Christina Alberta's Father

by H.G. Wells

Book by Wells, H. G.

Genres: Fiction, Mental Health, British Literature, Classics, Novels

410 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1925

About the author

Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science. Wells earned his bachelor of science and doctor of science degrees at the University of London. After marrying his cousin, Isabel, Wells began to supplement his teaching salary with short stories and freelance articles, then books, including The Time Machine (1895), The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), and The War of the Worlds (1898).

Wells created a mild scandal when he divorced his cousin to marry one of his best students, Amy Catherine Robbins. Although his second marriage was lasting and produced two sons, Wells was an unabashed advocate of free (as opposed to "indiscriminate") love. He continued to openly have extra-marital liaisons, most famously with Margaret Sanger, and a ten-year relationship with the author Rebecca West, who had one of his two out-of-wedlock children. A one-time member of the Fabian Society, Wells sought active change. His 100 books included many novels, as well as nonfiction, such as A Modern Utopia (1905), The Outline of History (1920), A Short History of the World (1922), The Shape of Things to Come (1933), and The Work, Wealth and Happiness of Mankind (1932). One of his booklets was Crux Ansata, An Indictment of the Roman Catholic Church. Although Wells toyed briefly with the idea of a "divine will" in his book, God the Invisible King (1917), it was a temporary aberration. Wells used his international fame to promote his favorite causes, including the prevention of war, and was received by government officials around the world. He is best-remembered as an early writer of science fiction and futurism.

He was also an outspoken socialist. Wells and Jules Verne are each sometimes referred to as "The Fathers of Science Fiction". D. 1946.

More: http://philosopedia.org/index.php/H._...

http://www.online-literature.com/well...

http://www.hgwellsusa.50megs.com/

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/t...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my last two reads, the treatment of the mentally ill in the dark days has been explored. In Zola’s The Conquest of Plassans, set in the mid-1800s, the predictable response was to merely shut the person in a room until they succumbed to the summary death that stopped people having to properly address the problem. In this novel from 1926, Mr. Preemby has a mental breakdown and imagines himself ancient Mesopotamian king Sargon of Akkad (not the racist YouTuber Carl Benjamin), having failed to rise himself above his humble station, having his imagination and horizons suppressed by torturous British class distinctions. He is very swiftly removed to an asylum where the afflicted are declared “mad” without even a cursory examination. The novel is a reminder of this legacy of cruel ignorance, although tonally Wells intended to a write a lighter romp about a New Woman whose father vanishes, to much picaresque merriment. In Zola’s novel, the townsfolk are depicted as ruthless and callous, merrily cheering on the ruination of a bourgeois heretic, in Wells’s less brutal novel, there are plenty of plucky caring lovelies to help a poor man recover—a stark contrast between the grouchy realist and the grouchy utopian.

[Warren Fournier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Geez! I was fully prepared to give this one a full five stars and sing it's praises with my highest recommendation until I got to the last third of the book, when H.G. Wells decided to muck up a good thing by being the most "Wellsian" he could be. Wells is one of those writers that I simultaneously love and hate. There is no questioning the man's sheer genius. But he was insufferably inflicted with an ego of planetary proportions to match his great intellect. "Christina Alberta's Father" is a perfect example of how these two sides of the famous author clash in his writing.

For most of this novel, Wells had crafted a beautifully touching, tastefully hilarious, infinitely quotable, and delightfully sweet drama between a daughter and her daddy. Both of them are two peas in a pod, living in kind of a dream world as their own realities are too confusing. For the father, his life by middle-age is nothing like he may have fancied as a youth. He is entrenched in running a laundry business inherited from his wife's family, and he finds his daily existence so mundane that he refuses to believe anyone could truly live like this. For the daughter, who is the titular Christina Alberta, she is an awkward and Tom-boyish figure who never seems to want to or even be capable of fitting in with her peers. She is the representative symbol of the "Lost Generation" of young people who rose from the ashes of World War I. “I’m at sea,” she says in response to being questioned about what she wants to do with her life. “Lots of my generation are, I think. The girls especially."

For both characters, they are acutely aware that the world is drastically changing around them, but they don't know yet where these changes are heading. "...the European world had been travelling faster and faster since the break-up of the armed peace in 1914; and here were new types, new habits of thought, new ideas, new reactions, new morals, new ways of living... the advent of a new age, a new age that was coming so fast that there hadn’t been time ever to clear the forms and institutions of the old age away."

