Despite the fact that the book "The Invisible Man" seemed to be hackneyed and familiar to everyone, I had little idea of its plot. Somehow the British mini-series, which was incredibly popular in the Soviet Union in the eighties, kept passing me by (I remember that once I only caught the ending, where the hero's sprawled body began to show its outlines), and I kept putting the book off. And now it was my turn to get acquainted with the tragicomic (I saw it that way) story of the inventor Griffin. And, I must say, I have not regretted the fact that I took up reading at all, or that I read the book not in my youth, but in my considerable reading experience.
Herbert George Wells was born to a working class family in Kent, England. Young Wells received a spotty education, interrupted by several illnesses and family difficulties, and became a draper's apprentice as a teenager. The headmaster of Midhurst Grammar School, where he had spent a year, arranged for him to return as an "usher," or student teacher. Wells earned a government scholarship in 1884, to study biology under Thomas Henry Huxley at the Normal School of Science.
I may have imagined things that the author did not mean, but I have the feeling that there are two main themes in this novel - satire on philistine society (mostly the first part of the work), and the problem of a man who gets a superpower and uses it ineptly. Both should probably not be seen simply as a philistine clash between mobs and genius, but rather in a more complex political aspect. I was not so sure, but when I read it and started to remember (and I looked through the Internet) Wells' political views, I somehow became even more sure that I was right. I will try to explain in detail (further may spoilers reveal the plot).
So, the beginning - the English countryside, where in winter comes a strange, wadded up man with big glasses, checks into a hotel, pays the bills, and wants only one thing - that no one bothers him. But no, everyone wants to know who you are and what your strange cargo is. Okay, the visitor later confesses that he is a researcher, and that would be the end of it - what do you care, as the satirist said. But no, the respectable residents of Aiping cannot leave the stranger alone, the hotel staff, vicars, guardians of order and petty bourgeois periodically try to look into his room, take him out to talk, well, and by all means violate the "holy" for bourgeois England boundary of personal space. At the same time, all these minor characters look rather comically, and I found this to be a satire on bourgeois society, which seems to honor personal freedoms and private property, but in fact tries to violate them in every possible way. Especially when it comes to someone different - black, colored, invisible. The truth is that human society does not like all kinds of "others", and if they suddenly turn out to be smarter, stronger, better - then there is no place for such people around. And the deeper the society is, the more difficult it is for such "others". Well, and when the invisibility of the hero is gradually revealed - then it even comes to serious injuries, though mostly in local residents so far. So it was probably for nothing that the "invisible man" went to the British countryside to continue his experiments. However, we find out that he had a hard time in London, too.
The second part gives more insight into the main character and what exactly brought him to the outback. He is Griffin, a recent student (just under thirty, as I understand it), physically strong and mentally gifted, who has worked in optics and solved the problem of invisibility. Immersed in his experiments, he gradually loses his human values, steals his father's money, which drives him to suicide, and has no pity or remorse. The author briefly gives an idea of how the hero gradually loses his morals, here he already has to steal, and then he beats a child, and soon he can already kill, and in general dreams of terror, that is, his own dictatorship. Strangely enough, but in me, while reading, the sympathy for the invisible man, despite the author's efforts, has not disappeared, all the time I wanted to think that he is not - so he was made by society. On the whole, it seemed to me that H.G. Wells did not want to present us with the problem of the unrecognized genius, but rather to tell us how much danger there is in giving a superpower/superpower to a person. For example, by giving him unlimited power. It is no coincidence that Griffin's main goal in his writings is not so much scientific success as the possibilities behind invisibility, up to and including unlimited power over people.
Well, what can expect the invisible in our world - not only the possibility to steal, scare, hurt, but also numerous inconveniences - the inability to normally dress, eat, walk in the mud, in the snow, in the fog, even smoke (the silhouette is highlighted), it is certainly brilliantly described by the author, but it is just more for the grabby plot, so to speak, the commercial component of the book, which I did not really think the main one. Two other characters in this book are interesting, Marvel the Tramp and Dr. Kemp, both of whom the invisible man tries to recruit as his assistants. The first one (whom the author treats with contempt) he entrusts with the most valuable things - his books (and the stolen money in addition), the second (as I see, this is exactly the ideal hero, liked by most readers) tells his whole story, including his weaknesses. And both immediately betray him. I just didn't like the image of Kemp, this well-meaning and vigilant doctor. I don't know what I would have done, but it's kind of low, a man revealing to you (a fellow university student, by the way) what he couldn't tell anyone else, and you immediately turn him in to the police, and then you give out advice - to poison dogs, to scatter broken glass, and so on. Unseemly. The funny thing is that Marvel ended up being a respectable petty bourgeois after the incident, but there's no mention of Kemp's fate in the epilogue.
But what can be said about Griffin himself? As I noted, a man with good physical and mental data (a hint of superhumanity?) he gradually reduces his gift to the ability to steal, and potentially to run a small town by terror. If need be, he can also kill. He has, in my opinion, in terms of solving his problems, two problems - the first, a lack of strategic planning. If he had approached management intelligently, he probably would have succeeded, and probably would have achieved more legally than being a scarecrow for a small town. The second is the lack of accomplices (accomplices, friends, whatever), and generally speaking, personnel management is lame, too. Here as it seems to me Wells just also warns the reader, that if such nutcase (not about scientists, but about politicians already) have a sufficient quantity of followers - it can lead to tragic consequences. Therefore, like Dr. Kemp, we must nip all kinds of geniuses with dictatorial tendencies in the bud and hand them over to the authorities. Mr. Wells may be right, but at the time of his settlement in Aiping the invisible man had done nothing reprehensible yet, and the vigilant citizens were already sticking their noses into him. And when he came to Kemp, no blood had yet spilled. Is it right to poison someone who only thinks wrongly so far? There you have it, not just an invisible book, but the rudiments of a vigilant Big Brother theme.
In the penultimate paragraph I want to add a little about the author in the context of his political views, although I am not very familiar with the subject, but as I see it. Wells was a socialist, he advocated the transformation of bourgeois society, but he was not a Marxist. He traveled to the Soviet Union several times, met with both Lenin and Stalin, while not really sharing their views. In his books (I remember it when I was still reading stories in my youth), the author speaks negatively about anarchists and revolutionaries, ridiculing them. Does not agree with the Soviet leaders on the need for revolution, he himself adheres to the evolutionary path of development, but for many Britons looks too right-wing and just as a supporter of abrupt change. In general, quite a controversial figure, but certainly an important participant in public life, absolutely convinced that thoughtful, able to criticize and analyze even his supporters. Which is probably as it should be; all members of any organization cannot and should not think the same way as their leader. This is what I like about Wells, and (I have only read 2 serious works from him, also "The Time Machine") this is why I do not see completely black or white sides in the author's books. You can look at the story in different ways and see different shades in each character. And perhaps my own assessment of the characters and events will not coincide with the opinions of most readers.
As for fiction, the book is good, interesting, the author shines with thought, imagination, talent as a narrator and a sharp plot. I completed the book (about 150 pages) in a day, which for me personally is a very good result. I recommend it for a wide variety of reader groups, that said, I admit that not everyone will go so well, and that evaluations may be quite different.
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