A Complex Life

The Invisible Man: 

The Life and Liberties 

of H.G. Wells 

by Michael Coren

"the literate teenager ... was free to read whatever happened to catch his interest." - Michael Coren, The Invisible Man.





Michael Coren's "The Invisible Man: The Life and Liberties of H. G. Wells" offers a provocative and often critical look at the complex life of the renowned author. Unlike many earlier biographies that tended to gloss over Wells's less admirable traits, Coren aims to present a "warts and all" portrait, challenging the perception of Wells as an unblemished utopian visionary.

Coren brings an intention to provide a more balanced, if not overtly critical, account of Wells. He aims to expose aspects of Wells's life and views that previous biographers might have omitted or downplayed. In doing so the book delves into Wells's personal life, including his numerous affairs and his often difficult relationships with women, portraying him as a "misogynistic womanizer." More significantly, Coren brings to light Wells's disturbing views on social engineering, eugenics, and, most notably, his alleged anti-Semitism, which Wells apparently defended even into the 1930s. This is a point of considerable debate and interest for many readers, as it often contradicts the commonly held image of Wells as a champion of liberal tolerance.

Coren emphasizes the paradoxes within Wells's character: a brilliant mind who could envision incredible futures and advocate for social progress (like women's suffrage), yet simultaneously held deeply problematic and intolerant personal views. I found the book to be well-researched, informative, and engaging, providing a concise yet thorough biography. It offers a fresh perspective by focusing on areas often overlooked. This is not a hagiography. It's a biography that seeks to unmask the "invisible" darker sides of H. G. Wells, prompting readers to confront the complexities and contradictions of a truly influential, yet deeply flawed, literary and social figure. I recommend it for those who want a more critical and nuanced understanding of Wells's life beyond his celebrated literary achievements.

Beasts on an Island

The Island of Dr. Moreau 

by H.G. Wells

“By this time I was no longer very much terrified or very miserable. I had, as it were, passed the limit of terror and despair. I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion made me capable of daring anything”   ― H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau





Over the period of a decade beginning with The Time Machine in 1895, H. G. Wells wrote some of his most popular fictions in the form of scientific romance novels, what I refer to as speculative fiction. These books have captured the imagination of readers ever since and are arguably as popular today as they were more than one hundred years ago. Among these perhaps the strangest and best is The Island of Dr. Moreau. Undoubtedly influenced by Robinson Crusoe, but also by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island which was published only thirteen years earlier, this book goes far beyond those deserted island tales and looks forward to the twenty-first century and beyond. In its day it was considered blasphemous, but in the age of cloning its depiction of vivisection takes on new meaning while the blasphemy recedes into the background.

The story is an insightful allegory of civilization as only the tip of the evolutionary tree and humans the only highly evolved animals. By using his cold-blooded scalpel, Moreau is, in a way, quickening the pace of evolution and giving his creatures two features that are exclusive to humans: primitive speech and a terror and wonder combination that is essential to religious belief. Their lowest impulses take over after the death of their god, Moreau, as exemplified by Montgomery's reckless actions, which spearhead the subsequent frenzy of self-indulgence. Observing the beast's plunge into self-destruction, the narrator Prendick is left alone when Moreau and Montgomery are slain.

After the terror passes, Prendick acknowledges that he might have acquired part of the "natural wildness" of the animals he had coexisted with. He senses the "animal [that] was surging up through them" and travels among humans in terror for a long time afterward, even though he knows this is unreasonable because he lives among "perfectly reasonable creatures" who are not bound by their instincts. The Island of Dr. Moreau is another warning about human reasoning put to the wrong use, and it offers more evidence of Wells’s inner debate on the issue. Above all this is a good story with suspense that holds even after the first breathless reading that it usually inspires.

