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marko68 's review for:
The Invisible Man
by H.G. Wells
HG Wells’ The Invisible Man, is one of those stories with a multiplicity of ideas and themes that I found both challenging and provocative. Essentially a reasonably easy read, we are drawn into the late 19th century England, where Griffin has cracked the scientific code to become invisible following months of obsessive pursuit. His relentless pursuit of this coveted quality is clearly reflected on p 117, “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.”
This begs the question that is in all of us - what is it they we obsessively long for, lust after, pursue above all else, anticipating that it is all we could hope for and more and that when we achieve it we will transcend into a magnificent vision that we have imagined will be our ultimate end. HG Wells explores this question in depth. This is hardly a book about what would I do if I could become invisible (who hasn’t wondered that?) - this is a book about what is my lust and desire at any cost and what happens when I achieve this? Does my new reality live up to my preconceived imagination? Imagination and fantasy are deceptive in their appearance.
And for a brief while, the achievement of his dream of invisibility has its rewards - again at least in Griffin’s head. He is dizzy with his new found freedom - “I was invisible and I was only just beginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibility gave me. My head was already teeming with plans of all the wild and wonderful things I now had the impunity to do” p 130. But alas, this is short lived as Griffin soon becomes painfully aware of al the disadvantages of invisibility - he is cold, he has no means to find new lodging, no capacity to earn money and complete aloneness. This all then takes him down a path from whence he has no return, murdering, theft, hatred.
“That afternoon it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, bu it made them impossible to enjoy them when they are got..... And for this I had become a wrapped up mystery, a swathed and bandaged caricature of a man” p 156.
HG Wells speaks to our core desires in The Invisible Man. He highlights the basest of our humanity and where our zeal for our deepest lusts might actually take us.
This begs the question that is in all of us - what is it they we obsessively long for, lust after, pursue above all else, anticipating that it is all we could hope for and more and that when we achieve it we will transcend into a magnificent vision that we have imagined will be our ultimate end. HG Wells explores this question in depth. This is hardly a book about what would I do if I could become invisible (who hasn’t wondered that?) - this is a book about what is my lust and desire at any cost and what happens when I achieve this? Does my new reality live up to my preconceived imagination? Imagination and fantasy are deceptive in their appearance.
And for a brief while, the achievement of his dream of invisibility has its rewards - again at least in Griffin’s head. He is dizzy with his new found freedom - “I was invisible and I was only just beginning to realise the extraordinary advantage my invisibility gave me. My head was already teeming with plans of all the wild and wonderful things I now had the impunity to do” p 130. But alas, this is short lived as Griffin soon becomes painfully aware of al the disadvantages of invisibility - he is cold, he has no means to find new lodging, no capacity to earn money and complete aloneness. This all then takes him down a path from whence he has no return, murdering, theft, hatred.
“That afternoon it seemed all disappointment. I went over the heads of the things a man reckons desirable. No doubt invisibility made it possible to get them, bu it made them impossible to enjoy them when they are got..... And for this I had become a wrapped up mystery, a swathed and bandaged caricature of a man” p 156.
HG Wells speaks to our core desires in The Invisible Man. He highlights the basest of our humanity and where our zeal for our deepest lusts might actually take us.