Hello r/books community!!
I read this classic for the very first time and wanted to share my thoughts about this one. Also this the very first time I thought to have a serious read-through and I thought to start here. Now this a somewhat short in length compared to others so completing it wouldn’t be a though task. But with that in my mind, I was pretty amazed at how much I was hooked until the very end of the story. I have to say though, how vividly each scenario, locations, and/or situations that our Time Traveler found himself in are described. I can easily get the idea to the point where I can support the writings with my very own illustrations (which, I must say, I am very much bad at imagining things). Now apart from this I was really impressed by how cohesively all things are tied together: the social structure, the social commentary, and the social statements that runs parallel with our very own world in the present time.
I might even say there are certainly some horror elements in the story. The way our Time Traveler found himself stranded in a distant world, far away for the world we know, all alone. The way he explores the “new” earth and The Palace of Green Porcelain, and especially the thudding sound from the wells below and the following events of discovering the Morlocks, has a great sense of mystery to it. I have to admit, I found the last part of the book very interesting: The Crabs, The Thing, The Night and Day. These seems like a really good part, and I would loved it even more if these part were explored a little more about this creature.
All in all, I have a very good time reading this book for first time which seems like a good start to what I believe to find all different and exciting books to read. I really didn’t find any where else for the discussion, so I decided to post here.
Thanks!!
by Comfortable_Kiwi_401
2 Comments
Wells was fantastic at seamlessly creating a social critique of his era at the same time that he builds a concise, fast-moving plot. Dr Moreau has the same depth!
I’ll admit, now that I’ve studied the era in graduate school and have come to understand the panic over neurasthenic upperclass men losing their “brute force,” while working-class men seem to be only too forcefully “masculine,” I understand even better what Wells was saying with with the Eloi and Morlocks. When I first read it I got the class critique, but not to that degree.
I recently read a book by a Soviet scientist who endured Stalin’s purges in the 1930s. Of 1937, he wrote something like:
“We frolicked like the Eloi during the day, and then at night the Morlocks would issue from the Lubyanka in their black cars, and every morning some of us would be missing, never to be spoken of again.”
It’s one of my favorite books I read last year. Like you said, amazing imagery and a good feeling of suspense with his situation. The super far into the future ending was such a nice cherry on top. 10/10 will read it again.