Books, Maps and the Reading Life

Islands
 

 I was reminded of the importance of islands in literature while reading an article by Robert Macfarlane in the latest issue of Intelligent Life Magazine.  Like Macfarlane I had a love of cartography from an early age; "maps fire my mind" as he puts it. One of the possible sources of this love, for me and certainly for him, was a reading of Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.  Stevenson became one of my favorite authors and Treasure Island is among his books that I have read a reread since. But there are other authors who have enthralled me with their islands. The following compilation of reviews includes four of these "island" books, but there are others that I have enjoyed including Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Island by Huxley and Golding's dark morality tale, Lord of the Flies.  

"In the beginning was the map. Robert Louis Stevenson drew it in the summer of 1881 to entertain his 12-year-old stepson while on a rainy family holiday in Scotland. It depicts a rough-coasted island of woods, peaks, swamps and coves. A few place-names speak of adventure and disaster: Spyglass Hill, White Rock, The Graves. The penmanship is deft—at the island’s southern end is an intricate compass rose, and the sketch of a galleon at full sail. There are warnings to mariners: "Strong Tides", "Foul Ground". And in the heart of the island is a blood-red cross, by which is scrawled "Bulk of treasure here".

Stevenson’s map was drawn to set a child dreaming, but it worked most powerfully upon its grown-up author, inspiring Stevenson to write his great pirate novel "Treasure Island" (1883). Poring over the map, he began to populate his landscape with characters (Long John Silver, Captain Flint), and to thicken it with plot. Up from that flat page sprang one of the most compellingly realised of all imaginary places. Countless children have made landfall upon its blonde beaches, moved cautiously through its grey woods and seen sunlight flash hard upon the wild stone spires of its crags. Once visited, the island inhabits you."  -  Robert Macfarlane, "A place that inhabits you", Intelligent Life Magazine September/October 2013.




Treasure Island 
by Robert Louis Stevenson

“Sometimes the isle was thick with savages, with whom we fought, sometimes full of dangerous animals that hunted us, but in all my fancies nothing occurred to me so strange as our actual adventures.”  ― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island  

  This is a foundational book for me. I read it originally around 1960 and along with Kidnapped is has cemented Stevenson's place in my reading life. Traditionally considered a coming-of-age story, it is an adventure tale known for its atmosphere, character and action, and also a wry commentary on the ambiguity of morality—as seen in Long John Silver—unusual for children's literature then and now. The influence of Treasure Island on popular perception of pirates can be seen in media portrayals, including treasure maps with an "X", schooners, the Black Spot, tropical islands, and one-legged seamen with parrots on their shoulders. This adventure tale is one of conflicts, with the principal one being that between the virtue of advanced civilization versus the indiscipline of man in his savage state. Jim Hawkins, Dr. Livesey, and Captain Smollett, among the principal heroes, stand for virtues such as loyalty, truthfulness, thrift, discipline, religious faith, and temperance (especially with alcohol). The pirates suffer from drunkenness, impiety, and mutual betrayal, and tend to seize immediate gratification on the premise that life is short and uncertain. Long John Silver occupies a middle ground in this conflict: he shares the heroes' virtues of temperance, thrift, and deferred gratification, but only to aid him in achieving his ends, for which he is also willing to lie, betray, and murder. Most of the pirates can not even achieve Long John's level, which gives him a natural advantage in their company.

The novel can also be read as a bildungsroman which has become one of my favorite genres including such classics as David Copperfield and Of Human Bondage. In Treasure Island Stevenson writes of the development and coming-of-age of its narrator, Jim Hawkins. Jim's moral development culminates when he promises Silver not to attempt an escape. The novel includes exciting adventures but it also demonstrates ethical lessons in loyalty, truthfulness and temperance. The combination is presented in an exciting and suspenseful prose that never falters. It is one of the great adventure novels of my experience. 
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The Magus 
by John Fowles


"It came to me…that I didn't want to be anywhere else in the world at that moment, that what I was feeling at that moment justified all I had been through, because all I had been through was my being there. I was experiencing…a new self-acceptance, a sense that I had to be this mind and this body, its vices and its virtues, and that I had no other chance or choice.”  ― John Fowles, The Magus

While his novel The Collector was my introduction to the work of John Fowles I was not nearly as impressed with that novel as I was with The Magus. In it I found an intense, engrossing novel that maintained my interest in several ways including its setting on a Greek island.

