Chapter 6 - The Heat Ray in the Chobham Road
You know how in some internet videos of an event happening, they re-play the content of the video in slow motion? That’s basically this chapter.
I know it’s still pretty early but I’m feeling kinda mixed about this book so far. There’s a chance that it’ll have a really cool ending the way The Time Machine did, or that its narrative will change, but as is the strange nature of this narration and the relatively detached voice with which these events are regarded seems to work to the detriment of the piece. Say what you will about The Time Machine, at least I could kind of tell the personality of The Time Traveler by his interactions with his guests and the Eloi. This narrator though (I’m gonna just start calling them Hershel for now) seems not only detached, but strangely like Wells wanted to do a third-person omniscient role or third-person limited focused on a specific character but didn’t. As is, the first person narration makes these strange moments where Hershel is able to tell how other people perceived a particular event as it unfolds strikes me as really strange.
We get some details on the heat-ray in this chapter. It can melt through things, it is invisible, and it killed around 40 people on the night of the initial attack. Other than that, however, this chapter is spent with the narrator mentioning the people in the nearby towns did not know what was going on at the time. I suppose there’s something to be said for the relative lack of communication between the places, but it seems that any point that could be made about it is fairly beside the focus of the narrative. I feel like maybe I’m missing something to these chapters, could anyone fill me in on why these are presented here?
Sunday, December 18, 2016
The War of the Worlds - Chapters 4 and 5
Chapter 4: The Cylinder Opens and Chapter 5: The Heat-Ray
Well dang, that’s quite the description
Not much more than the description, but I like the way that the crowd immediately seems to have their preconceptions shattered by the arrival of martians which are not remotely human. Instead, the martians are… well, alien. Their descriptions defy easy categorization and I think that’s a good choice by Wells in describing that these beings are not anything like what th people here suppose they are like. Instead of greeting the Martians as they emerge from the cylinder, the people retreat to a safe distance out of fear.
It’s a pretty solid description though. They’re tentacular and “fungoid” in appearance. They seem to make some kind of noise, but in general they’re monstrous enough that running away is a perfectly believable response. One man falls into the pit with the Martians.
I feel like shit’s about to really hit the fan.
-----------------
Well there you go.
I think it’s hard to write a book like this in some fashion, and I’m wondering where the story is going to take us.
In a way this is rather similar to the Morlocks in The Time Machine. A nameless narrator is giving us an account of his encounter with some strange creatures that are staged as faceless/interchangeable bad guys. I’m reminded in some ways of World War Z and I wonder if the book will kind of go along that route, chronicling the initial days of societal collapse as the Martians go. I honestly think that too much attention on the Martians would probably be detrimental to the story, as they are basically just a force of nature without any seeming character.
That said, they are a horrifying force. When one of the Martians re-emerges from the pit in the evening, now in its more widely known tripodal form, it shoots out a heat wave, seemingly without provocation, and scorches a number of people and the land surrounding the pit in a single swipe. Our narrator is left horrified and turns tail, crying as he runs. A pretty understandable response, but I wonder if there are ways around this heat weapon. It passed over the narrator as he was hidden by some heather, so it would stand to reason that cover does help somewhat. Could heavier material fare better against the Martians?
Well dang, that’s quite the description
Not much more than the description, but I like the way that the crowd immediately seems to have their preconceptions shattered by the arrival of martians which are not remotely human. Instead, the martians are… well, alien. Their descriptions defy easy categorization and I think that’s a good choice by Wells in describing that these beings are not anything like what th people here suppose they are like. Instead of greeting the Martians as they emerge from the cylinder, the people retreat to a safe distance out of fear.
It’s a pretty solid description though. They’re tentacular and “fungoid” in appearance. They seem to make some kind of noise, but in general they’re monstrous enough that running away is a perfectly believable response. One man falls into the pit with the Martians.
I feel like shit’s about to really hit the fan.
-----------------
Well there you go.
I think it’s hard to write a book like this in some fashion, and I’m wondering where the story is going to take us.
In a way this is rather similar to the Morlocks in The Time Machine. A nameless narrator is giving us an account of his encounter with some strange creatures that are staged as faceless/interchangeable bad guys. I’m reminded in some ways of World War Z and I wonder if the book will kind of go along that route, chronicling the initial days of societal collapse as the Martians go. I honestly think that too much attention on the Martians would probably be detrimental to the story, as they are basically just a force of nature without any seeming character.
