Once again, I was running up against the deadline imposed by my camera, which automatically shuts up after 30 minutes. I was trying to talk as fast as I could to get the last books in. If I had had more time, I would have talked a bit more about the final books, and how much they deviated from the original premise. But for my full thoughts on any of these books, see the links down below.
This is a reread. I originally read this book back in 1994 for a high school class, and wrote a book report on it. I posted my high school book report here, and did a video based on that old report here. However, I have not read this book since I started my book review project in 2006. So for the purpose of this book review project, I'm going to count this as the first time I'm reviewing this book, and, according to my new rules, do it as a video only review.
According to Wikipedia, this book was originally serialized in 1963-1964, and then published in 1965.
Famously, the author Frank Herbert had a really difficult time getting this book published. The only publisher that would take it was Chilton Books, which mainly published automobile manuals. And the first printing of this book did not do well.
However, this book slowly amassed a following due to word of mouth, and eventually became quite popular.
It has been called by many people the greatest science fiction novel of the 20th century, and it's claimed that this book influenced everything from Star Wars to Star Trek.
It's also been filmed multiple times (1984, 2000, 2021).
The version I read is the 2021 movie tie-in edition. (The one pictured at the top left corner of this blog post, with the words "Now a Major Motion Picture"). I haven't actually seen the 2021 movie, but the movie tie-in edition just happened to be the only version being sold at my local bookstore here in Vietnam, so that's what I bought. This version is 884 pages long, but it also has really big print and large margins at the side of the pages. (It's formatted like the kind of mass-market paperback that you would commonly find in supermarkets and airports.) According to Wikipedia, the original version of this book was 412 pages, so I'm assuming that in that version there was smaller print and smaller margins.
My version also includes, four appendices, a map, cartographic notes and a glossary of terminology at the back--yes, it's one of those kind of books--and an afterwards by Brian Herbert, the son of the author Frank Herbert.
My History With this Book / Why I Read This Book
For the longest time, I didn’t know this book existed. Then, once I found out it existed, I started to hear about it everywhere. (Perhaps a classic example of what is called the Frequency Illusion. Or, perhaps this is because the rise of the Internet has made geek culture more accessible nowadays than ever before. What do you guys think?)
The first time I ever heard of Dune was when the David Lynch movie was being shown on the Disney Channel in the late 1980s. I didn't actually see the movie--I just saw pictures for it in the Disney Channel magazine. But that was my first awareness that this thing called Dune existed. (*1)
If memory serves, the first time I ever realized that the movie Dune was connected to a book was the 2010 review of the movie that Lindsay Ellis did. The impression I got from Lindsay Ellis’s review was that both the movie and the book that it was based on were not all that great. So for a few years after that, I was aware that Dune was based on a book, but I was under the impression that the book wasn’t that great. (*2)
But recently, the past 5 years or so, it seems like I’ve been hearing about Dune everywhere on the Internet. Everyone has been talking about how great Dune is.
Whisky Prajer's mentioned the book a couple times within the past 5 years --HERE and HERE. (If you read those posts, you'll notice that they are somewhat tempered in their praise. But it was enough to get me interested nonetheless.)
And then, there's all the chatter this book has been getting on Booktube. I've seen a number of booktubers talk about this book in the past couple years, but, as readers of this blog know, I'm particularly influenced by Steve Donoghue, from whom I've been taking a lot of my reading cues lately.
Regular readers of this blog know that I'm frequently complaining about how I can't track down specific books in Vietnam. But in the case of Dune, I knew it was available. I had often seen it here in bookstores before.
A few weeks later, I was in the bookstore in SC Vivo City, saw this book on the shelves, and snatched it up.
In fact, the week I read this book, the week of January 15, is my highest number of pages read in one week since I started keeping track. Now, granted, this was on a book with large print and large page margins. But still, a pretty good week of reading, if I don't say so myself.
The Reading Experience
The first thing I noticed about this book was how clunky the writing style was. And the dialogue! The dialogue was so cheesy and unrealistic.
In those first few chapters, the dialogue really interfered with my ability to immerse myself in the story. I kept thinking to myself, “But people don’t actually talk like that!” instead of immersing myself in the plot.
Now, clunky prose has always been a feature of pulp science fiction novels. So if this had been just another cheesy pulp adventure novel, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye at some bad writing. But cheesy pulp novel is not what I had been sold. This was supposed to be the greatest science fiction novel of the 20th century. What was up with this terrible writing? (*3)
I do have to say, though, that the more I read, the less the prose bothered me. By the time I was a couple hundred pages in, I had altogether stopped noticing the bad dialogue and the stilted prose. Maybe this is one of those books where the writing style just grows on you as you read it? Or maybe Frank Herbert’s prose actually got better as the book went on? I don’t know. (*4)
At any rate, I suppose it couldn’t have been that bad, because after all I did finish off all 883 pages in just one week.
This is also one of those books where you are constantly going to the glossary at the back to look up all the new words. This Youtuber here nails it when he says: “I'm spending more time in the glossary in this book than the actual book itself.”
As I read the book, I was constantly debating with myself whether or not to go to the glossary. Does Frank Herbert intend for me to go to the back and look this word up? Or is he trying to get me to guess the meaning from context? Is this word even in the glossary? Or is this just a normal English word that I should know?
[There are some fantasy books where the glossary at the back is meant to be used only as a crutch, and new terms are explained in the story as they come up--The Wayfarer Redemption is a good example of this. But in the case of Dune, I got the impression that Frank Herbert does intend for his readers to be constantly referring to the back of the book as new words come up.]
The constant flipping back to the glossary, and the constant thinking about whether or not I should flip back to the glossary, gave me a bit of a headache as I was reading this book. And, needless to say, took me out of the story.
