The Invisible Man

In my quest to seek out and read more classic sci-fi, I recently read H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man.  The novel follows the last days of Griffin, a scientist who has discovered the means to turn himself invisible after he has fled London for the countryside to find a way to make himself visible again.  He tries to enlist the help of Kemp, a former classmate of his, who is horrified to learn of Griffin's wanton violence in the city.  Although Griffin wants to reverse the invisibility process and return to human society, he also revels in the advantages of invisibility and promises a "reign of terror" if he does not get the help he desires.
This novel continues a tradition of gothic sci-fi first pioneered by Mary Shelley in Frankenstein.  In fact, this is one book that helps to establish the mad scientist figure.  Like Victor Frankenstein and Herbert West (of H.P. Lovecraft's "Herbert West - Reanimator"), Griffin is a lone scientist practicing on the edges of established science.  Frankenstein and West both become obsessed with the dividing line between life and death while Griffin is interested in optics.  All three share a mania that pushes them to stretch their science beyond their own understanding that eventually leads to their own downfall.  All three of these tales may be interpreted as cautionary tales against obsession and, particularly, against the darker turn that science can take, though none of them seem to fault scientific curiosity itself but rather the odd-duck impulses of the solo practitioner.
Wells' narrative approach to this novel is equally interesting.  He opens the novel with a mysterious stranger, covered head to toe, arriving at an inn in Iping, a small village.  He demands privacy in his rooms, which only causes the landlords to take a greater interest in him.  What is peculiar about this introduction is that Wells seems to want to draw the reader into the mystery of who this man is and why he keeps himself covered.  This is a good narrative hook in itself, but is a bit ruined by the title of the novel.  Nevertheless, the action quickly escalates as Griffin faces exposure (as it were).
It isn't until Griffin finds Kemp that Wells backtracks and narrates, via Griffin's perspective, the process that he used to turn himself invisible.  In this re-telling, Griffin also relates the difficulties of invisibility despite its perceived advantages.  Just a few examples being his need to remain nude, inability to carry anything to avoid detection, and a need to avoid weather conditions common in England (rain, mist, snow).  Because of these restrictions, Griffin informs Kemp, it is impossible to use his invisibility for its most obvious purpose, theft.  Instead, Griffin tells him, it is perfect for murder since he can dodge attacks and approach from any angle.
At one point Kemp advises Griffin to throw himself onto the mercy of the country and allow himself to be cared for and examined by the scientific community.  In this way, Kemp seems to offer a remedy for all of those mad scientists of the world: return to the institutions.  This would also seem to be a way to re-direct the purpose of scientific investigation away from individual gain or hopes of glory back to that of the common good in adherence to the best intentions of the Enlightenment project.  Of course Wells does not make this explicit in the novel (nor do Lovecraft or Shelley, for that matter).
I knew the basic outline of The Invisible Man before sitting down to read it but I was surprised by the discussions between Griffin and Kemp in this light.  Wells firmly grasps the double-edged nature of science in this way.  He both saw its great potential and the dangers lurking in it.  This is a theme that he will continue to develop in some of his lesser-known work and that I will probably return to at some point in another post.

