The Invisible Man

Written by H. G. Wells, The Invisible Man essentially tells the tale of a man who discovers the means to become invisible and then is driven mad by the disadvantages of it. Sounds intriguing and like a good read right? 

Sadly, I found it not so. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t seem to get into Wells’ writing and, to me, this book could have been a lot more. Whilst it’s technically easy enough to read, I still struggled on a number of hurdles. 

A scientist discovers the means to become invisible and immediately sees only the advantages of such a discovery. After he experiments on himself, he discovers the breadth of the blunder in his ambition and aims to find a quiet place to work on an antidote. He travels to a country village and arrives a stranger covered in bandages and strange dark goggles. Suspicion follows him from his arrival and soon his secret is out and met with fear and hostility. Driven to violence and forced out of the village, he seeks refuge and help from an old friend, Kemp. But the strain of invisibility and the horror of his fate have affected his mind and when Kemp refuses to help him on moral grounds, he resolves to wreak his revenge. 

My main problem with this story is that it’s a mere 150 pages long and trying to depict a story of one man’s descent into brutality and murder. The transformation of such a rational mind into one of blind and furious ambition is not something that can so easily be conveyed and whilst I’m not saying that Wells doesn’t convey it, I am saying that I did not get a sense of the character’s transformation. Having him tell you “I lost my temper and was made furious” doesn’t really do the trick. 

Plus, the story is recounting various encounters with the Invisible Man and, as such, we don’t really get a sense of any of the characters: who they are, their thoughts, and feelings etc. As a result, it’s hard to form an attachment with any of them because we’re not given enough time to get to know them. 

The way the tale is written is another thing that I struggled with. It’s in the third person register with an omniscient narrator. However, it’s recounting events as told by interior sources e.g. character interviews, newspaper reports, and blind assumptions, which throws the omniscient tone out the window completely because there are chunks where the narrator claims, “we can assume” or “we can imagine”. Halfway through this narrator becomes un-omniscient and a proper character within the tale and the parts of the novel where this realisation is made evident, e.g. where the tone changes suddenly or the tenses change, makes for a very jagged reading experience. 

Having said all that, the story itself; the idea, the character ‘arcs’, and the science fiction tone of it blended with a horror story, does prove to be a bit of a life preserver for one that is drowning. The content is what keeps it afloat and keeps the pages being turned, so I guess I have to give credit where credit is due. At the end of the day, I feel it made for a better story when it was made into a film by Universal. 

Filled with action, violence, suspense, drama, murder, and madness, I don’t think there is anything actually wrong with this book, it’s just one that I found rather jarring and hard to lose myself in, which is a shame because that’s one of the main reasons that I read books for. If you are a Wells fan, then you may very well enjoy this but if, like me, you prefer a book that you can lose yourself in rather than just read, there are better books out there.