The plot of the novel is a story of a young unhappy man who considers himself a poet and a philosopher. He takes a job at an English boarding school on a Greek island to escape what could become a complicated situation after a young woman with whom he is involved falls in love with him. Having used up his "charm with women," as one of the characters puts it, he sees this a better alternative. On this Greek island, he meets a millionaire named "Conchis" who tells the young man, Nicholas, stories of his life. To Nicholas' surprise, the characters in the stories begin to appear on the estate in what Fowles (in the prologue to the revised edition) describes as a kind of magical realism. While the novel seems to explore the ideas of conflict in mythology and philosophy, it rapidly turns into a kind of psychological mystery as Nicholas becomes more and more enmeshed in Conchis' mind games and it becomes more difficult for him--and the reader--to tell the difference between reality and fiction.

While, I found a certain resonance with Le Grand Meaulnes, by Alain-Fournier, in the showing of a secret hidden world to be explored along with reference to Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, the novel seems as much about the idea of "freedom" in the twentieth century. It also explores the definition of meaningful experiences, both inter-personal and intra-personal. While always artistic even while it sometimes seemed a bit bewildering it was ultimately a great read due to the uniqueness of its structure and its exploration of ideas. Combined with Fowle's beautiful prose that proved to be the right potion for a great novel. 
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The Island of Dr. Moreau 
by H.G. Wells

"The ocean rose up around me, hiding that low, dark patch from my eyes. The daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floating hosts of stars. The sea was silent, the sky was silent. I was alone with the night and silence.”  ― H.G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau 

  Over the period of a decade beginning with The Time Machine in 1895, H. G. Wells created some of his most popular fictions in the form of scientific romance novels. These books have captured the imagination of readers ever since and are arguably as popular today as they were more than one hundred years ago. Among these perhaps the strangest and best is The Island of Dr. Moreau. Undoubtedly influenced by Robinson Crusoe, but also by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island which was published only thirteen years earlier, this book goes far beyond those deserted island tales and looks forward to the twenty-first century and beyond. In its day it was considered blasphemous, but in the age of cloning its depiction of vivisection takes on new meaning while the blasphemy recedes into the background. Above all this is a good story with suspense that holds even after the first breathless reading that it usually inspires. The story is of such a suspenseful nature that I am reluctant to share any plot details for fear of spoiling the experience for the reader.

As with all great books the levels of meaning and reference in this book are many and the structure, a lost narrative found only after the author's death (reminiscent of Poe among others) is a nod to the era of the unreliable narrator for before his death Edward Pendrick, the narrator, claims to have no memory of the events which it described. Peter Straub, in his "Foreword" to the Modern Library edition, commented:

Given its infusion of the adventure tale with deep, pervasive doubt, Dr. Moreau can be seen as a unique and compelling alliance of Treasure Island and Joseph Conrad. (p. xvi)

I certainly agree with this assessment and believe that Wells, who was a good friend of Conrad as well as Henry James, Stephen Crane and Ford Madox Ford, might also agree with it. Like the best of Conrad reading this book was an exhilarating experience due both to its narrative and its deep meaning. 
___________________________________ 


The Man Who Loved Islands 
by D.H. Lawrence

"even islands like to keep each other company. " - D. H. Lawrence

Yes, more than men, that is the man of the story who loved islands, islands liked to keep each other company. This is a story from the pen of D. H. Lawrence who wrote many wonderful stories. In this story he has incorporated several themes and many layers of meaning all in less that twenty-five pages. The man who "loved islands" appears Quixotic as he attempts to create an imaginary island world around himself as he sequesters his being in his book-laden library to write about the birds of the classical world. But his dreams were quickly corroded as the corruption of humanity tainted his imaginary Eden. Suggestions of Milton's Paradise Lost - yet can Satan have corrupted humanity so thoroughly that few are honest or loyal enough to continue the journey with the man?
Imaginary though it was it reminded me of Rousseau's attacks on civilization while he wrote of an imaginary state of nature. This state of nature seemed to be close to the reincarnation of our man's island as he tried yet a second time to accomplish his dream. Ultimately the man who loved islands inherits a nightmare as the story veers into a snowy dystopia. What meaning does this hold for the reader? I am not sure, but the thoughts for which the story is a catalyst will continually remind me of this strange world.