Lovecraft Baby

H.P. Lovecraft is a difficult author to write about right now for a variety of reasons.  For one, his work was relatively obscure for quite some years outside of pulp circles and he has only recently garnered major critical attention.  But this attention has brought other, less savory elements to light, leading to number two: his work is incredibly racist and xenophobic.  This isn't the focal point of the majority of it, but it is an undercurrent through most of his works (https://lithub.com/we-cant-ignore-h-p-lovecrafts-white-supremacy/ is a great take on this particular topic).  Third, and not insignificantly, he was not a great writer.  He was imaginative, certainly, but he had a lot of difficulties getting his visions onto the page.  His writing is so heavy and repetitive that it is nearly impenetrable at times.
I am not interested in defending Lovecraft's legacy (or arguing against it for that matter), but I have two observations about his work that I think are significant.  One is a mainstay in his writing that, I think, is redeeming in his writing in some measure.  The other is something that makes me like his writing even less.  All of this came about during my latest reading of his work, a collection titled The Call of the Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.
A lot of Lovecraft's stories are about isolation and trauma.  He writes many stories about a lone survivor who witnessed something that they are unable to assimilate into their normal frame of reference.  These witnesses are likely to have been present as violence was visited upon a friend or partner.  These witnesses often have difficulty reconciling their experiences with what they know of the world.  Knowledge of a certain kind sets them apart from others, and they often are distraught that others will now understand what they have experienced.  I actually find this element of Lovecraft's work to be sympathetic.  He understands the terror of isolation.  The trauma that his characters experience marks them in a way that we now understand trauma to mark certain people.
The other side of this is that knowledge is generally a bad thing for Lovecraft.  His characters go insane from their knowledge.  They kill themselves because they learn of things that others do not know and they make great attempts to hide knowledge themselves.  The whole mythos of Cthulhu rests upon the idea that knowledge of the the ancient alien race is enough to drive one insane.
One of the reasons that I like science fiction is that most of it wants to push the boundaries of what we know.  It can help us to look into ourselves to ask what is possible.  It can also look at the world around us and ask why it is this way.  Lovecraft isn't a sci-fi writer per se, but his weird fiction shares some elements with sci-fi that I came to it with some expectation of a similar ethos.  It wasn't there.  This collection of short fiction sought to teach me that the world around me was dangerous even to want to know about.  It tried to teach me that going to new places and exploring new ideas is dangerous.
I gave Lovecraft a few chances and I'm done.  He doesn't fill the bill for me because he wants to keep me fearful and small.  He can keep to his own small world with his likewise small-minded folks.  I want bigger ideas.
And better writing.

Here is a song by a band I really like about Lovecraft.  I do like this song (which is way creepier than anything Lovecraft wrote):
Lovecraft Baby

Unfinished Reviews, Part 1

What follows is a partial review/reaction to Stephen King's novel Revival that I wrote shortly after reading it when it came out in 2014.  This is unfinished for a variety of reasons but I like it because I muse a bit on the development of my reading life and the damage that high school English classes caused it.  Luckily, I was able to recover with the help of some great college professors who were more inclined to read books the way that I wanted to.

Revival, by Stephen King

As a young reader I took book suggestions from anyone willing to give them and I read nearly anything that seemed at all interesting.  It wasn’t until I was in high school that I began to learn that different authors were held in different esteem based on their perceived position along the “literature-pulp” axis.  This meant that I read an awful lot of genre fiction and novels that I was later taught were less worthy that what I might be reading.  High school was a horrible period in my reading life because those AP English classes encouraged me to look down on some books and authors, many of which are actually quite good, and work to dig the worth out of some boring books considered classics.  To be fair, there were also a lot of books that I hated in high school but have come to truly love on second readings.  

My early years in college continued in a similar vein and I stopped reading a lot of authors I enjoyed because they didn’t write the right kind of books.  It wasn’t until I was in graduate school, pursuing my Master’s in literature that I lost the last vestiges of this non-sensical way of reading literature.  I finally shook off the last bit of guilt I felt for reading horror, sci-fi, and crime books.  This happened when I re-read Stephen King’s The Shining.  The novel had its moments and was enjoyable overall.  But this isn’t about that book.

The book I recently finished is King’s 2014 novel Revival.  This novel blends elements of Lovecraft and Frankenstein with a coming-of-age/redemption story.  Jamie Morton, the narrator, relates the story of his relationship with Charles Jacobs, a one-time reverend who is obsessed with a secret occult power source that he discovers.  Jacobs draws Morton into his life at several points, at one time curing him of his heroin addiction using the secret power, and becomes more drawn into his secret researches all the while. Jacobs is a character like many in horror/sci-fi who is drawn to the sublimity of the unknown.  He finds a little-explored corner of knowledge that hints at bigger secrets to be discovered and begins to uncover an even greater power source beyond his control. King takes a play from Lovecraft’s book and sticks mainly to Morton’s reactions of terror than to the actual images of horror.  This keeps the horror more subjective and leaves more up to the reader to imagine.  

Revival is not my favorite King book.  I think he could have shaved off about 30% of the text and been left with a better novel.  A lot of Morton’s narration about his own life seems unnecessary and I spent a lot of time wanting to get to the main line of the story instead.  Morton thinks he is telling the story of Charlie Jacobs and his obsession with secret electricity, but he manages to get a lot about himself into it as well.  A bit more balance on this score would have made the book more enjoyable to read.