Strange and Hideous Dreams: The War of the Worlds Review

I don’t think there is anyone quite like H.G. Wells, who can so convincingly write about fantastical impossibilities in a manner that is not only credulous but also firmly rooted in a comprehensive grasp of known science, society, and human nature. Maybe Jules Verne comes close but seems at times out of touch with human nature.

I seem to recall that somebody timidly mentioned Jules Verne but was shouted down by all present. Verne’s cold, soulless heroes had no place in a discussion of passionate tales of cloak and dagger.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte, The Club Dumas

The closest point of comparison contemporary to Wells that I can think of would be Robert Louis Stevenson with The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The extremes of emotions as well as the gossipy, observational, faux-historical record aspects certainly compare.

The War of the Worlds begins with a cute narrative technique, told retrospectively in the first person–a survivor. He begins by establishing the normalcy of everything prior to the invasion. Of course, anomalous flashes on Mars’ surface are observed with mild interest by astronomers, including one of his neighbours, ignorant that they presage the Martians landing on Earth.

The story builds slowly in a sense that days pass before the Martians land, hours before they emerge from their vessels, and yet more time before they demonstrate any serious threat to the humans who have gathered to gawk. Surprisingly, Wells conveys this idea of stretched, leisurely time and adds suspense without dragging. It is very fast paced overall.

The stages of public interest in a spectacle and the subsequent waning of that interest once novelty has worn off is a pattern even today. It is a bit wild how quickly people carry-on with their regular lives when they don’t perceive any immediate impact to it. The ongoing narrative in the newspapers and government about the crisis is also pretty typical. Wells must have had a keenly observant mind to be able to not only see how these institutions work but also to neatly replicate how they might respond to an alien invasion.

Otherwise, Well’s vision of the increasing devastation brought by an extraterrestrial invasion, including alien flora, is vivid and recognizable in its replication in other media since. The reddened sky and charred earth, noxious fog and stalking giant tripodal overseers trumpeting calls to one another is almost as familiar now as it seemed foreign to everything at the time.

Similarly, the dead London, industry halted and streets ghostly, absent the hazy pollution and now able to be clearly seen from a distance… well, it’s evocative of a lot of disaster movies, or even, dare I say, a time in the not distant past when a lot of industry and commerce ground to a halt and people stayed off the streets more than ever.

Like Wells’ The Time Traveler, the story is told from the perspective of a nameless narrator who goes on a journey of discovery. There is a section near the middle wherein he conveys the adventures of his brother, who has told him what happened to him during the same time, but that is never brought back. We end the story with the narrator and his wife reunited and have to assume the eventual meeting with the brother that enabled the narrator to relate his story as well.

In fact, thinking back, this brother episode is a bit of a puzzle to me. It contains some of the more immediate action, including the exodus of London, cart hold-ups and tramplings, rescues and even a sea-battle with a Martian. Was it simply included to keep the reader interested when the narrator’s experiences were all more isolated and survival oriented? Or was to add the other experiences people had during the invasion, particularly those in the densely populated urban areas? Either way, it adds to the overall picture of the scale and impact of the invasion that otherwise would have been limited to the personal experience of the narrator.

The narrator meets several other survivors, the curate and the artillery-man, who demonstrate different reactions to the traumatic new reality and help the narrator fomulate his own determinations. This is the part where the human nature comes in, for the narrator is a practical philosopher.

Over all, I enjoyed this way more than I expected to, though I have read other books by Wells. It has a quality of succinct craftsmanship that coheres around a solid central idea and incorporates only those elements needed to explore it and bring it life. It’s a quick read and has many iconic images that stay with you. Maybe it has something to do with me being in the right mood for this type of novel, or just being in the right place to appreciate the imagination of it.

Either way, I’m fortunate this was my Classics Club Spin choice this time around!

New words I encountered in The War of the Worlds:

• erethism, n. – a state of abnormal mental excitement or irritation
• theodolite, n. – precision instrument used for measuring angles horizontally and vertically
• heliograph, n. – a signalling device by which sunlight is reflected in flashes from a moveable mirror
• cloaca, n. – sewer
• sidereal, adj. – of or with respect to the distant stars

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This has been my sixteenth Classics Club book review! Check out the rest of my list here.