And yet, the terminology, annoying as it is, does contribute to the world building. It does contribute to the illusion that this is its own complete world which does exist on its own terms. (Every reader knows what I’m talking about here--the feeling of immersion in a fantasy world that is created through a unique terminology. So I won’t belabor this point.)
The plot of this book is… Well, what can I say? The plot is truly epic. This book may be 884 pages long, but man you are really getting your money’s worth for those 884 pages. So much happens over the course of this book.
(This is one of those books that, when you finally finish, you look back and marvel at just how much the characters have changed since the book began. So much has happened that it’s strange to think where these characters started out compared to where they ended up.)
There’s a number of surprise plot twists in this novel, and, if at all possible, it’s best to go into this book without any advanced knowledge of the story. Avoid spoilers, in other words.
Although the good news is this is a book that’s very hard to spoil. It’s not the type of book that you could spoil by simply yelling out something like “Snape Kills Dumbledore.” So much happens in this book that there’s no way someone could spoil all of it unless they were sitting next to you for 30 minutes straight. Think of all the plot machinations in Game of Thrones. It’s kind of like that.
Actually it’s like Game of Thrones in more ways than one. Just like in Game of Thrones, there are multiple noble families that are scheming against each other. Just like in Game of Thrones, there are also multiple subordinates within each great family, all of whom have their own agendas and character arcs. So you have both the drama of the great houses maneuvering against each other, but you also have the drama of the conflicts between individuals within these great houses. It is, in many ways, kind of like Game of Thrones set in outer-space.(*5)
The characters in this book are very conniving, and there’s a lot of scheming and plotting going on. There are plenty of chapters where two characters will just talk for pages on end laying out all their schemes. These conversational scenes are often written in that cheesy dialogue style that I complained about above, but they’re still good fun. If you like books that have complicated plots (and I do), then it’s fun to see all the various schemes that are being laid out, and I appreciated the amount of thought that Frank Herbert had put into all the different plans that different characters have.
However, in my opinion not all these schemes have suitable pay-offs. A few times, there’s a plan that characters will spend a whole chapter talking about, and I expected this plan to evolve into a major plot point later in the book, but then we never hear about it again. It seemed to me like there were some plot threads which were elaborately set-up, but then not adequately paid-off.
But I don’t know. It could be that the reason we never hear about that plot point again is because we don’t need to. The characters have already explained everything that they’re going to do. Maybe it would have been redundant to narrate them actually doing it? Like I said, I don’t know. What do you guys think?
The other problem is that the narrative momentum of the book lags in the second half of the book, when the spiritual element of the story takes center stage. Frank Herbert starts to devote a lot of time to describing mystical trances--these are sections that I thought got a bit weird, and they were also very repetitive.
I’m also not entirely sure everything in the story was 100% consistent. Paul's ability to see the future, for example, seemed to turn on and off depending on when it was convenient for the plot. I know there was some attempt in the novel to explain away the instances in which Paul couldn’t accurately see the future, but… I don’t know, what did you guys think? I’m not sure it entirely made sense. I also thought that Jessica's ability to control people with her voice also seemed to come and go depending on plot convenience.
And then, there was the ending.
In some ways the ending was very satisfying. It gives the reader a thrilling climax packed with action scenes that appear on the surface to hit all the beats that the climax to a story like this needs to hit, even if it is a little bit overly dramatic. (In this interview--courtesy of Whisky Prajer--Frank Herbert says that the huge action scene at the end was deliberately written to be high camp.)
But then at the end, we are left with so many unanswered questions. Everything is left ambiguous. Are we supposed to feel good about Paul’s triumph, or worried about it? What is going to be the long term implications for the future of the Messianic cult that surrounds Paul? Is it going to be a religion of peace and love, or is it going to unleash wars of religious conquest?
To be fair, the uncertainty is intentional. Uncertainty of the future is a major theme in Dune. It’s something that the novel had been hammering home all along, so the uncertainty of the ending did kind of fit with the rest of the novel.
In the same interview, Frank Herbert says he deliberately left things unanswered in the ending of the book, because he thought that leaving unresolved questions would cause the story to remain in the reader’s imagination.
Not to mention, all of these unanswered questions at the end leaves plenty of room for writing sequels. And write sequels Frank Herbert did. He published 5 more Dune books in his lifetime, and then his son kept publishing more books after he died.
I haven’t yet read Dune Messiah, but just based on what I’ve picked up on the Internet, I’m given to understand that this book fully takes on the problems of Messianic cults, problems which are only just hinted at in Dune.
The Setting
Last year, when I reviewed The Return of the King, I had a bit of an epiphany, which is probably incredibly obvious, and yet also strikes me as really interesting--my mood changes depending on the setting of the book that I’m reading. When I’m reading about nice, beautiful places, I feel happy. When I’m reading about barren and desolate places, I start to feel depressed. In other words, the power of the imagination has an effect on my mental happiness.
The barren desert planet of Dune would not have been my first choice to spend 884 pages. If I’m going to spend so much time imagining landscapes, I would much have preferred to read a story set in a lush and beautiful tropical forest. (Once again, this Youtuber here, who jokes about how thirsty he feels when reading Dune, does a good job of capturing the feeling of what it’s like to read this book.)
And yet, once again, I can't help but wonder if I'm missing something. After all, this book is really beloved by a lot of people. And as Whisky Prajer points out, film makers love this book. I guess maybe some people might love the whole "Lawrence of Arabia" awe and majesty of the desert. (Watching the trailer for the new movie, I can see that they're definitely trying to sell the beauty of the desert angle.)
the real meat of the journey takes place crossing a desert. And then it becomes a desert story—men wishing for water—wishing they had water again—complaining about not having water, et cetera. (I don’t care for desert crossing stories all that much. They tend to be one note songs.)
