The Comedian
12-13-2009, 10:29 PM
Reading Alan Moore & Kevin O'Neil's comic League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (a reinterpretation and exultation of Victorian adventure fiction) got me interested in Wells, whose works they draw heavily upon.
H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man is a pleasant story with narrative structure that grew on me. In this novel, Wells recounts the story of Hawley Griffin, a self-absorbed albino scientist who discovers how to make animate flesh invisible, most notably his own. He notes his discovery in cipher, then spends much of the brief novel trying to cope with day-to-day tasks in his new condition and maintain his secrecy, and later he decides what profession his new condition is best suited to.
I found the narrative structure quite compelling because the origin of how the Invisible Man came to be and the revealing of his discovery occurs in the later portions of the novel, only after we have committed our curiosity to this odd-fellow character whose person is at once sympathetic and villainous. As a result of this structure, the book gets more interesting with each turn of the page.
Thematically, the novel deals with the moral and psychological questions of how humans behave when the stabilizing gaze of society is not upon them. What transgressions can be gotten away with? What boundaries can be trespassed? And, most profoundly (to me,at least) how would true social isolation affect one's ability to keep his or her moral and social obligations?
Overall, I found The Invisible Man a fun and insightful read that made me want to read another title by its author. The Island of Dr. Moreau, perhaps?
I rate this book 8/10 refracted particles of light
H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man is a pleasant story with narrative structure that grew on me. In this novel, Wells recounts the story of Hawley Griffin, a self-absorbed albino scientist who discovers how to make animate flesh invisible, most notably his own. He notes his discovery in cipher, then spends much of the brief novel trying to cope with day-to-day tasks in his new condition and maintain his secrecy, and later he decides what profession his new condition is best suited to.
I found the narrative structure quite compelling because the origin of how the Invisible Man came to be and the revealing of his discovery occurs in the later portions of the novel, only after we have committed our curiosity to this odd-fellow character whose person is at once sympathetic and villainous. As a result of this structure, the book gets more interesting with each turn of the page.
Thematically, the novel deals with the moral and psychological questions of how humans behave when the stabilizing gaze of society is not upon them. What transgressions can be gotten away with? What boundaries can be trespassed? And, most profoundly (to me,at least) how would true social isolation affect one's ability to keep his or her moral and social obligations?
Overall, I found The Invisible Man a fun and insightful read that made me want to read another title by its author. The Island of Dr. Moreau, perhaps?
I rate this book 8/10 refracted particles of light