That said, they are a horrifying force. When one of the Martians re-emerges from the pit in the evening, now in its more widely known tripodal form, it shoots out a heat wave, seemingly without provocation, and scorches a number of people and the land surrounding the pit in a single swipe. Our narrator is left horrified and turns tail, crying as he runs. A pretty understandable response, but I wonder if there are ways around this heat weapon. It passed over the narrator as he was hidden by some heather, so it would stand to reason that cover does help somewhat. Could heavier material fare better against the Martians?
The War of the Worlds - Chapter 3
Chapter 3: On Horsell Common
Overall: Some setup
I think there’s a bit of an interesting task in reading works that are so far removed from our present day. There’s certainly an amount of recontextualization that needs to occur in any attempt to read that text, and it’s interesting to me how perhaps some of our more modern (even relatively speaking) notions of proper chapter structure are really pretty fluid when placed against the breadth of literary history.
This is a set-up chapter. That is to say, not much “happens” in it. Our narrator arrives on Horsell Common where the cylinder has become something of a tourist attraction, and the narrator observes some of the goings-on surrounding this cylinder. From initial fascination, to attempts made to cordon it away from spectators for the time being.
I noticed this in Frankenstein as well, that there were some chapters which more deliberately felt like setup before a major event in the plot than others. While Wells is certainly even more about setup here than Shelley was, I think the structure may have just been a part of literature at the time, and that’s something I find more interesting than any specific thing that occurs in this chapter. I wonder if literature has changed over the years, and if so, how it has done so in structure as well as content. Wells’s stuff tends to feel more “cinematic” than Shelley’s, but even so these quiet moments begin to feel so much like setup that it’s hard to do chapter-by-chapter reviews of them. Thematically it is interesting to wonder how “hard” of science fiction this is, I suppose. Like, would this have been the procedure if a Martian cylinder landed in England in the 1890s? Call the lord who represents the region to come in from London and check it out, and generally wait for their word on what to do?
Ah well, some scattered thoughts. Next chapter is called “The Cylinder Opens” so I imagine it’ll be more to write about.
Overall: Some setup
I think there’s a bit of an interesting task in reading works that are so far removed from our present day. There’s certainly an amount of recontextualization that needs to occur in any attempt to read that text, and it’s interesting to me how perhaps some of our more modern (even relatively speaking) notions of proper chapter structure are really pretty fluid when placed against the breadth of literary history.
This is a set-up chapter. That is to say, not much “happens” in it. Our narrator arrives on Horsell Common where the cylinder has become something of a tourist attraction, and the narrator observes some of the goings-on surrounding this cylinder. From initial fascination, to attempts made to cordon it away from spectators for the time being.
I noticed this in Frankenstein as well, that there were some chapters which more deliberately felt like setup before a major event in the plot than others. While Wells is certainly even more about setup here than Shelley was, I think the structure may have just been a part of literature at the time, and that’s something I find more interesting than any specific thing that occurs in this chapter. I wonder if literature has changed over the years, and if so, how it has done so in structure as well as content. Wells’s stuff tends to feel more “cinematic” than Shelley’s, but even so these quiet moments begin to feel so much like setup that it’s hard to do chapter-by-chapter reviews of them. Thematically it is interesting to wonder how “hard” of science fiction this is, I suppose. Like, would this have been the procedure if a Martian cylinder landed in England in the 1890s? Call the lord who represents the region to come in from London and check it out, and generally wait for their word on what to do?
Ah well, some scattered thoughts. Next chapter is called “The Cylinder Opens” so I imagine it’ll be more to write about.
The War of the Worlds - Chapter 2
Chapter 2 – The Falling Star
Overall: Oh this is cool. Also, some notes on style.
TW: for discussion of imperialistic themes (probably going to be a recurring trend in this book)
Our narrator is in an interesting scenario here. Like in The Time Machine, he begins to narrate someone else’s story. But given what I know of how this story is to proceed, I wonder if some of this is embellishment post-invasion or if it’s all true. After the night of the lights on mars, a strange object is seen falling to Earth. The narrator does not see it, but describes a friend of his, Ogilvy, who does.