The scorching of the desert, and importance of water is also a very big theme in Dune. So just as this theme bored me in King Solomon's Mines, it also tested my patience in Dune. But maybe that's just me.
The Chosen One
I believe that in recent years, there’s been a bit of a backlash against science fiction and fantasy stories that make use of trope of “the chosen one”, mostly in response to all the Harry Potter inspired fantasy stories that came out about 10 years ago. (At least that’s my take on the online discourse. What do you guys think?)
If you’re sick of stories that follow The Chosen One narrative trope (W)…, well, bad news. Dune is definitely a Chosen One narrative.
I mean, you have to cut it a bit of slack because it came out all the way back in 1965, before this narrative was done to death in the Harry Potter-inspired Y.A. market.
But still, consider yourself warned. This is another Chosen One trope.
The Themes of this Book
Oh my god, where to even start with the themes of this book? It’s about spiritualism, it’s about religion, it’s about feudalism, it’s about ecology, it’s about free will and predestination, it’s about drugs, it’s about artificial intelligence, it’s about…
…it’s about just about everything, really.
We could sit here and talk forever about all the themes in this book.
It definitely is an ambitious book. You do have to give it that. It wants to tackle everything.
Now, does it actually tackle all of these themes successfully?
…I don’t know, man. What do you guys think?
(Sorry, I know I’m dodging all of the big questions in this review. But then, I’m not a professional book critic, and no one’s paying me for these reviews. I’m just a guy with a blog. And I feel like the casual reader can’t help but come away from this book a little shell-shocked. Like, yeah, there was really a lot in here. Did it all work? Did it make sense? Does it deal with all of its themes successfully? I’d probably need to re-read this book and spend a lot more time thinking to answer those questions.)
I'm also not going to try to give my thoughts on the various themes in this book. I mean, I definitely do have my own thoughts on religion and my own thoughts on ecology--just to mention two of the themes that are prominent in Dune. But we'd be here all day if I started getting into all my own thoughts on this book's themes. Better to just say it has a lot of themes, and then move quickly on. (This book review is long enough already.)
Connections to Other Books I’ve read
* The Dune series is frequently compared to The Lord of the Ring series. One is supposed to be the greatest fantasy series of the 20th Century, the other is supposed to be the greatest science fiction series of the 20th Century.
Although Tolkien actually didn’t appreciate the comparison, because he wasn’t a Dune fan. See this video HERE.
* The protagonists of this book are named Atreides, after the House of Atreides from Greek Mythology--specifically Menelaus and Agamemnon--who featured in both The Iliadand The Odyssey.
I was able to immediately recognize the allusion because of Andrew Lang. You see, a couple years ago I got annoyed when Andrew Lang used the word Atrides to refer to Menelaus without any explanation, and took the trouble of complaining about it in my review of Tales of Troy and Greece by Andrew Lang. Ever since then, though, the nomenclature of “Atrides” has stuck in my mind. (I think “Atrides” and “Atreides” are interchangeable. I’ve googled it just now, and can’t seem to find any difference in how the terms are used. But let me know if I’m missing something.)
* The historical story of Lawrence of Arabia was one of Frank Herbert’s inspirations in writing Dune. Lawrence of Arabia is also the translator of my edition of The Odyssey, which I reviewed last month.
* Robert A. Heinlein has a blurb on the opening pages of my edition, praising this book for being “Powerful, convincing and most ingenious.” For my review of some of Heinlein’s books, see HERE, HERE and HERE.
* This book was one of the inspirations for Star Wars. The desert planet of Tatooine especially was influenced by Dune.
* This book was also one of the inspirations for Star Trek, or so Brian Herbert claims in his afterward. The machine like logic of the Vulcans in Star Trek are based on the Mentats from Dune. (It could be true. This book came out in 1965. The first episode of Star Trek didn't air until 1966).
It was a relief globe of a world, partly in shadows, spinning under the impetus of a fat hand that glittered with rings. The globe sat on a freeform stand at one wall of a windowless room whose other walls presented a patchwork of multicolored scrolls, filmbooks, tapes and reels. Light glowed in the room from golden balls hanging in mobile suspensor fields.
An ellipsoid desk with a top of jade-pink petrified elacca wood stood at the center of the room. Veriform suspensor chairs ringed it, two of them occupied. In one sat a dark-haired youth of about sixteen years, round of face and with sullen eyes. The other held a slender, short man with effeminate face.
Both youth and man stared at the globe and the man half-hidden in shadows spinning it.
A chuckle sounded beside the globe. A basso voice rumbled out of the chuckle: "There it is, Piter - the biggest mantrap in all history. And the Duke's headed into its jaws. Is it not a magnificent thing that I, the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, do?"
"Assuredly, Baron," said the man. His voice came out tenor with a sweet, musical quality.
The fat hand descended onto the globe, stopped the spinning. Now, all eyes in the room could focus on the motionless surface and see that it was the kind of globe made for wealthy collectors or planetary governors of the Empire. It had the stamp of Imperial handicraft about it. Latitude and longitude lines were laid in with hair-fine platinum wire. The polar caps were insets of finest cloud-milk diamonds.
The fat hand moved, tracing details on the surface. "I invite you to observe," the basso voice rumbled. "Observe closely, Piter, and you, too, Feyd-Rautha, my darling: from sixty degrees north to seventy degrees south - these exquisite ripples. Their coloring: does it not remind you of sweet caramels? And nowhere do you see blue of lakes or rivers or seas. And these lovely polar caps - so small. Could anyone mistake this place? Arrakis! Truly unique. A superb setting for a unique Victory."
A smile touched Piter's lips. "And to think. Baron: the Padishah Emperor believes he's given the Duke your spice planet. How poignant."
"That's a nonsensical statement," the Baron rumbled. "You say this to confuse young Feyd-Rautha, but it is not necessary to confuse my nephew."
