'X2': The Final Chapter of Tono-Bungay

The final chapter of H. G. Wells's novel, Tono-Bungay (1909) has given rise to surprisingly wide differences of opinion among commentators. Geoffrey West, an early admirer of the novel, thought that 'in the last chapter, one of the most splendid passages Wells has ever written, is focused the whole spirit of the book';1 more recently J. R. Hammond referred to the chapter's 'series of brilliant images' and considered it 'one of the most carefully written ... in the whole corpus of [Wells's] fiction'.2 At the opposite extreme from these views is Mark Schorer's familiar dismissal of TonoBungay in his essay 'Technique as Discovery' (1948) and his condemnation of the final chapter as a 'significant failure' because it is merely 'a kind of meditative rhapsody which denies every value that the book has been aiming towards'.3 Even more severe than Schorer's criticism was Walter Allen's opinion that the chapter was 'one of Wells's shoddiest and most careless pieces of writing' in a generally muddled novel.4 In this final chapter George Ponderevo brings his story full circle by once more depicting himself in the act of writing it, and then expands on his new career of ship-designer by describing the seatrials of an experimental destroyer, the X2. This brief episode ends the novel. In addition to the stylistic and structural aspects of the chapter, the sudden appearance of the X2 has also puzzled critics. Although there are brief references to this vessel earlier in the novel, the X2 seems something of an after-thought, mainly because George gives no account of how he came to his new occupation of designing warships. Moreover, George himself seems uncertain what 'the value of a thing at once so essential and so immaterial' might be.5