Italian Riviera
The Italian Riviera or Ligurian Riviera ( it, Riviera ligure; lij, Rivêa lìgure) is the narrow coastal strip in Italy which lies between the Ligurian Sea and the mountain chain formed by the Maritime Alps and the Apennines. Longitudinall ...
. Among the party are a prominent author, "the great Mr. Sempack," an American aesthete, Mr. Plantagenet-Buchan, the beautiful, vivacious Lady Catherine, Col. and Mrs. Bullace, Lady Grieswold, and a number of others. At dinner, Sempack, a brilliant talker with ideas similar to Wells's, expounds the idea that a "Great Age" is certain to come, and that contemporaries are obliged in the present to live, as it were, "meanwhile": "Since nothing was in order, nothing was completely right. We lived provisionally. There was no just measure of economic worth; we had to live unjustly .... We were justified in taking life as we found it; in return if we had ease and freedom we ought to do all that we could to increase knowledge and bring the great days of a common world-order nearer, a universal justice, the real civilisation, the consummating life, the days that would justify the Martyrdom of Man."
A crisis is precipitated when Cynthia Rylands, who is pregnant with her first child, surprised her husband engaged in a dalliance "in the little bathing chalet" with one of their guests, a Miss Clarges. She is distraught and confides in Sempack, who offers her wise advice in a long letter: she should not forgive her husband, but rather "realize that there is nothing to forgive." Mrs. Rylands accepts Sempack's notion that her husband's real problem is not infidelity but idleness, and the first book ends with him departing at her urging for a visit to England, where his family's vast coal holdings are at risk in the crisis that culminated in the
1926 general strike
The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British governme ...
.
The novel's second "book" is dominated by Philip Rylands's letters describing the British political situation ("many of the leading participants in the strike appear in the novel without disguise") and his recruitment to the Open Conspiracy, Wells's plan for establishing a World Republic. But it is also punctuated with a number of subplots, some comic, some dramatic. Lady Catherine undertakes the seduction of an unwilling Mr. Sempack, but before this affair can be consummated, she flees to join a British fascist committed to fighting the class war back at home. Mrs. McManus, a nurse from
Ulster
Ulster (; ga, Ulaidh or ''Cúige Uladh'' ; sco, label= Ulster Scots, Ulstèr or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional Irish provinces. It is made up of nine counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kin ...
who comes to assist Mrs. Rylands in the last stages of her pregnancy, is a memorable comic character. And Mrs. Rylands, with the help of Mrs. McManus, comes heroically to the aid of Signor Vinciguerra, a liberal Italian leader being hunted by Italian fascists in her garden; she succeeds in helping him escape to France. ''Meanwhile'' concludes with the return of a now devoted, ''engagé'' Philip to Cynthia after she has given birth to their son.
Commercial success
''Meanwhile'' was chosen as an alternate selection of the recently founded
Book of the Month Club
Book of the Month (founded 1926) is a United States subscription-based e-commerce service that offers a selection of five to seven new hardcover books each month to its members. Books are selected and endorsed by a panel of judges, and members ...
and was translated into a number of languages, including Danish,
Norwegian
Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to:
*Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe
* Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway
* Demographics of Norway
*The Norwegian language, including ...
, Polish, and
Czech
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
. In England, 30,000 copies sold within two months, and by the summer of 1929 50,000 had been sold.
Criticism
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
read ''Meanwhile'' "with the most complete sympathy" and told Wells he agreed with it entirely. Beatrice Webb called it an "inspiring essay." Wells's concept of the Open Conspiracy was taken seriously in its day, and he developed it in a book-length treatment published in the following year, discussing it with Lloyd George, Harold Macmillan, Harold Nicolson, and many others.
''Meanwhile'' is regarded variously by later critics. Writing in the 1980s, David C. Smith considered the novel "badly neglected" and praised "excellent descriptions of the rich on the Riviera just before the deluge, as well as a poignant and sharp analysis of the fascist system under stress" and "a strong statement of the Open Conspiracy." But Wells's most recent biographer, Michael Sherborne, judged it "not a successful novel" whose "dull characters ... share predictable views about the state of the world and engage in token romantic entanglements." Some biographies do not mention it at all.For example, Vincent Brome, ''H. G. Wells: A Biography'' (London, New York, and Toronto: Longmans, Green, 1951).