The sullen-faced youth stirred in his chair, smoothed a wrinkle in the black leotards he wore. He sat upright as a discreet tapping sounded at the door in the wall behind him.
Piter unfolded from his chair, crossed to the door, cracked it wide enough to accept a message cylinder. He closed the door, unrolled the cylinder and scanned it. A chuckle sounded from him. Another.
"Well?" the Baron demanded.
"The fool answered us, Baron!"
"Whenever did an Atreides refuse the opportunity for a gesture?" the Baron asked. "Well, what does he say?"
"He's most uncouth, Baron. Addresses you as 'Harkonnen' - no 'Sire et Cher Cousin,' no title, nothing."
"It's a good name," the Baron growled, and his voice betrayed his impatience. "What does dear Leto say?"
"He says: 'Your offer of a meeting is refused. I have ofttimes met your treachery and this all men know.' "
"And?" the Baron asked.
“He says: ‘The art of Kanly still has admirers in the Empire.’ He signs it: ‘Duke Leot of Arrakis.’” Piter began to laugh. “Of Arrakis! Oh, my! This is almost too rich!” (p.21-23)
***END QUOTE**** (This conversation / exposition dump goes on for another 10 pages, but I can’t quote the whole chapter. You get the idea.)
I know it seems like I ripped that out of context, but I didn't. At least not by much. This is only the second chapter, and this is our first introduction to the Harknonnens. (Some of this stuff is alluded to in the previous chapter, but you're not missing much context.)
This is a perfect example of the clunky prose and cheesy dialogue I complained about earlier in the review.
It's also a great example of the all the terminology. As you're reading this, how much should you stop and go to the glossary in the back? How much should you just read on and hope it makes sense later?
(From the passage I just quoted above, filmbooks, suspensor, elacca, Arrakis, spice, and Kanly are all in the glossary. But some other words, which feel like they should be in the glossary, are not, like ellipsoid and Veriform. So if you went back to the glossary for those words, you'd be wasting your time.)
Future Reading Plans
The Rest of the Series?
This is the first book in a whole long series which has 5 sequels written by Frank Herbert, two more sequels written after his death, and currently 14 prequels written by his son. (The most recent of which was just published last year, so I expect more books will keep coming out.)
Don't do that -- Herbert only gets worse! I think I made it as far as Dune: Messiah. Herbert was now in the habit of grinding out a book a year , and his hunger for the yearly paycheck could not be denied, except by readers like you and me saying "no!" and refusing to read further.
And yet, part of me feels like I should continue with this series, because I’m lead to believe (from what little research I’ve done) that Frank Herbert’s vision for this whole saga is to show how the messiah figure is actually an antihero. And I don’t believe that comes through clearly until the sequels. (As Whisky himself seems to indicate in his post here)
So I feel like I should really continue with the sequels.
And yet, part of me doesn’t want to. At least not yet. I’ve got a lot of other plans for my reading list this year, and I’m just not ready to tackle a massive series like this. (These books, after all, are not short.)
Maybe I’ll wait a few years, and then try to come back at this series.
Maybe I’ll even re-readDune, and then just keep running with the rest of the series. Maybe.
If I am going to do this whole series, I could probably do with a re-read of Dune. (It’s now been over 2 months since I finished this book, and I hate to say it, but I’m already starting to forget a lot of the plot details in the second half of this book. Which characters died at the end again? I don’t even remember. So maybe best to just step away from this series for a few years, and then come back and try to tackle the whole thing at once.)
Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov
As I mentioned above, some people say that Dune may be a reply to Foundation.
That time was better spent (for me) reading Asimov's Foundation series. Asimov was also hungry for the paycheck, but at least he could write -- or more likely could spot someone who knew.
I read Foundation back in high school, but don't remember it very well at all. But I do remember the general feeling of being fascinated by it. So I'm overdue for a re-read of it. And I never read any of the other books in the series, so I'd like to read those as well.
Dune was finally, to my eyes, a hippie book. I bought it in a hippie used-book shop on the west coast. The only people discussing it were long-hairs who stank of patchouli and something faintly skunky. Thus: hippie book.
I had this in the back of my mind while I read Dune, and as I was reading Dune I could totally see why the hippies would love this book--Dune is very influenced by Eastern mysticism, and also has descriptions of mystical trances that are brought about by the aid of drugs. Since this book was published in 1965, right as the hippie movement was beginning, no wonder the flower child generation loved it.
Also, I'm sure the themes about ecology must have seemed very prescient in 1965, and as the environmental movement began in the late 1960s and early 70s, that no doubt also helped the popularity of this book.
7 out of 10 stars. It's a really ambitious story, but the prose is clunky, and, on first reading at least, I'm not entirely sure the story makes complete sense.
(*1) My siblings and I grew up almost exclusively on the Disney Channel because my mother disapproved of regular network TV. This is something I've mentioned before HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, etc.
I’m not quite sure why the Disney Channel was airing Dune. I don’t believe it had any connection to Disney? (Someone correct me if I’m wrong). But back in those days, every once and a while the Disney channel would show some random stuff.
I remember photos for the movie Dune appeared in the monthly Disney Channel magazine. (I used to pour over every inch of that magazine when I was a kid, looking for exciting stuff to watch.) And I remember seeing the photos of the giant worms. And also I remember Patrick Stewart’s face appeared prominently in one of the photos, which got my attention, as I was a huge Star Trek fan during those days, and this must have been right after Star Trek: The Next Generation first premiered.
I never bothered to actually watch the Dune movie--I don’t remember why not. I guess I just wasn’t that interested, and it must not have been on at a convenient time.