The narrative then shifts to Ogilvy as he searches a part of the English countryside to find the object that fell. Eventually, he manages to come across it and can’t make head nor tails of the strange cylinder. However, he manages to enlist the help of nearby townsfolk in trying to excavate the object, as it’s apparent to him that there are living things inside.
I like how fast this is building up in the story. The newspaper has already reported on the strange object and our narrator ends the chapter heading to the sand pits near Ottershaw to try to see it.
So from what all I know of this book, and its adaptations in particular, I’m wondering if an adaptation more true to Wells’s time has been made. By which I mean, it’s one thing to see giant mechanical aliens tromping around a modern city while Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning interact amidst all the comforts of the modern world. However, the contrast between this turn of the 20th century England and the martians, I think, is meant to comment on England’s perception of itself in colonialism. A particularly harrowing example of what I mean can be found in this rhyme that was used by the British during their colonial fights against various peoples in Africa.
“No matter what happens we have got
The maxim gun and they have not”
I think that’s what Wells is probably trying to highlight with what’ll probably be a huge disparity of tech between the Martians and humans. I know that the aliens take over-ish but I don’t know how this book ends, but if it ends with a triumph for the humans, I think it makes a lot of difference if the gap in power is that much wider.
Overall: Oh this is cool. Also, some notes on style.
TW: for discussion of imperialistic themes (probably going to be a recurring trend in this book)
Our narrator is in an interesting scenario here. Like in The Time Machine, he begins to narrate someone else’s story. But given what I know of how this story is to proceed, I wonder if some of this is embellishment post-invasion or if it’s all true. After the night of the lights on mars, a strange object is seen falling to Earth. The narrator does not see it, but describes a friend of his, Ogilvy, who does.
The narrative then shifts to Ogilvy as he searches a part of the English countryside to find the object that fell. Eventually, he manages to come across it and can’t make head nor tails of the strange cylinder. However, he manages to enlist the help of nearby townsfolk in trying to excavate the object, as it’s apparent to him that there are living things inside.
I like how fast this is building up in the story. The newspaper has already reported on the strange object and our narrator ends the chapter heading to the sand pits near Ottershaw to try to see it.
So from what all I know of this book, and its adaptations in particular, I’m wondering if an adaptation more true to Wells’s time has been made. By which I mean, it’s one thing to see giant mechanical aliens tromping around a modern city while Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning interact amidst all the comforts of the modern world. However, the contrast between this turn of the 20th century England and the martians, I think, is meant to comment on England’s perception of itself in colonialism. A particularly harrowing example of what I mean can be found in this rhyme that was used by the British during their colonial fights against various peoples in Africa.
“No matter what happens we have got
The maxim gun and they have not”
I think that’s what Wells is probably trying to highlight with what’ll probably be a huge disparity of tech between the Martians and humans. I know that the aliens take over-ish but I don’t know how this book ends, but if it ends with a triumph for the humans, I think it makes a lot of difference if the gap in power is that much wider.
The War of the Worlds - Chapter 1
Chapter 1: The Eve of War
So here’s what I know about the War of the Worlds going in,
1)ALIEN INVASION!!!!!
2)The aliens are martians with heat waves
3)Orson Welles freaked some folks out on the radio
4)There was a Tom Cruise movie with Dakota Fanning that I didn’t see
Overall: Hey there imperialism metaphors, I see you.
We begin our book with a narration stating that, from what I can gather, the invasion has already happened. Most of the story will instead be a flashback to when it was first occurring. HG Wells is fond of the first-person retrospective narration, I’m noticing. Here we begin with a litany of details about the planet Mars that are somewhat fascinating to consider. How the idea was apparently somewhat prominent (although I don’t know how true to life this is) that Mars may’ve had people on it who “would welcome a missionary enterprise”. Yeah, just from what little I know of this book, and the fact that I know Wells was a fan of social commentary, I can see the critique/commentary on British imperialism already beginning to show through.
While we don’t know when exactly the story is being narrated from, we know that the events described evidently takes place in the early twentieth century. Mars has been under observation from Earth for some time, and over the past few days, strange gas eruptions have been showing up on the planet’s surface. Immediately, the narrator (as yet, unnamed) begins to muse on how the popular conceptions of Martians as being primitive were turning out to be wholly reversed. Here, he launches into a critique of people “judging the Martians harshly” reasoning that humans have been fairly awful to animals, and Europeans to people of “primitive” cultures. Calling for people to not judge the Martians too harshly for their thinking of humans as lesser in turn.
