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3.56 AVERAGE
3.56 AVERAGE
What a crazy read!! For a book written in the late 1800s, it was a very forward thinking sci-fi novel. I’m not typically into these types of novels, but it greatly enjoyed this. Dr. Moreau is an interesting concept of animal testing without being gory.
a dystopian vision of modern life (written in the 1890s). The tale of a shipwrecked fellow 'rescued' by a pair of exiled scientists endeavouring to create sentient beings from animals. Really though, the book is about God, pain and cruelty, moral responsibility, human identity and the consequences of human interference with nature. Terrifying stuff! A-.
Keeping in mind that the story is dated, it's still problematic. It was a breezy quick read and the action was well paced. It makes for an interesting conversation starter about eugenics, playing god, and what it means to be human. Not that good, but short enough to make it worth reading once.
challenging
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal cruelty, Animal death
I've just read half a dozen excellent reviews so I'm not going to add my twopence (pronounced "tuppence" if you didn't know). Just a few words/phrases:
vivisection;Totally brilliant classic sci-fi.
a precursor to genetic modification;
"religion" as the opiate of the created;
a scientist who doesn't know the meaning of ethics and cares nothing for others' pain;
degeneration - I'm minded a little of Flowers for Algernon (I can't even think of the title without feeling near tears)
The best way to describe this book is that thematically it’s like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein crossed with The Tempest, but aims to invoke a sort of quaint Victorian horror in the Other instead of empathy, tragedy and compassion. Which is why, for me, it is very much of its time and doesn’t really work for a contemporary reader.
Read immediately after completing The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Short read but captures the novel scenarios associated with early scientific ideas that have since been debunked. Although debunked, Wells does a very good job helping the reader deal with humanity's reflection on itself. The interaction of the main character and the hybrids is palpable and you can see how the book changes when he starts seeing more and more of the animal characteristics in humanity's essence. Good book and good complement to Moreno's book or vice versa.
I re-read this, after several decades, for the book group Turn and Face the Strange at the Providence Athenaeum. It is better than I remembered, though the science obviously feels very dated and the writing is not as polished as it might be at points. The conceit is famous now, after more than a century, so I don't feel like it is spoilers to say it is about an Englishman shipwrecked on an island in the South Pacific where an English doctor has surgically turned beasts into humans, or at least human-like creatures. It ends up being a meditation on the nature of humans as animals, and how human nature is an evolved animal nature overlaid with "the Law" of human society not to act like beasts. Doctor Moreau dies and the Beast People devolve back into beasts as the protagonist tries to survive long enough to escape the island. The end is particularly chilling, as the protagonist essentially has PTSD and can never relax around other people, feeling that ALL people are secretly Moreau's Beast People and might devolve, at any time, back into beasts. And this reminds me of C.S. Lewis' chilling meditations in "The Last Battle" about the animals of Narnia ceasing to be talking beasts and becoming mere beasts, and one character essentially muses, "What if that happened in our world? What if some humans began to become beasts inside, and you couldn't tell just by looking at them?" or something to that effect. And of course, you realize humans ARE animals, ARE beasts, and it is only the thinnest of veils that separate us from them . . .
adventurous
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Creepy and weird but cool to think about. Read for school