strenghtens, as he(Mr. Britling is inclined to pontificate)declaims his belief in a fallible, flexible God who is in everyone, everywhere, giving meaning to life and death -- an unusual turn for Wells, a lifelong atheist. The book's conclusion sees Mr. Britling writing to the family of Heinrich, killed in Russia, responding to their request for him to send them their son's fiddle, left in England. This letter, and the emotions and thoughts he expresses in it, helps him find a kind of peace. Mr. Britling has thus seen it through.

This is what it says it is: a public domain text with navigation that allows the user to easily navigate the entire book, providing forward, backward and cross links to every section of the book. Most public domain texts (and far too many new texts) are just plain texts rendered into the Kindle format. This text was carefully constructed to fit the structure of this book.

"Mr. Britling Sees It Through" was written while World War I was still raging. For the first 200 pages of this 450-page work, I was won over by some of the most muscular prose I had ever read. It was beautifully-written, lucid, poetic. After that 200-page mark, though, it sinks into vicious anti-German WWI-era propaganda. "Kill the Kaiser," "the Dirty Huns," etc.
History courses around the world study what we now know to be Allied lies about Germany to get America into the war. For instance, we NOW know that the Germans weren't "crucifying Belgians," nor bayonetting babies for practice, nor "making soap out of human corpses". So successful was this line of propaganda that many of its best gems were recycled for the second World War a generation later [and still survive as urban legends today, among the uneducated]. But the truth is: We now know exactly what British authors and operatives came up with the propaganda, what authorities authorized it and who aided in its dissemination.
Furthermore, we now know [what they didn't at the time] that H.G. Wells was hired to be on the staff of the very first official board of the British Ministry of Propaganda. He was a hireling of the government to spread what he knew were lies in order to persuade peace-loving men to murder in the name of their leaders' agendas.
For that Wells can never be forgiven.
If he was an artist before 1916 [and "Mr. Britling Sees It Through"], he was the worst sort of political hack and moral reprobate afterward--filling his novels with intentional lies and phony atrocities in order to stir murderous, irrational blood-lust to advance British Imperialist goals.