(*2) Lindsay Ellis's Dune review is not currently on Youtube. Apparently she later took down this review because of all the hate it received--see HERE. However it can still be viewable on other sites--like this copy at the Internet Archive. It's primarily a review of the 1984 movie, but it does reference the book as well. If you haven't watched the video, Lindsay Ellis thinks that both the book and the movie have an uninteresting plot because they rely on a MacGuffin to move the plot along. She also criticizes the writing style of the book, and says that the book is constantly telling you what all the characters are thinking in a style that is really annoying.
(*3) Whisky Prajer and I are on exactly the same page on this, by the way.
Amalgamated linguistics aside, Herbert could hardly be called a “stylist.” He believed in sturdy narrative architecture, and laid down words like so much bricks and mortar.
I wanted to like Frank Herbert, but Geez-Louise his prose is stilted!
(*4) Steve Donoghue is of the opinion that the prose of this book gets better after the first 200 pages. In one of his (many) Dune videos, DuneTube 2019: Dune, Part 2!, Steve says that the problem was that the first 200 pages went through so many drafts that Frank Herbert just became inured to it, and lost the ability to see the problems with his prose. Steve thinks that this is a problem that's limited only to the first 200 pages, and contrasts that to the subsequent 200 pages, which he says were written by "a complete master in absolute control of what he's doing."
I didn't watch this video until after I had already finished Dune, but it does square with my experience as a reader. The first 200 pages struck me as really clunky. After about 200 pages, I stopped noticing the problem. But like I said above, it could also be that I just got used to Frank Herbert's prose. I don't know. I definitely know I've heard other people who criticize Frank Herbert's prose style generally.
Once again, I guess I'll throw the question out to you guys. Let me know in the comments what you think.
(*5) But of course I shouldn't say that Dune is Game of Thrones set in space, because Dune predates Game of Thrones.
Also, admittedly it's not an exact analogy. In Game of Thrones, we see several Noble Houses plotting against each other. In Dune we know other Great Houses are out there, but we really only see 2 of them: House Harkonnen and House Atreides.
This book is by H.G. Wells, who is sometimes known as "the father of science fiction" (W). And in fact, this book is one of the books that helped establish that reputation (W). The Invisible Man has also become one of the iconic figures of horror fiction.
This book was first published in 1897. It's a slim little book. According to Wikipedia, it was 149 pages in the original edition. My copy (Arcturus Publishing--pictured on the left) is 207 pages.
My History With This Book
This is a re-read. I read this book once before way back when I was in middle school.
I've already recounted my history with H.G. Wells on this blog a couple times (HERE, HERE and HERE). But for the purposes of making this post stand independently, I'll recount it again here.
I first discovered H.G. Wells through Great Classics Illustrated (W).
When we were children, my sister was given a collection of Great Classics Illustrated one Christmas. Although it was given to my sister, we both devoured it.
There were two books by H.G. Wells in that collection: The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. I was utterly captivated by both stories.
When I got slightly older (in middle school), I tried to seek out more H.G. Wells. I did not, at that time, feel any need to seek out the original versions of The Time Machine or The War of the Worlds. (Having read the Great Classics Illustrated versions, I considered those books "already read"). But I was interested in tracking down the other H.G. Wells books that had not been included in the Great Classics Illustrated collection. And, the most famous of these was The Invisible Man (*)
I was at this same time becoming obsessed with the classic black-and-white monster movies (as I've written about before HERE, HERE and HERE). And the 1933 horror movie, The Invisible Man (W) was one of the Universal Classic Monster movies (W) (**)
I also saw the 1933 The Invisible Man during these years when it was shown on AMC (W). I don't remember if it was before or after I read the book.
But at any rate, due to my interest in H.G. Wells, and due to my interest in classic monster movies, I bought a copy of The Invisible Man from my local bookstore and read it sometime in middle school. (I don't remember the exact year.)
That was many years ago now, and I'd since largely forgotten almost all the content from that book. I remember reading the book--I remember carrying it along with me on a family vacation on year, and I remember reading it on the airplane. I remember what the cover illustration on my copy looked like. And I remember the feelings I had reading that book. But aside from a few vague recollections, I had forgotten the story.
I do, however, remember the general feeling of reading that book. I remember find H.G. Wells' prose very dry and boring. And I remember finding the book painfully slow moving.
The only other H.G. Wells book that I read in middle school was In the Days of the Comet (W). (This is probably one of Wells' lesser known books, but it happened to be in my local bookstore, so I picked it up.) I found In the Days of the Comet to be much the same as The Invisible Man--very slow moving, and with a prose style I found dull and uninteresting.
I then developed the impression of H.G. Wells as a writer who had a lot of interesting story ideas, but who didn't write in a readable or engaging way.
I didn't read anything else by H.G. Wells until 1996, when I got caught up in the hype surrounding the release of the movie The Island of Dr. Moreau (W), and bought a copy of the book (W). Which I actually enjoyed a lot. (I was in college by this point, and I suppose my reading level had matured to the point where I could read Wells effortlessly.)
But in spite of this, I did not return to Wells until 8 years ago, when I finally got around to reading the original versions of The Time Machineand The War of the Worlds. And absolutely loved them. I decided that, now that I was an adult, I really like Wells' prose style.
Ever since then, I've been meaning to get around to re-reading The Invisible Man.
(*) Actually, according to Wikipedia, Great Classics Illustrated did eventually do a version of The Invisible Man in 1995, but by then I was no longer part of their target demographic. I was already in high school by then.
(**) Although the 1933 The Invisible Man is certainly an iconic monster movie, The Invisible Man character was never part of the shared universe of monster team ups with Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and Dracula. Unless you count The Invisible Man's cameo appearance in Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein.
There were also several other films in The Invisible Man franchise (see Wikipedia HERE).
