The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells

8/10

This was a pretty fun book. This scientist named Griffin discovers how to turn invisible. He first tries it on a cat, but the eyes cannot go invisible. H.G. gives some plausible scientific reasoning on how the body can become invisible and it had something to do with light. While I was reading it I was like, "Sure." You see, when you commit to read a book about an invisible man you're not really too concerned in how realistic that actually is. You kind of go in to it assuming that it's unrealistic and you're willing to just go with the flow. And I am a great flow-goer. Anyway, he wrote extensively on the scientific plausibility of it all and I appreciated the attempt and said, "Lets roll with it, H.G." And the reason the eyes don't go invisible is because in order to see, your eyes absorb light or some such. So H.G. clearly thought this all out and, in any event, Griffin has to wear sunglasses which is quite sinister. Oh yes, he tries it out on himself after he tried it on the cat.

He goes from proud triumph for his genius to a frightened realization that he cannot reverse the procedure. He permanently invisibled himself. He quickly realizes that he gets cold with no clothes on, so he concocts this outfit where he entirely covers himself so as to mask his invisibility. He has to wrap a bandage all around his face. People become horrified by his presence and then curious. Soon they learn of his invisibility and outright panic and paranoia ensues. At first Griffin is rather harmless but he soon goes quite mad and plans a reign of terror and turns into quite the madman. 'Twas a fun book because H.G. was able to create several scenarios of paranoid townspeople. I mean, what is scarier than knowing that a murderous, invisible lunatic could be right next to you?

Also, H.G. isn't what I would call an artsy-fartsy writer. He mostly just tells the story. And that's fine, so long as it's a fun story. Although I do like artsy writers (e.g. the author of yesterday's post), but I don't necessarily like fartsy writers. Because when all is said and done, it's the story that really matters. And so, while this may not be a literary masterpiece, it was still rather enjoyable. The end.

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