View all my reviews

The Dark Side of Invisibility

The Invisible Man 
by H.G. Wells

“To do such a thing would be to transcend magic. And I beheld, unclouded by doubt, a magnificent vision of all that invisibility might mean to a man—the mystery, the power, the freedom. Drawbacks I saw none. You have only to think! And I, a shabby, poverty-struck, hemmed-in demonstrator, teaching fools in a provincial college, might suddenly become—this.”  ― H.G. Wells, The Invisible Man  

Wells' novel was originally serialized in Pearson's Magazine in 1897, and published as a novel the same year. Part ghost story and part science fiction tale, Wells’s The Invisible Man begins with the arrival of a mysterious, shrouded stranger in the small village of Iping. 

"The stranger came in early February, one wintry day, through a biting wind and a driving snow,"(p 1)
A man heavily clothed with hats, bandages and gloves takes a room at a local inn, and quickly unnerves the townspeople with his strange laboratory experiments and odd behavior. A series of burglaries take place in the village, and with her suspicion aroused, the innkeeper Mrs. Hall confronts the stranger. Removing all of his clothing and bandages, the man reveals that there is nothing underneath and that he is invisible. Terrified, Mrs. Hall flees and the police attempt to catch the man, but he throws off his clothes and thus eludes capture.
After running from town to town, breaking into houses and stealing things along the way, the invisible man encounters a former associate, Dr. Kemp. The invisible man, who we finally learn is called Griffin, was a brilliant medical student of Dr. Kemp’s at the university. Griffin theorizes that if a person's refractive index is changed to exactly that of air and his body does not absorb or reflect light, then he will be invisible. He successfully carries out this procedure on himself, but cannot become visible again. 


"The man's become inhuman, I tell you, said Kemp."(p 127)
This is indicative of his internal conflict as Griffin struggles to live with his situation. He rationalizes his crimes rather than making any sane attempt to get people to understand his predicament. He uses force to get people to help him and goes from bad to worse in his attempts to replenish his research materials for experiments in reversing the process that rendered him invisible. As Griffin grows increasingly unstable, he begins to feel self-delusions of grandeur and invincibility that lead to this tale’s shocking conclusion. 


I found the narrative structure 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 the reader has committed his curiosity to this odd character; someone whose person is at once sympathetic and villainous.  The structure permits the narrative to grow more and more interesting with each turn of the page. 

The Invisible Man is reminiscent of Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde (published a decade earlier) in the creation of an alter ego that quickly goes out of control. That is the interest of this story along with how Wells brilliantly works out the development of the theme if invisibility.  If one could become invisible, what then?   Certainly I found this aspect appealing when I first read the novel and undoubtedly it has contributed to the continuing popularity of this novel.  The moral and psychological questions of how humans behave when the stabilizing gaze of society is not upon them are in play.  One considers: What transgressions can be gotten away with? What boundaries can be trespassed? And, most profoundly how would true social isolation affect one's ability to keep his or her moral and social obligations?  In our age the question of whether morality is genetic comes to mind.  

Whether it is science fiction or rather speculative fiction is a critical concern but does not affect the reader's enjoyment.  This novel belongs in a special place along with Wells other great early science fiction works. And if you really enjoy this story the dark side of man is even more evident in his earlier Darwinian arabesque, The Island of Dr. Moreau.

The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells.  Signet Classics, 2002 (1897).

