You Can't Be Too Careful

By H. G. WellsPUTNAM

THIS sets out to be a straight satirical novel about a poor fish named Edward Albert Tewler, one of Mr. Wells’s grubby heroes who boggle their way through life; but the author’s irrepressible opinionativeness will not stay under. It erupts every now and then and ends by blowing up the novel altogether. Edward Albert represents human nature in its biological aspect, before it can be properly called Homo sapiens. At the Tewler level (Homo Tewler) it muddles along, following its instincts and the easier way, and finally settling down to a permanent condition of being careful. In poor Edward Albert the ape and tiger are still very active, even—according to Mr. Wells — as in you and me. To the layman there is something wrong with this picture. It is too simple. It leaves out of account the fact that, as another eminent biologist says, we have other prehuman legacies “which are in line with our best endeavors.” As satire it would have been all right if Mr. Wells had had more faith in the reader’s ability to see what he was driving at. When he throws Tewler aside and writes as impatient, ardent, idealistic H. G. Wells, we go along with him soberly but happily; and when he stays out of his story, as in the chapters about Doober’s boardinghouse and especially about Harold Thump, the unappreciated humorist, he is very good indeed. R. M. G.