Then, their own routine of life is violently disrupted by the unexpected death of Christina Alberta's mother. This trauma is the final blow to their fragile identities. Christina Alberta starts to question what her own future will look like as she transitions to womanhood. The cultural mores still in place dictate that she marry, have children, and be a housewife, but this is a rapidly changing world, and she has other ideas. "As a race of creatures specialized for children, we ought to be eaten up by the desire for children... To me they seem like a swarm of hidden dwarfs, prepared to come upon me and eat up my whole existence. It’s not simply I don’t want them; I live in fear of them." Her daddy, meanwhile, is in the midst of his own crisis and begins to have a mental breakdown, developing the delusion that he is a reincarnation of the Sumerian king Sargon of Akkad. This is the setup, and it is full of wonderful potential for a great psychological melodrama and philosophical novel in the vain of the great Dostoevsky.

There is also some discussion about the state of the mental health system that still feels very modern. I understood and appreciated Wells' sensitive portrayal of a well-meaning system that ends up doing a lot of harm. The asylum featured in this book is understaffed and poorly funded. Medical staff are inadequately trained to deal with mental illness and fall into a pattern of behaving like sadistic and punishing parents rather than empathetic caregivers. The attendants live in fear of the violent cases and band together, keeping quiet about abuses to patients for fear that their colleagues won't have their backs when needed. Mental health law at the time was designed to feed citizens into this broken machine. "For there is no trial by jury and no writ of habeas-corpus in Britain for the unfortunate charged with insanity. He may not plead in public and there is no one to whom he may appeal. He may write complaints but they will be neglected... He is handed over to the nearly autocratic control of under-educated, ill-paid, ill-fed, and overworked attendants." I found Wells' criticism of the psychiatric hospital system as not a bitter indictment of it but rather a very respectful and poignant plea for society to treat neuropsychiatric disease on par with other medical illnesses.

But then by the end of the book, Wells can't help himself. He simply can't trust the intelligence of his audience. He feels the need to preach to the plebeians; he has to spell things out for his audience as he is so much more enlightened than they. So the last third of the book gradually becomes almost purely didactic, with philosophical arguments between the main cast about things like communism and feminism. It does this at the expense of the narrative and character-development that the reader has hitherto invested so much during the course of 300 pages. Suddenly, characters start to say things that they would normally never have said in the earlier part of the book, simply to speak as a foil for Wells' own preachings. Wells also leaves the story-arc of all the characters deliberately vague or he simply destroys the arc at the last second. That's fine, as it drives home the point that events in life do not always go as you expect. Things change on a dime, I get it! But I understood all of this through the ingenious storytelling in the first part of the book, and so I didn't need this cop-out of an ending.

Particularly egregious is Wells' gutless lack of commitment to flat out state his intentions regarding the relationship between Christina Alberta and a certain psychologist in this novel. Without spoiling anything, Wells implies certain things about this relationship that, if true, is so ridiculous that it destroys any grounding of reality this book has and also demeans the importance of the connection between Christina and her father. Read it and tell me if I am right or if I am misunderstanding something.

Anyway, it sure looks like I didn't like this book, doesn't it? Actually, I think this is one of the best of H.G. Wells' works, and I quite enjoyed it. But if you've gotten this far in my review, you likely are quite familiar with Wells and the shenanigans he pulls, so you won't be too put off by this stuff. For me, it was just disappointing that an almost perfect book got marred by the author's own sense of self-importance.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another little known, rarely read Wells that I enjoyed very much, especially the character of Christina herself, making her way as a new woman in a new century.

[Bish Denham · Rating 4 out of 5]

For something that was published in 1925, this was interesting read. At times it was very humorous and very serious. For me it lagged the last third or so because Wells switched main characters from Christina Alberta and her father to Bobby, who for some inexplicable reason becomes a "disciple" of Mr. Preemby and falls in love with his daughter, Christina Alberta.

However, Wells explores important issues: the horrors mentally ill patients experienced in "asylums", sex (and pregnancies) out of wedlock, women's rights, the new science of psychiatry, the hokum of seances, and spirituality to name a few. Then there are a few spookily prophetic things casually mentioned: Christina Alberta's vaguely uncomfortable feelings towards the use of the swastika as a logo on her family's laundry business, the idea that some day a drop of blood would be able to not only determine one's sex, but be able to completely identify an individual, the use of words like individuation (an early Jungian concept with much older roots) and New Age (capitalized) to describe the changes and modernism of post WWI England.