This story, as I mentioned, seems to be largely told as flashback, with the narrator mostly spending this chapter talking about the final days before the Martians invaded Earth. It seems largely here to set up a “what we lost” kind of scene, in order to establish contrast. That said, if that’s the case I’m not sure that Wells does that very effectively. There are occasional mentions to how peaceful it was in those days, but they are largely not the focus of this chapter. Instead, the focus is largely on the disturbances being observed from Earth. Not even really the people’s reactions to these distrubances, just the anomalies themselves. It’s rather dry in that way I suppose. Either way, the narrator makes it clear immediately that Mars is sending ships that will arrive soon, and that, judging from his reminiscences, it isn’t going to go well.
So here’s what I know about the War of the Worlds going in,
1)ALIEN INVASION!!!!!
2)The aliens are martians with heat waves
3)Orson Welles freaked some folks out on the radio
4)There was a Tom Cruise movie with Dakota Fanning that I didn’t see
Overall: Hey there imperialism metaphors, I see you.
We begin our book with a narration stating that, from what I can gather, the invasion has already happened. Most of the story will instead be a flashback to when it was first occurring. HG Wells is fond of the first-person retrospective narration, I’m noticing. Here we begin with a litany of details about the planet Mars that are somewhat fascinating to consider. How the idea was apparently somewhat prominent (although I don’t know how true to life this is) that Mars may’ve had people on it who “would welcome a missionary enterprise”. Yeah, just from what little I know of this book, and the fact that I know Wells was a fan of social commentary, I can see the critique/commentary on British imperialism already beginning to show through.
While we don’t know when exactly the story is being narrated from, we know that the events described evidently takes place in the early twentieth century. Mars has been under observation from Earth for some time, and over the past few days, strange gas eruptions have been showing up on the planet’s surface. Immediately, the narrator (as yet, unnamed) begins to muse on how the popular conceptions of Martians as being primitive were turning out to be wholly reversed. Here, he launches into a critique of people “judging the Martians harshly” reasoning that humans have been fairly awful to animals, and Europeans to people of “primitive” cultures. Calling for people to not judge the Martians too harshly for their thinking of humans as lesser in turn.
This story, as I mentioned, seems to be largely told as flashback, with the narrator mostly spending this chapter talking about the final days before the Martians invaded Earth. It seems largely here to set up a “what we lost” kind of scene, in order to establish contrast. That said, if that’s the case I’m not sure that Wells does that very effectively. There are occasional mentions to how peaceful it was in those days, but they are largely not the focus of this chapter. Instead, the focus is largely on the disturbances being observed from Earth. Not even really the people’s reactions to these distrubances, just the anomalies themselves. It’s rather dry in that way I suppose. Either way, the narrator makes it clear immediately that Mars is sending ships that will arrive soon, and that, judging from his reminiscences, it isn’t going to go well.
Saturday, July 16, 2016
The Time Machine - Chapters 12 and Epilogue
Overall: an interesting end, Wells. Some final thoughts.
And so the story ends. The traveler returns to his time, on the night of the dinner party, and re-emerges. I think this is probably the first time we see some direct characterization on his part. The Traveler speaks with a sort of urgency and disconnectedness that imply a potential sort of trouble that the trip has left him with. He produces the flowers that Weena gave him as evidence of his trip, and while the assembled people cannot identify the flowers, they still mostly do not believe his story. As they all leave, the narrator seems a bit changed, though.