I do not now remember if I saw during this period the 1940 The Invisible Man Returns (W). I might have. I don't think I saw any of the rest of The Invisible Man films. Although they look kind of fun. Maybe someday it would be fun to try to track down and review the whole series.
Why I Read This Book
In addition to all I've written above, the impetus for picking this book up now was Halloween and the month of October.
I had been toying with picking up a classic scary story for the month of October. It seemed like a fun thing to do for Halloween, and besides most of the other booktubers were doing it.
On the other hand, I am a very slow reader, and perpetually have a lot of half finished books on my currently reading list. So maybe starting a new reading project wasn't the best idea.
The other factor was that, for various reasons, I wasn't able to make my way to a bookstore at the beginning of October. I only made it to a bookstore near the end of October. (On October 19, the wife and I ended up doing some shopping at SC Vivo City, which has a bookstore with a selection of books in English.) So as I browsed that bookstore, I was looking for something short.
I'm overdue for a re-read of Dracula, but I decided that since October was already halfway over, Dracula looked too long to start now. (Maybe next year). But, The Invisible Man was only about 1/3 as long as Dracula, so it seemed the perfect book to start mid-month.
My Reading Journey / The Reading Experience
I wanted to make sure I finished this book off before October came to an end, so once I bought it, I put it on the top of my reading priority list. I easily finished it off in just 3 days.
Although I wrote above that I had largely forgotten this book, as I began to read it again, a lot of it came back to me. (I trust we've all had this experience --that Proustian experience of re-reading a book that we haven't read for years--or re-watching a movie-- and discovering that much more of it than we realized was actually still in our unconscious memory, just awaiting the right stimulus to come rushing back--so I won't waste time trying to describe that experience here. You all know what I mean.)
The book was on the whole a very easy read. It does have an older Victorian-era type prose style. I can see where it could easily have given middle-school-me some trouble. But from an adult perspective, it's completely readable. And largely enjoyable (although the pacing suffers in some sections.)
Plot Summary and Commentary (***SPOILERS***)
In a sleepy little countryside town in England, a mysterious stranger arrives at the inn. He is wrapped up in a coat and hat and gloves, which he refuses to take off, even when he is inside. And his face is all wrapped up in bandages, and his eyes are covered by dark glasses. He is working on some sort of mysterious experiment in his room. Meanwhile, several mysterious things seem to be happening in the stranger's room. Who could he be?
The mystery is teased out over several chapters, which can seem a bit overkill to the modern reader. Of course it's the invisible man! Everyone modern reader knows that instantly. The disguise of the invisible man is an iconic part of pop culture
Of course, when Wells' originally wrote this novel back in 1897, it was before the invisible man had become a pop icon. But still, even Wells' original audience had to know that this mysterious stranger was the invisible man, right? I mean, it's right there in the title of this novel.
[Unless... according to Wikipedia, this novel was original serialized in a magazine before being published as a novel. I wonder under what title it originally appeared under during serialization. Perhaps it originally had a different title which may have preserved the mystery?]
The narration throughout this section is told from the perspective of various villagers. The perspective jumps around from person to person, but never from the perspective of the invisible man the mysterious stranger himself. According to Wikipedia,
Then, finally, in chapter 7 (page 53 in my edition), the mystery is cleared up as stranger reveals himself to be invisible. There's a brief struggle, and then the invisible man disappears.
The narrative perspective then switches abruptly to a new character that we've never seen before, a tramp, Mr. Thomas Marvel, who the invisible man recruits as an unwilling accomplice.
There's then a confrontation between the invisible man and the villagers, and the perspective switches back to the villagers.
Thomas Marvel and the invisible man leave and travel to another village. The narrative perspective changes a few more times. (Sometimes from the perspective of Mr. Marvel, sometimes from the perspective of the people he encounters.)
Then, about halfway through the book, we are introduced to Dr. Kemp, who was completely absent from the first half of the book, but who will turn out to be the main protagonist of the second half of the book.
The invisible man, it turns out, is an old college classmate of Dr. Kemp's, and seeks refuge at Dr. Kemp's house. It is at this point that the invisible man also relates his whole backstory to Dr. Kemp.
This section is technically from the perspective of Dr. Kemp, who is listening to the invisible man monologuing, but the monologue itself is in the voice of the invisible man. So in this section we do get to hear the story of the invisible man in his own words.
The backstory is from chapter 19 to chapter 23 (pages 125 to 169 in my edition).
Parts of this backstory are interesting. H.G. Wells was of the school of science fiction writers that tried to incorporate actual scientific principles into his science fiction. So we get some discussion here about how visibility is created by light reflecting off of objects, and what the properties of a transparent object are. It's interesting as far as it goes, although I'm not sure I entirely understood all of it, and regardless I'm certainly not the person to evaluate it. (I'm certainly no scientist!) But at any rate, the science part is kept mercifully brief--only about 5 pages.
The rest of the invisible man's backstory is the story of how he struggled to find warmth, food, and shelter while being invisible. I thought this section went on for just a little bit too long. I started to get impatient with the backstory here, and wanted to get back to the main narrative. But this section is important for the main theme of the book--the invisible man wants invisibility because he wants to become more powerful than his fellow man. But he discovers that humans are reliant on each other for the basic necessities of life. Once he elects to separate himself out from society, he actually makes himself weaker, not stronger.
Here it is interesting to note that the whole plot of The Invisible Man is based on the fact that England has very cold and miserable weather. (The Invisible Man is a very British book in that regard. If H.G. Wells had been born in Vietnam instead of England, this book might have turned out very differently!) As soon as the invisible man puts on any clothes, then he's no longer invisible. (Only his actual body is invisible, not his clothing.) So he only has his invisibility powers as long as he is completely naked. But of course he can't go around walking naked for long in the English winter. So it turns out, being invisible in England is a very limited power.