If you don't mind the style of writing, if you don't mind that it can a get little pedantic, then I say, check it out. It might surprise you as it surprised me.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this novel! I think it's a shame that it's not more well-known but I can understand why. It is very didactic, particularly at the end, and the end in general feels a bit off to the rest of the book, both in its heavy didacticism and dialogue-heavy form; plus, was the focus on Bobby's attraction to Christina Alberta really necessary? In general there were too many characters that were just thrown in the book for no apparent reason and they felt particularly lacklustre since Sargon/Preembly and Christina Alberta were so vibrant and interesting. All that being said, this book tackles some really interesting issues, particularly about the nature of "madness." It goes beyond simply "asylums suck" which is generally what books around that era seem to deal with, so I really appreciated it in that sense. And having such a radically feminist character like Christina Alberta was really a pleasant surprise! I felt like feminist issues could have been tied in more closely with the issue of madness (more so than just ~the world is new now~), but it was a nice addition nonetheless. Wells has a really fun almost sardonic tone throughout that I really enjoyed (although it did result in a lesser emotional attachment to the characters, which personally I don't like, but that may have been his purpose). Overall a really interesting book for someone like me who is interested in the issues that this book tackles.

[Nathan Sexton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I often forgot while reading this that it was written by Wells. No science fiction, no plot points or characters that fit into his usual style... and yet it is my favorite novel of his. Let me be clear, there’s plenty of things to criticize it for; characters often come into importance never to be mentioned again and plots take left turns seemingly out of nowhere. But the book is tied together by a set of interesting characters and even more interesting themes that evolve as you read. There are countless lines that stand out as beautiful quotes, and characters that contrast and compliment one another to reflect Wells’ thoughts on how changes in individuality and self-purpose influenced the evolving social, scientific, and governmental ideologies of the 1920s. It is void of science fiction and other-worldly things, yet written with just as vast an imagination. Come for Christina Alberta’s father and stay for Christina Alberta herself.

[Ginevra · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting philosophical treatis on character, ambition, life course... what makes and unmakes society, personality and ultimately where reality and sanity begin and meld into each other... smattered with a little on the perplexities and complexities that rule relationships between self and man and other men.
Interesting and ultimately, in the cry of challenge, futile perhaps, but arrogantly defiant of Christina Alberta as she takes on life in the heroic spirit of her departed father, satisfying. A book to inspire thought and not conclusion.

[Suzanne Petrella · Rating 3 out of 5]

At times fascinating, but not for everyone

The author seemed brilliant and also out to lunch! Hard to describe exactly how I felt about reading this book. The story was very unusual and I really liked parts of it it, almost to four stars. Some of it just seemed nonsensical. At first it was as though even the author didn’t like the main characters. As the story ever so slowly unfolds finally there is a plot. Then things shift. Half way through, everything changes again. Slow going, but I am glad I read it.

[Jeff Mayo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wells was very forward with his social commentary. In this 1925 book he highlighted the class system and mental health. At times it is a little too preachy, and he tends to be more didactic than necessary. However, this is a decent book for the time it was written.

[Tim McKay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half of the book is straight forward but then the story gets muddled. Wells is quite ambitious tackling social concerns.

[Trevor Darley · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Christina Alberta's Father" isn't for everyone, but it's an excellent (and sometimes dryly funny) social commentary which Wells clearly poured much of himself into

[Phyllida · Rating 3 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT: Unlike a lot of HG Wells this is not science fiction but more a novel of ideas and thoughts about personal identity. Wells claimed this book was his 'Pickwick Papers' and there is a certain amount of Dickensian influence. Mr Preemby, the father of the title, takes part in a séance after which he is convince he is Sargon, an ancient Sumerian king, who must bring order back to the world. He tries to gather followers but gets into trouble when he tries to get them into a restaurant for a feast. In Dickens' hands this scene could have been more farcical and perhaps funnier but it did remind me a bit of Dickens. When Sargon/Preemby is locked up in an asylum it is up to his daughter Christina Alberta and Bobby, a young man whom he meets along the way, to save him. Again Dickens might have made more of the asylum although Wells does protest that asylums are not designed to heal anyone but to imprison them. In a traditional Victorian novel Bobby and Christina Alberta would have married but Christina Alberta has an idea of herself as new and different and someone who doesn't fit the mold of a wife and mother. Towards the end of the novel the young man, Bobby, decides to write a novel that sounds very like the Pickwick Papers but changes his mind as that idea does not fit in with the world in which he lives. In a way Wells both references Dickens and moves him into a new century where revolutions are carried out not by the disaffected and dispossessed but people with new ideas who carry them out.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

All Wells's novels are great, of course. I like this one's character who is proccupied with ancient Sumer.