Later, the narrator returns to ask some more questions of the Traveler, and finds him similarly erratic. Eventually, while looking away, the Traveler says he needs to attend to something, and uses the time machine to go… well who knows where. The Traveler says that he is in some ways tired of the modern era now that he’s seen other possibilities, and with that he departs. The narrator mentions in the epilogue that it’s been at least three years since the Traveler vanished and there’s been no sign of him nor his machine. The narrator is left to contemplate this, and the fate of the world around him.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, I found this book to be a bit mismatched compared to Frankenstein. At times, it seemed to shift between sci-fi pontification on society and the future, while at others it bore the distinct markings of an adventure story with the set-pieces like the cave, the palace, and the burning forest. Wells’s commentary is very good when he makes it, although certainly more overt than Shelley’s, and skewed more toward a favorable view of Marxism than the more abstract issues that Shelley wrote on. Even so, I think there’s certainly some interesting themes here, especially during the “end of the world” sequence. There’s a hint at posthumanism, and economic/ecological themes peppered throughout the society of the Eloi and the Morlocks, and I kind of wonder how Wells was received in his day, as it seems like this is some pretty subversive stuff (or if not in his own day, I wonder if Wells was put on banned reading lists during the McCarthy years here in the states).
This book also gave me pause to think about genre. Like I briefly noted, the book at times feels more like an “adventure” novel, and I suppose while the lines between that and sci-fi are a bit more fluid, I was also intrigued to note that this isn’t really a time travel story as such. That is to say, the device of “time travel” does not provide the main plot of the narrative, it more acts as a vehicle for the Traveler to explore a new world. In that way, it is more akin to a utopia/dystopia novel, where the protagonist enters a society and sees it from a different lens that is meant to highlight aspects of the author’s world against this imaginary world. The fact that the story is set in the future doesn’t really seem to come into play very often until Wells uses it to think on his culture and where it might be headed. However within the world of the narrative, the land of the Eloi and Morlocks may as well be on Mars. None of this is meant as critique, just some odd final thoughts here and there.
Speaking of Mars, next time I’ll be rounding out the nineteenth century with one more Wells book. Until then, though, any and all thoughts on The Time Machine and HG Wells are welcome!
And so the story ends. The traveler returns to his time, on the night of the dinner party, and re-emerges. I think this is probably the first time we see some direct characterization on his part. The Traveler speaks with a sort of urgency and disconnectedness that imply a potential sort of trouble that the trip has left him with. He produces the flowers that Weena gave him as evidence of his trip, and while the assembled people cannot identify the flowers, they still mostly do not believe his story. As they all leave, the narrator seems a bit changed, though.
Later, the narrator returns to ask some more questions of the Traveler, and finds him similarly erratic. Eventually, while looking away, the Traveler says he needs to attend to something, and uses the time machine to go… well who knows where. The Traveler says that he is in some ways tired of the modern era now that he’s seen other possibilities, and with that he departs. The narrator mentions in the epilogue that it’s been at least three years since the Traveler vanished and there’s been no sign of him nor his machine. The narrator is left to contemplate this, and the fate of the world around him.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, I found this book to be a bit mismatched compared to Frankenstein. At times, it seemed to shift between sci-fi pontification on society and the future, while at others it bore the distinct markings of an adventure story with the set-pieces like the cave, the palace, and the burning forest. Wells’s commentary is very good when he makes it, although certainly more overt than Shelley’s, and skewed more toward a favorable view of Marxism than the more abstract issues that Shelley wrote on. Even so, I think there’s certainly some interesting themes here, especially during the “end of the world” sequence. There’s a hint at posthumanism, and economic/ecological themes peppered throughout the society of the Eloi and the Morlocks, and I kind of wonder how Wells was received in his day, as it seems like this is some pretty subversive stuff (or if not in his own day, I wonder if Wells was put on banned reading lists during the McCarthy years here in the states).
This book also gave me pause to think about genre. Like I briefly noted, the book at times feels more like an “adventure” novel, and I suppose while the lines between that and sci-fi are a bit more fluid, I was also intrigued to note that this isn’t really a time travel story as such. That is to say, the device of “time travel” does not provide the main plot of the narrative, it more acts as a vehicle for the Traveler to explore a new world. In that way, it is more akin to a utopia/dystopia novel, where the protagonist enters a society and sees it from a different lens that is meant to highlight aspects of the author’s world against this imaginary world. The fact that the story is set in the future doesn’t really seem to come into play very often until Wells uses it to think on his culture and where it might be headed. However within the world of the narrative, the land of the Eloi and Morlocks may as well be on Mars. None of this is meant as critique, just some odd final thoughts here and there.
Speaking of Mars, next time I’ll be rounding out the nineteenth century with one more Wells book. Until then, though, any and all thoughts on The Time Machine and HG Wells are welcome!