Strange Island

The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares

"The island vegetation is abundant.  Spring, summer, autumn, and winter plants, grasses, and flowers overtake each other with urgency, with more urgency to be born than to die, each one invading the time and the place of the others in a tangled mass."(p 13) 

The Invention of Morel is a science fiction novel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. It was Bioy Casares' breakthrough effort, for which he won the 1941 First Municipal Prize for Literature of the City of Buenos Aires. It shares some elements with The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells. This is a tale of a man stranded on an island, one which appears to be inhabited by ghosts. Now I do not believe in ghosts, but when you are stranded on an island the spirits may be a bit closer than they are in the big city. And so it begins. "Today, on this island, a miracle happened: summer came ahead of time."(p 9) Now that may not sound like much of a miracle, but it is enough of one to give this short novel an aura of surprise and suspense. The fugitive who narrates the story is concerned with many things including the views of Thomas Malthus; a sort of population control is just one of the themes that inhabit this small book. Then there is Faustine and it is she who inspires a love that is more real than the island or the body of the tourists who disappear. It is these tourists who like to dance to "Tea for Two" from the Broadway musical "No, No, Nanette, foreshadowing this love that the fugitive bears for Faustine. Strangeness abounds throughout as suggested by the opening miracle, but this is fiction. It is here that dreams of immortality of the spirit inspire in ways that are not possible outside the world of fiction. The fugitive seeks control of his world, a way to deal with others including, possibly, Morel. It is Morel who reminds me of Well's Doctor Moreau.  
The impact of Casares concise and precise writing style is evident throughout the book.  Slowly you begin to realize that each sentence is important to the construction of the whole, references some theme and is essential to the understanding of the Island, the story, and the characters who inhabit this world.
Jorge Luis Borges wrote in the prologue, "To classify it [the novel] as perfect is neither an imprecision nor a hyperbole." Mexican Nobel Prize winner in Literature Octavio Paz echoed Borges when he said, "The Invention of Morel may be described, without exaggeration, as a perfect novel."

The Invention of Morel by Adolpho Bioy Casares. Trans. by Ruth L. C. Simms. NYRB Classics, 2003 (1964)

We Made it Hum

Tono-Bungay

by H.G. Wells

"We made Tono-Bungay hum! It brought us wealth, influence, respect, the confidence of endless people. All that my uncle promised me proved truth and understatement; Tono-Bungay carried me to freedoms and powers that no life of scientific research, no passionate service of humanity could ever have given me...." (Tono-Bungay, Chapter 3)  

This is Wells writing stylistically like Dickens in a mode of novel-writing that aims at the nineteenth century version of social justice (even though it was published at the end of the first decade of the twentieth century).
Today he is mainly remembered for his science fiction. "Tono Bungay" is an unusual work in that it straddles two of these genres: it is both science fiction and social commentary. The novel follows the rise and fall of an empire built on a quack medicine. The medicine, Tono Bungay, gives the book its title. Regardless of what it stands for, it is clear that Tono Bungay is not entirely good for you, and probably harmful in the long run. The short-term effects are however sufficiently pleasing so as to make a fortune for its inventor.
The novel is narrated by a young man, George Ponderevo, who, while not as appealing as the best of Dickens' heroes, has a certain charm. His rise along with that of his Uncle Teddy is chronicled with wit and an ear for the details of turn of the century commerce that make the book rewarding to the interested reader. Wells was able to write deeper and had a greater palette than those who may have only read his early science-romances might imagine. However Wells does add instances of science fiction even in this novel and often they are only remotely related to the main topic. Such is the case for the various experiments in air travel which make up a substantial part of the book. Yet another science fiction episode concerns a mysterious ore, which appears to be radioactive. Ostensibly, the purpose of this ore is to provide Tono Bungay a new infusion and lease on life. Radioactivity had only recently been discovered when Wells wrote this novel, and indeed was very mysterious . Wells treats the radioactive ore as something that fundamentally corrupts all that it touches. 
The result is an unusual book that as a whole is better than most of Wells' many works of science fiction.


