Time Machine / Invisible Man

*** By H.G. Wells. This duo was, I think, the third-to-last English-language novel sitting on my bookshelf that I hadn't read... until this week. (Tess of the D'Urbervilles and The Once and Future King remain, as I have read only 1/3 of each.) Anyway, I was glad I finally got around to it, because they were both fine, if very different, reads.

The Time Machine has the definite feel of a parable or allegory, in the manner of C.S. Lewis's sci-fi trilogy that begins with Out of the Silent Planet. It also is clearly a landmark sci-fi novel, to which so much work that follows pays tribute. We hear the tale of an inventer who uses his contraption to journey 800,000 years into the future and finds no trace of humanity as we know it but rather... well, I don't want to spoil the mystery (though I can tell you there are no highly evolved chimpanzees living beside a sunken Statue of Liberty). But Wells's take on classism, man's hubris (hee hee), and the importance of conflict to evolutionary growth is very clear.

The Invisible Man again tackles the interplay of science and morals, but the style is very different from its predecessor. It reads much more like a comic book, with each action-packed, humor-filled chapter lasting no more than three or four pages. As you might expect, a young scientist turns himself invisible with the notion that it will give him great power... unfortunately, with that power comes not great responsibility, but great paranoia, persecution, and skewing of reality. Wackiness ensues.

I recommend both, whether or not you're a reader of sci-fi. We're talking classic literature here! And it's quite remarkable to think of these books as evidence of the great technological transitions being made in the past few centuries and the questions that arose from them.

Posted by Lisa on May 9, 2003 05:22 PM