The book eventually ends in a showdown between Dr. Kemp and the invisible man. And, to give credit where credit is due, the climax is suitably tense and exciting.
Evaluation / Extended Quotations
When I was a youngster, and I was first getting into all this stuff for the first time, I was extremely disappointed to find out that the old horror classics just weren't all that scary.
But I trust I'm not telling you anything that you didn't already know, right? We all know by now that the old classics just aren't scary anymore.
The question I do sometimes wonder is: how scary were they meant to be in the first place?
I mean, take The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for example. I know it eventually went on to inspire a lot of monster movies, but I can't believe the original book was ever meant to be scary.
And then there's The Invisible Man. Like Frankenstein's monster and Mr Hyde, the character itself later went on to become synonymous with Universal Monster Movies, but what tone is the original book going for?
Much of the book doesn't seem to be trying to be scary at all.
The first half of the book actually has a lot more humorous scenes than scary scenes.
It's perhaps worth remembering that, back in his day, H.G. Wells was a noted comic writer as well as a science fiction writer. Nowadays, H.G. Wells is only remembered for his science fiction, but back in his day he was much praised for comic novels such as The History of Mr. Polly (W) (***).
And there seems to be a lot of comic scenes inserted into The Invisible Man as well. Take, for example, this scene where Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, runs into Mr. Hall, the husband of the innkeeper Mrs. Hall:
At Gleeson’s corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the stranger’s hostess at the “Coach and Horses,” and who now drove the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on his return from that place. Hall had evidently been “stopping a bit” at Sidderbridge, to judge by his driving. “’Ow do, Teddy?” he said, passing.
“You got a rum un up home!” said Teddy.
Hall very sociably pulled up. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Rum-looking customer stopping at the ‘Coach and Horses,’” said Teddy. “My sakes!”
And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque guest. “Looks a bit like a disguise, don’t it? I’d like to see a man’s face if I had him stopping in my place,” said Henfrey. “But women are that trustful—where strangers are concerned. He’s took your rooms and he ain’t even given a name, Hall.”
“You don’t say so!” said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension.
“Yes,” said Teddy. “By the week. Whatever he is, you can’t get rid of him under the week. And he’s got a lot of luggage coming to-morrow, so he says. Let’s hope it won’t be stones in boxes, Hall.”
He told Hall how his aunt at Hastings had been swindled by a stranger with empty portmanteaux. Altogether he left Hall vaguely suspicious. “Get up, old girl,” said Hall. “I s’pose I must see ’bout this.”
Teddy trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved.
Instead of “seeing ’bout it,” however, Hall on his return was severely rated by his wife on the length of time he had spent in Sidderbridge, and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly and in a manner not to the point. But the seed of suspicion Teddy had sown germinated in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these discouragements. “You wim’ don’t know everything,” said Mr. Hall, resolved to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at the earliest possible opportunity. (Chapter 2 p.21-23)
(Sidenote: I think Wells' humorous touch went entirely over my head when I was in middle school grade. Yet another reason why I appreciate this book more as an adult.)
I also got a chuckle out of the exasperated tone the invisible man took when he finally had to explain his condition to the villagers in chapter 7:
“Why!” said Huxter, suddenly, “that’s not a man at all. It’s just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of his clothes. I could put my arm—”
He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. “I wish you’d keep your fingers out of my eye,” said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage expostulation. “The fact is, I’m all here—head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but it happens I’m invisible. It’s a confounded nuisance, but I am. That’s no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?”
The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up, arms akimbo.
Several other of the men folks had now entered the room, so that it was closely crowded. “Invisible, eh?” said Huxter, ignoring the stranger’s abuse. “Who ever heard the likes of that?”
“It’s strange, perhaps, but it’s not a crime. Why am I assaulted by a policeman in this fashion?” (chapter 7 pages 56-57)
But it's not all humorous. The invisible man himself actually has a lot of malice to him. And the tone of the story can switch quite suddenly from humorous to malicious. There's a part in chapter 11 where I thought this sudden tone shift was particularly well, so I'll quote part of it:
“Diary!” said Cuss, putting the three books on the table. “Now, at any rate, we shall learn something.” The Vicar stood with his hands on the table.
“Diary,” repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to support the third, and opening it. “H’m—no name on the fly-leaf. Bother!—cypher. And figures.”
The vicar came round to look over his shoulder.
Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed. “I’m—dear me! It’s all cypher, Bunting.”
“There are no diagrams?” asked Mr. Bunting. “No illustrations throwing light—”
“See for yourself,” said Mr. Cuss. “Some of it’s mathematical and some of it’s Russian or some such language (to judge by the letters), and some of it’s Greek. Now the Greek I thought you—”
“Of course,” said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable—for he had no Greek left in his mind worth talking about; “yes—the Greek, of course, may furnish a clue.”
“I’ll find you a place.”
“I’d rather glance through the volumes first,” said Mr. Bunting, still wiping. “A general impression first, Cuss, and then, you know, we can go looking for clues.”
He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a leisurely manner. And then something did happen.
The door opened suddenly.
Both gentlemen started violently, looked round, and were relieved to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. “Tap?” asked the face, and stood staring.
“No,” said both gentlemen at once.
“Over the other side, my man,” said Mr. Bunting. And “Please shut that door,” said Mr. Cuss, irritably.
“All right,” said the intruder, as it seemed in a low voice curiously different from the huskiness of its first inquiry. “Right you are,” said the intruder in the former voice. “Stand clear!” and he vanished and closed the door.
“A sailor, I should judge,” said Mr. Bunting. “Amusing fellows, they are. Stand clear! indeed. A nautical term, referring to his getting back out of the room, I suppose.”
“I daresay so,” said Cuss. “My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite made me jump—the door opening like that.”
Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. “And now,” he said with a sigh, “these books.”