Tono-Bungay by H. G. Wells.  Bison Books, 1978 (1908)

Traversing the Eons of Time

The Man Who Folded Himself

by David Gerrold

What is time? Who can explain this easily and briefly? Who can comprehend this even in thought so as to articulate the answer in words? . . . What then is time?

- Confessions, Augustine, p. 230

Ever since Augustine's meditation on the nature of time in Book XI of his Confessions writers have attempted to analyze the nature of time. Over the last century and a half Science Fiction writers have used the theme of travel through time to consider some aspects of this concept. Perhaps the most famous example is that of H. G. Wells whose novel, The Time Machine, used time travel as a means for advancing some of Wells' social criticism. Written in 1895 it still has a sense of mystery and wonder. It was great fun too, and I enjoyed reading the novel and viewing the excellent film when I was younger.
A more recent example of time travel was the very popular novel by Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife. I read that book for a book group discussion which was the only reason I bothered to finish what I considered a flawed novel. The best part of Niffenegger's book was her unique gimmick of presenting time travel as a disease, beyond that the book left me yawning as the characterization seemed flat.

I recently read a much better presentation of this theme by David Gerrold in his novel, The Man Who Folded Himself. Gerrold's novel is not recent - it was published more than thirty years ago - but a friend recommended it to me (it is one of his favorites) and I finally read it. Like Wells' novel it is slight, less than 150 pages, but in that thin novel Gerrold packs a striking picture of the nature of time travel. In his view there exist multiple universes all populated with different versions on one's original self created through the process of travelling forward and backward in time. He makes an impressive case and touches upon many of the seeming limitless possibilities for time travel creation. While the novel was not particularly suspenseful since I guessed the ending early on, Gerrold does not spoil the book by going on for too long (unlike some authors - see Niffenegger above). His prose is simple but clear and using almost epigrammatic form he manages to provide the story of the life of Daniel Eakins (and some of his alter egos). The book is not without flaws for the lack of other characters was disappointing, aside from his own multiple personae there were few other characters in the book. But that did not prevent me from enjoying this imaginative journey into the realm of time and traversing its eons.

Confessions by Saint Augustine. Oxford University Press, 1991.
The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. Signet Classics, New York. 1984 (1895).
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Harcourt, New York. 2003.
The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold. Random House, New York. 1973.

Island Dystopia

The Island of Dr. Moreau
by H. G. Wells

Wells was in the main a true prophet. In physical details his vision of the new world has been fulfilled to a surprising extent.  - George Orwell

Over the period of a decade beginning with The Time Machine in 1895, H. G. Wells created some of his most popular fictions in the form of scientific romance novels. These books have captured the imagination of readers ever since and are arguably as popular today as they were more than one hundred years ago. Among these perhaps the strangest and best is The Island of Dr. Moreau. Undoubtedly influenced by Robinson Crusoe, but also by Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island which was published only thirteen years earlier, this book goes far beyond those deserted island tales and looks forward to the twenty-first century and beyond. In its day it was considered blasphemous, but in the age of cloning its depiction of vivisection takes on new meaning while the blasphemy recedes into the background. Above all this is a good story with suspense that holds even after the first breathless reading that it usually inspires. The story is of such a suspenseful nature that I am reluctant to share any plot details for fear of spoiling the experience for the reader.

As with all great books the levels of meaning and reference in this book are many and the structure, a lost narrative found only after the author's death (reminiscent of Poe among others) is a nod to the era of the unreliable narrator for before his death Edward Pendrick, the narrator, claims to have no memory of the events which it described. Peter Straub, in his "Foreword" to the Modern Library edition, commented:

Given its infusion of the adventure tale with deep, pervasive doubt, Dr. Moreau can be seen as a unique and compelling alliance of Treasure Island and Joseph Conrad. (p. xvi)

I certainly agree with this assessment and believe that Wells, who was a good friend of Conrad as well as Henry James, Stephen Crane and Ford Madox Ford, might also agree with it. Like the best of Conrad reading this book was an exhilarating experience due both to its narrative and its deep meaning.

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells. The Modern Library, New York. 1996 (1896).