The Time Machine - Chapters 10 and 11
Overall: Holy shit that chapter 11 though
SO I’m putting these two chapters together, because chapter 10 isn’t even two full pages of text and chapter 11 just a bit over three.
I don’t have much to say about chapter 10 actually. The traveler manages to re-enter the White Sphinx where he finds that his time machine is polished and looking sparklingly new. He figures it msut’ve been taken apart and spruced up by the Morlocks, who still have some knowledge of machinery about them. As he’s sitting in the machine, he’s set upon by YET ANOTHER group of Morlocks who try to eat him or do whatever it is they do to people. At first the traveler tries for one of his matches, but finds that the box is gone and that they’re the sort of match that requires a box for lighting (which I’m pretty sure are the standard matches nowadays).
Pushing the lever, the traveler goes forth into chapter 11, where he goes even further into the future. I was actually surprised that we were going to be seeing more of the future, I thought for sure we’d just head to the past and do some wrap-up for the final few chapters. Instead, the traveler goes forth to an unknown time which, I’ll admit, is some of the most hauntingly beautiful scenery I think of. The traveler is on a lonely beach with a distant dying sun setting in the west, and stars gleaming steadily overhead. There’s an intense sort of gravity to this moment that I think is magnificent as we can pretty easily tell that this is past the point of any sort of human descendants existing. The only animals that are described to us are giant crabs which.. well they’re horrifying, and the traveler does not linger long before going EVEN FURTHER into the future.
I remember an old computer game I had back in the 1990’s called TerraTopia. It was sort of a Myst-esque game, but built out of the New Age movement, so it was filled with airy ambient music and lots of wonderfully done scenery illustrations as you navigated this strange and somewhat mystical island devoid of people. The scenes at this beach gave me a lot of flashbacks to that game, this sort of reverence in the text for the mystery and sheer power of the unknown aspect of the natural world. The traveler happens to emerge at an eclipse coming over the beach, and he realizes that rather than the moon or Mercury or somesuch, that this is some altogether new and unknown planet that is working its way across the sun. That sort of scene alone is a really powerful moment, and I think it’s absolutely helped by the fact that the traveler witnesses it by himself.
SO I’m putting these two chapters together, because chapter 10 isn’t even two full pages of text and chapter 11 just a bit over three.
I don’t have much to say about chapter 10 actually. The traveler manages to re-enter the White Sphinx where he finds that his time machine is polished and looking sparklingly new. He figures it msut’ve been taken apart and spruced up by the Morlocks, who still have some knowledge of machinery about them. As he’s sitting in the machine, he’s set upon by YET ANOTHER group of Morlocks who try to eat him or do whatever it is they do to people. At first the traveler tries for one of his matches, but finds that the box is gone and that they’re the sort of match that requires a box for lighting (which I’m pretty sure are the standard matches nowadays).
Pushing the lever, the traveler goes forth into chapter 11, where he goes even further into the future. I was actually surprised that we were going to be seeing more of the future, I thought for sure we’d just head to the past and do some wrap-up for the final few chapters. Instead, the traveler goes forth to an unknown time which, I’ll admit, is some of the most hauntingly beautiful scenery I think of. The traveler is on a lonely beach with a distant dying sun setting in the west, and stars gleaming steadily overhead. There’s an intense sort of gravity to this moment that I think is magnificent as we can pretty easily tell that this is past the point of any sort of human descendants existing. The only animals that are described to us are giant crabs which.. well they’re horrifying, and the traveler does not linger long before going EVEN FURTHER into the future.
I remember an old computer game I had back in the 1990’s called TerraTopia. It was sort of a Myst-esque game, but built out of the New Age movement, so it was filled with airy ambient music and lots of wonderfully done scenery illustrations as you navigated this strange and somewhat mystical island devoid of people. The scenes at this beach gave me a lot of flashbacks to that game, this sort of reverence in the text for the mystery and sheer power of the unknown aspect of the natural world. The traveler happens to emerge at an eclipse coming over the beach, and he realizes that rather than the moon or Mercury or somesuch, that this is some altogether new and unknown planet that is working its way across the sun. That sort of scene alone is a really powerful moment, and I think it’s absolutely helped by the fact that the traveler witnesses it by himself.
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