Someone sniffed as he did so.
“One thing is indisputable,” said Bunting, drawing up a chair next to that of Cuss. “There certainly have been very strange things happen in Iping during the last few days—very strange. I cannot of course believe in this absurd invisibility story—”
“It’s incredible,” said Cuss—“incredible. But the fact remains that I saw—I certainly saw right down his sleeve—”
“But did you—are you sure? Suppose a mirror, for instance— hallucinations are so easily produced. I don’t know if you have ever seen a really good conjuror—”
“I won’t argue again,” said Cuss. “We’ve thrashed that out, Bunting. And just now there’s these books—Ah! here’s some of what I take to be Greek! Greek letters certainly.”
He pointed to the middle of the page. Mr. Bunting flushed slightly and brought his face nearer, apparently finding some difficulty with his glasses. Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at the nape of his neck. He tried to raise his head, and encountered an immovable resistance. The feeling was a curious pressure, the grip of a heavy, firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to the table. “Don’t move, little men,” whispered a voice, “or I’ll brain you both!” He looked into the face of Cuss, close to his own, and each saw a horrified reflection of his own sickly astonishment. (From Chapter 11, p. 73-76)
I thought that section was quite good when I first read it--the way it suddenly changes from the innocent humor of the Vicar and Mr. Cuss to the cold scary malice of the invisible man.
As you keep reading through that section, the tone changes again several more times between humor and scary in a way that I thought was very skillful.
**********************************
When it comes to classic monsters, the invisible man is in many ways the least impressive of the bunch. After all, he doesn't have any superhuman strength or special powers. He's just invisible. That's not really that deadly.
And yet, horror fiction has never been about what how potentially deadly the monster can be. Successful horror fiction is about how well the monster taps into our brain's primordial fear centers (****).
The idea that an adversary can be hidden somewhere in the room, unseen and unseeable, and can jump out to attack us at any moment is something that definitely triggers our primitive panic impulses. (I suppose their must be an evolutionary fear trigger here--the fear of unseen predators lurking in the bushes.)
There are a couple scenes in this book where H.G. Wells expertly plays on the panic of knowing the invisible man is out to get you, but not knowing where he is.
The “Jolly Cricketers” is just at the bottom of the hill, where the tram-lines begin. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and conversed in American with a policeman off duty.
“What’s the shouting about!” said the anaemic cabman, going off at a tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. “Fire, perhaps,” said the barman.
Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the neck of his coat torn open, rushed in, made a convulsive turn, and attempted to shut the door. It was held half open by a strap.
“Coming!” he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. “He’s coming. The ’Visible Man! After me! For Gawd’s sake! ’Elp! ’Elp! ’Elp!”
“Shut the doors,” said the policeman. “Who’s coming? What’s the row?” He went to the door, released the strap, and it slammed. The American closed the other door.
“Lemme go inside,” said Marvel, staggering and weeping, but still clutching the books. “Lemme go inside. Lock me in—somewhere. I tell you he’s after me. I give him the slip. He said he’d kill me and he will.”
“You’re safe,” said the man with the black beard. “The door’s shut. What’s it all about?”
“Lemme go inside,” said Marvel, and shrieked aloud as a blow suddenly made the fastened door shiver and was followed by a hurried rapping and a shouting outside. “Hullo,” cried the policeman, “who’s there?” Mr. Marvel began to make frantic dives at panels that looked like doors. “He’ll kill me—he’s got a knife or something. For Gawd’s sake—!”
“Here you are,” said the barman. “Come in here.” And he held up the flap of the bar.
Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was repeated. “Don’t open the door,” he screamed. “Please don’t open the door. Where shall I hide?”
“This, this Invisible Man, then?” asked the man with the black beard, with one hand behind him. “I guess it’s about time we saw him.”
The window of the inn was suddenly smashed in, and there was a screaming and running to and fro in the street. The policeman had been standing on the settee staring out, craning to see who was at the door. He got down with raised eyebrows. “It’s that,” he said. The barman stood in front of the bar-parlour door which was now locked on Mr. Marvel, stared at the smashed window, and came round to the two other men. (from Chapter 16, page 100-102)
The scene goes on, but you get the idea. There's also an extended confrontation at the end of the book which is also well done, and also plays on that creepy feeling of knowing the invisible man is there somewhere, but not knowing exactly where he is.
**** Actually while I'm on the topic, I can resist mentioning a different book which I think played very well on the contradiction between what is actually deadly, and what our primitive brains find scary: The Werewolf of Paris. The whole book the reader is focused on the werewolf attacks, and then, at the very end of the book, the narrator suddenly pulls back to ask: Why are we so focused on this werewolf, which has only killed a handful of people, when the government of Paris is killing 20,000 people by firing squads?
Links
* An interesting Youtube video on H.G. Wells: The History of Sci Fi - H.G. Wells - Extra Sci Fi - #2 by Extra Credits. They briefly mention The Invisible Man, and call it Wells' anti-libertarian novel because the invisible man's rejection of society for personal gain leaves him weaker than the weakest of us.
* The Intellectuals and the Masses by John Carey devotes 2 whole chapters to the works of H.G. Wells, but, unfortunately, mentions The invisible Man only very briefly. John Carey claims that some of Wells' other books appear to endorse the Nietzschean idea of the superior individual, but...
But in other stories--The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr Moreau, The Country of the Blind--the superiority of the singular individual is by no means apparent. The murderous, invisible Griffin and the crazed vivisectionist Moreau are prodigies that seem to endorse the ordinary man's suspicion of ruthless scientific genius (p.138)
8 out of 10 stars. Granted it's just a silly science fiction story, but you have to judge these things against what the author set out to do, and for what he was trying to do, Wells succeeded wonderfully. It's borderline 9 stars, but I'm taking one point off for the pacing issues.
