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Re-reading

Imagination put to the test

Tanveerul Haque happily goes back to an old work
The turn of the nineteenth century appears to have been a busy time for literary pursuits. On both sides of the Atlantic, in the English speaking world, authors like Henry James with The Turn of the Screw, Stephen Crane with The Red Badge of Courage, Thomas I lardy with Jude the Obscure, Rudyard Kipling with The Second Jungle Book, Leo Tolstoy with Master and Man, in science fiction Jules Verne with Propeller Island, in drama Oscar Wilde with The Importance of Being Earnest were gaining in popularity and critical acclaim for their work.
The Time Machine was published in 1895 the same year that the German socialist writer Friedrich Engels (b. 1920) and the French novelist and dramatist Alexandre Dumas (b.1824) died.
Herbert George "H.G.” Wells was born in 1866 and died in August 1946.
The Time Machine is a classic in science fiction under the sub-genre of “scientific romance”. The term “time machine” was coined by Wells and is currently used universally to refer to a vehicle that allows its operator to travel through time purposefully and selectively both into the future and to the past.
The genre of Science Fiction was an unexplored and hitherto obscure field which between H.G. Wells and Jules Verne gained literary recognition.
The story opens with the narrator, the protagonist an English scientist and inventor, explaining to his weekly dinner guests that time is a fourth dimension to our three dimensional world. Fie exhibits a small scale version of his invention to his erudite friends who are knowledgeable and respected people in their own fields that magically disappears in front of everybody's eyes. The narrator then invites his friends to their scheduled meeting the following week.
And the following week the friends assemble but the narrator is nowhere in evidence. But then shortly he stumbles upon the audience and reveals that he had built a larger machine capable of carrying a person on which he had travelled to the future and back and then proceeds to relate his unbelievable tale as a time traveller. Begging the assembly not to interrupt him till the end of his narrative, he relates how he travelled on his device to the year 802,701 A.D., where he comes upon a world populated by small framed, childlike, elegant, dim-witted humanoid creatures. They are known as the “Eloi” and they live in small communities inside cavernous, spacious futuristic buildings that are slowly deteriorating. The “Eloi” do not have to do any work, are indolent,
The Time Machine
H.G. Wells
partake of a frugivorous diet and lack any inquisitiveness or discipline. To the narrator they appear as a peaceful communist society having arrived thereat by conquering nature with technology. This has resulted in an environment in which physical prowess or superior intellect are no longer essential for survival. All domestic animals have gone into extinction.
From his adventures with the “Eloi” he returns to the spot where he landed, to find his time machine missing. He surmises that the contraption has been dragged and hidden inside a Sphinx like structure which has heavy doors and is locked from the inside. He notices that the “Eloi” are unusually afraid of the dark and appear to be frightfully apprehensive of fearsome occurrences after nightfall.
The Time Traveller befriends an “Eloi” named Weena after he saves her from drowning. None of the other “Eloi” appear to take any interest in rescuing Weena nor do they take any notice of her. He develops an innocently affectionate relationship with Weena and they have many adventures together.
He soon discovers another “race” of apelike creatures, the “Morlocks”, who live in darkness, stay underground and come out only at night through deep holes in the ground that at first appearance look like wells. He now surmises that the human race has evolved into two distinct species. Those living in the upper world being the leisure loving, ineffectual “Eloi” and the subterranean under world dwelling "Morlocks” who are the working class, brutish and are afraid of light. The Time Traveller concludes that the two species have an adversarial relationship and have both lost intelligence and character which is the essential feature of humanity as we know it.
He is now convinced that the “Morlocks” have hijacked his time machine and he goes in search of it. With Weena trying to prevent him from going into the wells, he climbs deep down into one of those and finds heavy machinery humming to drive down air into the habitat of the “Morlocks” He also discovers to his horror that the "Morlocks” feed on the “Eloi”. Fie is almost apprehended by the "Morlocks” and only saves himself by striking up the matches that he still has with him. Escaping from the underworld he takes Weena with him to explore a structure across a wooded area which turns out to be the ruins of what once must have been a museum the Palace of Green Porcelain. Here he finds an additional supply of matches and camphor, a flammable substance with which he fashions a crude incendiary weapon to use against the “Morlocks” whom he must fight to access his Time Machine to return home. He plans to take Weena back with him. The long journey back to Weena's home is tiring and as darkness falls they are stuck in the middle of the dark forest where they are attacked by the “Morlocks”. The Time Traveller barely manages to escape by lighting the matches and building a small fire that rages into a full-fledged forest fire engulfing the "Morlocks” and consuming Weena.
Getting back to the Sphinx like structure the Time Traveller forces his way in and, fighting off the "Morlocks”, makes good his escape to a time thirty million years ahead of his own time. Here he sees strange menacing crab-like crustaceans in pursuit of giant butterflies on a sea beach where the water is blood red. A bloated red sun sits motionless in the sky. Fie envisions that the earth is dying and going through the last stages of its existence. He then reverses his journey on the Time Machine and travels through extraordinary visages where the earth appears to pass through an Ice Age with the sun growing dim, the world falling silent and living species going extinct.
Miraculously, he returns to his laboratory and in a dishevelled state relates his adventures to his awestruck friends. The only evidence of his sojourn that he has with him are two strange flowers that Weena had put in his pocket.
The following day one of the friends visits the Time Traveller's residence to see him in readiness for another journey. The Time Traveller promises to be back in half an hour. But it is now already three years that he has been gone and there is no trace of him.
The Time Machine is a quick and provocative read, crisp and fascinating. It's a novella, only 32,000 words that popularized the concept of time travel. It has a very different story that makes logical sense, with vivid sensory depictions. It has an open ending without a clear resolution.
A thoroughly enjoyable read.
TANVEERUL HAQUE IS A BUSINESSMAN AND MEMBER OF THE READING CIRCLE. E-MAIL:
TANVEERHQ@YAHOO.CO.UK