What might become of us all

The Time Machine by HG Wells is a classic early science fiction story. I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by Roger Luckhurst. It’s a short book which might perhaps be better considered as a novella.

The story follows a pattern which I have noticed in books of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in that the adventure is reported to other characters rather than the narrative actually concentrating on the story itself. Sometimes this is done in diaries but in this book it is the time traveller who tells the story to his friends. A similar structure is used in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (see my review here), She by H Rider Haggard (see my review here) and The Strange Tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stephenson. Telling a story this way distances the reader from the story although I don’t think that it stops engagement and enjoyment.

The time traveller is an inventor who travels very far into the future of earth. He finds that civilisation has broken down and the world is divided into two groups – the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi live well but are preyed on by the Morlock. The Eloi are the descendants of the upper classes and the Morlock are descended from the working classes. This turnover of what they regard as the natural order is unsettling to the traveller and his friends.

The book consists mostly of the time traveller telling his story to his friends (they are all men of standing in their community) who don’t believe him at first but come to regard his tale as a dire warning about the dangers of progress. The traveller becomes involved with a female Eloi who understands her society better than he does but for whom he feels responsible. He understands what is happening because of his friendship with Weena but he has to battle the Morlock and find his way home by himself.

This is a book where the main character is strong and manly and able to overcome adversity and protect the innocent. It is, of course, a book of its time. Nevertheless it’s very enjoyable to read and the author gives us a vivid and interesting view of a possible future that he envisages.