The Invisible Man by H.W. Wells : a simple, yet entertaining story!

From : https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Man-Dover-Thrift-Editions/dp/0486270718

Back to reading folks.

In an attempt to keep busy and learned, I keep struggling to read books in English and lately I have read one of the English classics, no other than The Invisible Man by H.W. Wells. 

I'm pretty sure you all will have probably heard of it or, at least, you may have watched the famous film based on this well-known story. Can you imagine becoming invisible ? What could you do with the gift of invisibility? I'm sure you can imagine loads of things to do if you were invisible: robbing a bank, spying on your enemy, get what you want for free... Griffin, a scientist and the main character of the story, thought about possible advantages of invisibility and he tried to pursue his dream of becoming an invisible man until he finally reached his goal. Thanks to his studies, he finds a way to make things invisible and he performs the experiment on himself, fulfilling his dream. 

However, things don't quite go as planned. Being invisible has a lot of drawbacks : you need to walk naked and endure the sheer cold and low temperatures and, on top of that, you have to hide from others and prevent them from discovering your secret... However, by far, the most damaging downside of becoming invisible for him, was isolation and loneliness. He ends up wandering the world by himself, alone, with no one to turn to and covering his face. 

From : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gI5m3GCQiQ

In an attempt to reverse his situation, he settles in an inn in a small village to do some research and reverse his condition. However, as soon as his secret is discovered by his landlady, he becomes a wanted criminal and he is forced to run away. Desperate, he becomes crazier and crazier and starts hurting other human beings for the sake of his pleasure. In need of food and shelter, he then decides to rely on an old acquaintance of his. He breaks into his house, and tells him his story, how his father committed suicide when he stole money from him, how people considered him a freak and were frightened of him, and how he ended up lonely and miserable. As his madness grows, he decided to make humankind pay for his current situation and this is when his friends betrays him to the police. Thus will start his chasing and hunting which will have dire consequences on the invisible man. 

The story can be interpreted in two different ways :  one the one hand, it can be considered as the story of a man that after becoming invisible goes mad and wants to kill the rest of humanity, in other words, a man who played God and decided to break the rules of science by making himself invisible and, as a result, was punished for his behaviour. 

On the other hand, this story can be interpreted as a man of unique nature, different from all the other humans and ends up rejected and scorned by the ones of his kind. This is connected to the contemporary world, where people tagged as "different" are rejected by others and it connects with current subjects like 'bullying' or 'racial discrimination'. Griffin's invisibility is a mere metaphor : he is invisible for the rest of the world, he is lonely and has a thirst for being accepted. 

Anyway, although the plot is not exactly riveting I recommend you read the book given that it is an entertaining story that makes you reflect about today's world. In addition, it was way ahead of its time : thinking of invisibility at that time was really creative, don't you think ?

P.S. If you want to see some other book reviews of mine, click on the links : my review on William Golding's The Lord of the Flies, my analysis of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, my post on Dickens's Oliver Twist, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain and my entry about Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea; Dumas's The Count of Monte Cristo.