Oct 26, 2013 10:29 AM
16092 Views
(Updated Oct 26, 2013 10:36 AM)
‘Invisible’, what a fascinating word! Mere idea of it brings to mind the vast advantage – I don’t need to describe them - one could attain by being invisible. But what we fail to recognize –even think about- are the innumerable inconveniences associated with invisibility. That’s what H. G. Well’s ‘The Invisible Man’ brings forth. I, on my part, never imagined there could be any drawbacks, but now I know how ignorant my perceptions were prior to reading ‘The Invisible Man’.
ABOUT THE PLOT: A stranger arrives in the small town of Iping and takes shelter in inn named ‘The Coach and Horses’. Yes, the stranger is the invisible man. He tries to hide his vast gift of invisibility by overly covering himself with overcoat, gloves, big glasses, false nose and a head wrapped with bandages under a tilted black hat. What he wants is a private place where he could carry on with his research without being disturbed. But strangeness, not only in physical aspects but in the way he deals as well, makes people curious. Strange but true, it becomes impossible for Griffin, for that his name is, to hide his invisibility and people soon discover his secret and tries to detain him. But he just have to drop his cloth and become invincible, and that’s what he do to vanish from the place, but not before destroying the place and hurting the people, under the rage and anger at being found out.
In Thomas Marvel and later in Dr. Kemp, Griffin hopes to find an accomplice but both of them betray him. The seed of inhumanity and Evil grows more and more strong in Griffin as he face disapproval from people and treachery from friends. Now he wants to rule the world creating a reign of terror and the whole town is against him. Will Griffin, The invisible Man, with huge advantage of Invisibility succeed in his evil plans? Dr. Kemp knows all his secrets and shortcomings; will he be able to stop and capture Griffin? That I leave for you to find in the pages of ‘The Invisible Man’ by H. G. Wells.
MY VIEWS: ‘The Invisible Man’ is a short book of mere 170+ pages and is written on a very taut narrative from 3rd person’s point of view, from the perspective of other characters in the tale, as if they told the story to the writer after the events happened. Narrative remains true to its plot, always, without any dragging. It’s gripping and absorbing from the very first page, and remains so till the very last page, persistently. It’s mostly descriptive, with apt number of characters and the minimal number of dialogues. There are no subplots and everything rotates around Griffin, the protagonist, the invisible man.
Wells has very masterly veiled the invisible man in the introductory chapters. Just like the people of Iping, a reader also experiences the inquisitiveness about – what lies beneath the bandages? Why he is all covered? Then, slowly and slowly one gets to know his secret – an arm with no hand; a touch with no fingers, footprints with no feet. And finally through Griffin’s conversation with Kemp – as he tells Kemp about his story – one learns about how he became invisible and the risks that he had to go through during his initial days. I really loved the flashback part, for me it was the most interesting and curious part. Yes, he gets cruel and inhuman towards the climax, but the world of visible had a great role to play in his transformation, and Wells have very well conveyed that message all through the book, time after time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: H. G. Wells is known for writing the classic science fiction novels. Infact it won’t be wrong to say that he only started this genre. With books like ‘The Invisible Man’, ‘The Time Machine’, ‘The War of the Worlds’, ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ and many more such titles his works are still widely read throughout the world, even after more than 100 years of their publication. During his lifetime – during WW1 - he witnessed the world more terrible than the imaginary ones that he depicted in his works and that’s what he meant when he wrote “Reality has taken a leaf from my book and set itself to supersede me”.
Shortcomings of being invisible. Yes, I would like to cover them. Well, no one can see, Good; But you yourself cannot see yourself as well. When you walk you cannot see your steps, how will you walk? To be invisible you have to be undressed, all the time; yes, you heard me right, all the time. Imagine Griffin’s condition during those days of winter when he have to roam around London without any cloths on and barefoot too. No one can see you, so when you walk people will bump into you and while crossing the road vehicles will simply crush you, with slight carelessness on your part. Anything you carry will be visible, if you steal money, they will notice the flying the notes, huh. Your eyelids will also be transparent, which means eyes closed or open, there is no protection from light. Oh My God, please … never never never give me this gift if invisibility, even in my dreams. There are lot more and that you can find in the book.
With this I end my review, with full recommendation for this book. You don’t need to search, you think of all the movies, books and the characters that this invisible man inspired since first publication of this book. Don’t think that the plot has got stale during all those years with so many more books and movies on the same subject- its still as fresh, as intriguing and as original as it was in 1897, when it was first published.
I highly recommend, ‘The Invisible Man’ by H. G. Wells.
=====================================
PYAR HUMEIN PHIR MILAAEGA.
