Many years before I ever dreamed of blogging, in fact years before we owned a computer, I chose this Wells’ quote to represent the primary theme of Bentari.

“Our true nationality is mankind.”[1]

Well sums up war from a working man’s point of view in his 1907 novel The War in the Air. His book was prophetic in many areas—though it was written at the dawn of mechanized flight.

With only a kitten for company, the hero Bert Smallways, a bicycle tinkerer by trade, has just killed his antagonist and finds another grizzly chore awaiting.

“War’s a silly gaim, Kitty. It’s a silly gaim! We common people—we were fools. We thought those big people knew what they were up to—and they didn’t. Look at that chap! ‘E ‘ad all Germany be’ind ‘im, and what ‘has ‘e made of it? Smeshin’ and blunderin’ and destroyin’, and there ‘e is! Jest a mess of blood and boots and things! Jest an ‘orrid splash! Prince Karl Albert! And all the men ‘e led and the ships ‘e ‘ad, the airships, and the dragon-fliers—all scattered like a paper-chase between this ‘ole and Germany. And fightin’ going on and burnin’ and killin’ that ‘e started, war without end all over the world!

“I suppose I shall ‘ave to kill that other chap. I suppose I must. But it ain’t at all the sort of job I fancy, Kitty!” [2]

In Bentari, the oft-repeated ritual of war is described this way.

“Elders shouted, men came to, and women dashed to duties that they did not desire, and they dragged the young along teaching them even then the ways of war. Whoops and ululations filled the air. Arrows were dipped in simmering pots of poison. Stern young faces emerged from huts throughout the village. Arms were thrust skyward brandishing the lance and bow and shield in fearsome challenge to their would-be foes.”—Ch. 10, “The Crocodile and the Plover”

H.G. Wells lived to see the creation of the United Nations and held high hopes that this would lead to world peace through democracy.[3]

Image: H.G. Wells in 1943

[1] See: http://thinkexist.com/quotation/our_true_nationality_is_mankind/209180.html

[2] See: http://www.amazon.com/The-War-Air-H-Wells/dp/0755104250 The War in the Air is a novel by H. G. Wells, written in 1907.

[3] See: http://www.voting.ukscientists.com/welsdemo.html