I'm beginning to appreciate old school fiction more and more. After listening to Frankenstein and now the Time Machine my interest in this genera has been highly piqued.
Here is a very brief run down of the plot without spoiling anything.
The main character is never mentioned by name. He is simply called "the Time Traveller". The story opens with the Time Traveler sitting in a tavern demonstrating to colleges and peers, using a fully functioning model, that time is a dimension. They are familiar with three dimensional space since they live in it. The fourth dimension, being time, is hard for them to grasp. When the miniature model time machine disappears from the table in front of them they pass it off as a magic trick, an illusion of sorts. His frustration with their disbelief is the push he needs to get inside the full sized machine he built and take it for a joyride. He then immediately sets off on a journey into the future. H.G. Wells does a wonderful job of describing what it looks like to travel through time, his machine allows the Time Traveller to observe the changes of the outside world in fast motion. The sun and moon spin around the sky forming a band of blurry light. He also goes into some detail of the changes to the buildings and landscape around him as he travels through time. His journey takes him to the year 802,701 A.D. where he finds an apparently peaceful and primitive future filled with a simple race called the Eloi. They appear to be quite unintelligent and child-like and live without quarrels or conflict. The story follows the Time Traveller's interaction and relationship building with them.
One evening the Time Traveller returns to his usual place to sleep and he suddenly realises that the time machine is missing. He soon discovers that the Eloi are not the only race to inhabit the Earth. He discovers that the human race has diverged into two branches. He learns of the race of Morlocks, large, nocturnal, cannibals who resemble albino apes and who dwell underground. They are the ones who have taken the time machine. The story then follows the Time Traveller as he battles the Morlocks to recover and reactivate the Time Machine.
Much like Frankenstein, I was surprised at how long ago the book was published. The Time Machine was first published in 1895.
4 comments:
Hey dude. Ya old literature can be great. You done Great Gatsby yet? That's a wild book. Grapes of Wrath is another one everyone should have read at least once.
Yeah I read The Great Gatsby like 16 years ago and the Grapes of Wrath somewhere abouts then also. I had a novels class in school.
Sounds like a great book. I'll have to add that to my must-read...after I'm done with the Harry Potter series.
I'm seven chapters into Order of the Phoenix and am hooked.
I Told you Order of the Phoenix was my favorite of the series didn't I? Dolores Umbridge is probably one of my favorite characters that you love to hate of all time. I had a teacher named Ms. Tjelta who totally reminded me of a young Professor Umbridge. Great book. Terrible / evil teacher.
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