Tono Bungay anyone?

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03-09-2010, 03:07 PM
dfloyd

Tono Bungay anyone?

Having only read a couple of books by H. G. Wells, namely The Invisible Man and War of the Worlds, I was a little surprised by his book called Tono Bungay. This funny sounding name is the appellation of a patent medicine which starts the narrator and his uncle on the road to fame (or infamy?) and riches. But the book, oddly enough, is not really about Tono Bungay. It is primarily about the English class system which existed prior to WWI. It is even about a romance which couln't exist because of this class system. Just wondered if anyone else has read Tono Bungay. I guess Wells wrote a few other novels about the social problems of English society. I knew about his Outline of History, but I was only familiar with his novels which were incipient Science Fiction stories. This is not a great book, but it is an interesting one. If you haven't read this one, have you read any of his other novels which deal with social problems?
03-09-2010, 03:12 PM
janesmith

Hi! It's quite a while since I read "Tono Bungay". It was part of our MA course. From what I can remember I was pleasantly surprised. I agree that it wasn't particularly "well written" but I enjoyed it all the same.
03-09-2010, 03:25 PM
dfloyd

Oh, I think it's extremely well written ....

just not very topical or to the point. I can't imagine many on this forum liking it, especially the younger set.
03-10-2010, 08:04 AM
janesmith

Well you know what they say- "Youth is wasted on the young"
03-10-2010, 05:53 PM
Emil Miller

I read Tono Bungay years ago among other novels by Wells and found it very amusing. As social comment it fits in with Kipps and The History of Mr Polly but the one I urge you to read, if you haven't done so already, is Love and Mr Lewisham which is autobiographical and probably the best book he wrote; I never went big on the science fiction novels.
03-10-2010, 06:02 PM
dfloyd

I'l look for Love and Mr Lewisham at the library ....

with a thousand books in a small bedroom, none of them paperback, I am in a no-buying mode right now. I read Tono Bungay because it was a Limited Editions Club selection in the 60s, but I just got around to reading it now. The other English novel which the Club published in the 60s is Zuleika Dobson. I just started it yesterday, and it is really a funny novel.