Read this in 10th grade. Enjoyed it. But if you want a great invisible man story, check out Memoirs of An Invisible Man by H.F. Saint. ( )

A stranger wrapped in bandages comes to a small town. Several strange occurrances start to occur and the people of the town take it upon themselves to discover the stranger's secret. Well's classic tale of an invisible man run amoke carries well into the 21st century. The aspects of mystery and adventure are well told and the writing is crisp and clean. This is a book I would pick up to read to my kids (if I had any) as well as to reread it again for my own entertainment. ( )

When I was a young teen, I was assigned Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for school reading, and surprised myself by enjoying the experience tremendously. I had always thought that they, like anything belonging to the body of work we now refer to as the horror genre, must be gruesome, sensational, and morally reprehensible. Instead, I discovered dark and probing examinations of the human condition, although the degree of their success obviously differs from individual to individual (I myself am far more fond of Dr Jekyll than Frankenstein). Since then I have read several more works in the same vein, including The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Phantom of the Opera, and last week I thought it would be a good idea to add The Invisible Man to the list, especially in view of the Halloween weekend coming up.

In many ways it reminds me of Stevenson’s earlier masterpiece. Both combine horror and science fiction elements. Both feature the results of scientific experimentation gone awry and threatening to terrorize humankind (in this aspect it is similar to Frankenstein as well). And finally, both adopt a similar literary method of getting at their respective mysteries by starting with the peripheral accounts of side characters and leading up to the protagonist’s revelatory confession.

Of course, finding such similarities caused me to make comparisons between other aspects of the two novels, which is always dangerous when one of the pieces examined is an old favorite. Certainly Wells’ prose is not in the same league as Stevenson’s; when I recently goaded my father into reading Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, one of the things that he raved to me about was the beauty of Stevenson’s writing. While reading The Invisible Man, very few descriptions or turns of phrase stuck out to me—and when they did, it was more often than not because of the very awkwardness of them. In passages of dialogue, the difficulty of the reading could be blamed on Wells’ use of local dialects, but obviously that does not prove a fitting excuse elsewhere. That said, I also suspect that my edition (1992, Dover Thrift) contained typos: there seemed to be verbs missing in odd places.

The characters, too, are often less than sympathetic. While most of the rabble the Invisible Man encounters during his stay in the town of Iping (I - XII) seem to be good people, we don’t get to know them very well, and when they are hurt or terrorized, one doesn’t quite know how to react. The Man himself evokes some pity owing to the misery of his condition and the onset of insanity, but he is so cruel that one can feel no more emotion towards him than towards a rabid animal; moreover, he is not as complex as one could wish—there is no visible struggle between good and ill in his soul. Dr. Kemp is virtually the only character worth cheering for but is, again, rather flat as a whole.

Finally, I do have to question Wells’ prerogative in titling the book The Invisible Man, given that the characters’ invisibility is supposed to remain a mystery up until Chapter VI! Ah well, it would make little difference nowadays.

A few passages of the book were genuinely impressive, and its quality as a narrative improved in the latter half, changing my evaluation of it from dislike to indifferent respect. The Invisible Man’s unveiling was truly thrilling, and his great narrative (XIX - XXIII) actually quite interesting, although a little bogged down by the details of the pseudo-science. (Again, Stevenson really had the right idea in keeping the nitty-gritty of his scientist’s experimentations obscure.) I was also pleasantly surprised by the amount of humor present in the first half of the book, especially relating to the person of Mr. Thomas Marvel.

Given the cultural impact of the idea (I still want to see the Claude Raines movie), I think it’s worth reading once, but I for one found it hard to love. ( )

The War of the Worlds:

The story itself is probably familiar enough to most people, but for the sake of clarity, here is a brief summary:

Ten cylinders are sent from Mars to Earth and all land in England. When these cylinders finally open, the public is shocked and bewildered. Grotesque aliens from Mars are inside of them. At first no one is scared, because with the difference in gravitational force on Earth compared to Mars, the creatures can barely move. After they complete construction of their tripods and bring those mechanical beasts out, however, all hell breaks loose. Mars is growing colder and colder and is no longer habitable for the Martians, so they intend to wipe out humans and set up camp on old Earth. What follows is the flight of one man in search of safety and his wife that was separated from him in the chaos. I won’t specify what happens in the end, but it is not hard to guess.

It goes without saying that The War of the Worlds is dated. Clearly little if any of it is applicable in the light of modern discoveries. It is interesting, however, to see how Wells draws on the scientific zeitgeist of the times he was writing in. He references the channels and rifts that run through Mars, the possible ill effects of microorganisms and bacteria, the gravitational differences that would come into play when a creature from space steps onto the soil of a different world, and the heat-ray prefigures the modern laser in an obvious way. There are numerous other (better) examples, but these are off the top of my head after finishing the book some days ago.

A problem some people might have with the book is reconciling the setting in time and space with the subject matter. It is a little far fetched and just weird to have merciless aliens with their heat-rays and tripods attacking the people of England in the 1800’s (as a side note, why would all ten cylinders be sent to England alone when the creatures of Mars were planning world domination? That just seems ridiculous.) as they ride around in their horse-drawn carriages. Personally, I think the stark clash between these two things makes for a much more unique and entertaining atmosphere overall.

Other problems include the fact that characters are not especially well developed, but this is in a way beside the point since the focus of the book is the events themselves, and since the chaotic turmoil of world disaster would most likely feature a breakdown in human personality even on the most basic level. Despite this problem with character, Wells weaves through the events beautifully, often poetically to a certain extent.

My overall thoughts:

This was not one of the best books I’ve ever read. It had its merits, but what I think it really comes down to is that I missed it. I should have read this book when I was a kid. It might have even worked for me in high school. But reading The War of the Worlds at this point in my life is unfortunately too late. I still enjoyed it, but it is one of those books that is best appreciated by a younger mind. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it as a precursor to the more current science fiction that I love, and I think this book clearly displays its relevance in the development of the genre. I do not know if I will ever read this again, and as I said, sadly, I missed it by several years, but I do think I liked this book as much as I possibly could have given that, and I would not hesitate to recommend it, especially to someone with a love for science fiction and its roots. Finished 10/26/09

Just how I like novels - short, captivating, and fun to read. ( )