8 9 Book Learning

8 9 Book Learning

8 9 Book Learning

As Paul Cornell’s Human Nature begins, John Smith dreams that he is “an adventurer.” When his chambermaid enters, he tells her of his dreams. Martha replies, “A teacher and a chambermaid, I don’t think that’s very likely, do you?”

It is November 10th 1913. Mr. Smith has been teaching at an English public school for two months. He has no memory of being a Time Lord, of needing to hide for just three months, until the enemy have died like mayflies.

Human Nature is a fine meditation on the repression that those less privileged in Belle Epoque society endured, but that the privileged few had in many cases barely a year to live.