Inspiring Older Readers
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
Originally published as a weekly magazine serial, The Invisible Man is one of those stories that’s been abridged, made into movies and become such an integral part of the culture that it almost feels that you don’t have to have read the actual book to be familiar with it. As is always the case with these pieces of imaginative common property the actual text is full of surprises and ideas that have somehow got left behind.
I suspect the popular appeal of the idea of invisibility – just think of all the things you could do – is an essentially juvenile one. Interestingly enough, this notion that there's something of the jolly jape about it does chime with the views of those critics who have claimed that the book is essentially for the same kind of audience that are fans of Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling who, as John Sutherland puts it, "essentially wrote boy's books for grown-ups." However, I think that would be too harsh a judgement here because Wells is keen to show us that there's a dark side to the fulfilment of these kinds of seemingly whimsical fantasies.
It’s largely fruitless to spend time considering what genre the book belongs to – in addition to claims that it is ‘young adult’ fiction there are those that would want a science fiction or horror label attached to it. In my view, it’s better to try and locate the story in Wells’ wider social and political vision and his concerns for how scientific progress will develop under capitalism and the impact of that on the well-being of the individual.
When a mysteriously dressed character turns up at an inn on a winter's night in English countryside, the owners of the hostelry are delighted to get out-of-season custom. But the behaviour of the stranger – Griffin – is the cause of growing speculation: why the constant need for a hat and what do the facial bandages hide? When, inevitably, the truth comes out, Griffin goes on the run and strong-arms a tramp – Thomas Marvel – into helping him. But Marvel proves to be unreliable and because of his treachery Griffin loses the vital books containing the details of his experiments in which he recorded how he had achieved invisibility.
It’s at this point that we start to get a deeper sense of just how unhinged Griffin has become as a result of what he’s been through. He fluctuates between self-pitying despair and uncontrollable raging fury and he vows to kill Marvel if he can get his hands on him.
Taking refuge in the house of Doctor Kemp, a man he once knew at college, Griffin unburdens himself and there’s a fairly lengthy exposition of the ‘science’ behind the invisibility. What is more important is that we’re given a fairly detailed insight into the invisible man’s psychology and just how unbalanced he has become. He tells Kemp about the euphoria he felt when his experiment seemed to have worked and explains that he thought he could use his new discovery to become a god, to accumulate money and how he roamed freely around the great shopping emporiums doing anything he wanted. But ultimately, he wanted more; much more.
He tries to recruit the doctor into his vision of a ‘Reign of Terror’ – a sort of Fascist leader fantasy - that he wants to establish across the nation and offers untold power and influence. But secretly, Kemp, seeing how dangerous Griffin has become, has informed the police who turn up to arrest him. He escapes vowing to make Kemp the first victim of his terror and it’s when he returns to carry out this sentence that he finds himself trapped by the villagers who have turned out to help Kemp. He’s viciously beaten to death and, as he dies, his visibility returns and he’s once more seen as a wretched naked figure lying prone on the ground.
In his fiction and his non-fiction writing, Wells kept returning to the notion of how uncomfortably rapid advances in science and technology sit with the conundrum of being human. He questions whether human beings are equipped culturally, psychologically and politically to deal with the power and the inevitable contradictions of power and he’s clearly sceptical that these circles can be squared. In a digital age – the third industrial revolution – these are questions that make The Invisible Man less science fiction or horror and much more a fable for our times.
The book hasn’t been out of print since its first publication in 1897 and cheap paperbacks and hardbacks are easily available and if you’ve only ever seen a film version it’s well worth the small investment.
Terry Potter
August 2019