The Time Machine

by  

H.G. Wells

My Rating: 3/5

Genre: Sci Fi, Dystopia

Finished on: 20th June, 2021

Funny thing about this book is, as I kept reading, I felt the story was way too familiar. Almost as if I anticipated what was coming already.

How could that be? I have not read this book before. Did I dream all of it at some point? Am I a psychic?

Only.. for me to find out (after Google search), that it has been adapted to a movie which I have already seen.

Honestly, I felt so stupid. Although I have seen it years ago (which justifies why I did not immediately remember) but having not being able to recognize while I read is very.. stupid of me.

Anyway, I remember enjoying the movie. Not in the sense that it was a great story, but it was definitely unique. Not a typical "Time Machine" story. So I knew what to expect from the book. 

But did I enjoy reading it now..?

Let me tell you that.

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Initially it took me some time to understand what's going on. In the movie the Protagonist had a name (or so I think?), but in the book he was simply "The Time Traveler". And he has a meeting with few folks (namely the Psychologist, Filby, Mayor,  young man, medical man? etc.).

And this book started with some great scientific explanation about time and space.

Something along the lines that he (the time traveler) is a ‌3D representation of his Four-Dimensioned being, which is a fixed and unalterable thing.. what? 🤯

I mean we have heard of this theory, did we not, that 4D space is nothing but time?

Now I mean throughout that space, throughout our time of past, present and future, at any given time, we are just the 3D representation of our 4D self. You see? Get it? It's okay if you don't. It's complex as is.

So The Time Traveler keeps talking, and he tells one point which is actually great. If things are time traveling, should we be able to see those things time to time in around us in the future as they travel? To elaborate it a bit further, imagine something is being sent from 30 minutes ago to 2 hours from present time. As it travels, do you see a flash of it in your present time as it time travelled? According to his theory, we do and we should. And everyone listening are amazed by it.

In the book, the time traveler has travelled the future, and this entire book is basically his narration of his story from his future.. or supposedly dystopian future?

Which brings me to another point, I was told this is a dystopian genre, which confused me. Shouldn't it be simply Sci Fi? Time travelling and all? But as I read, it started to make sense.

It IS a dystopian story.

So he begins by telling, when he time travelled, whatever he saw, he did not like it. It was eerily quiet, and no sign of any technology. He wasn't even sure if it was the future which he travelled, it looked like a very distant past. No sign of any human life.

He was almost scared, and runs to his machine to return to his time when he notices a figure.. finally.

Human like but their behavior told otherwise. In the book those people were called "Eloi".

The time traveler then realized, maybe he did travel into the future, but this future is probably thousands or millions of years from present time. Where technology was either not developed further, or worse, it got completely wiped out and they are starting from scratch.

"A flow of disappointment rushed across my mind. For a moment I felt that I had built the Time Machine in vain."

Here this scientist thought the future folks would be smarter than humans, and expected to learn advanced technology or scientific stuff from the future humans, but alas, much to his disappointment, not only there is no sign of any technological advancement but the humans at that time can't seem to properly communicate at all. Even with each other.

‌"They would come to me with eager cries of astonishment, like children, but like children they would soon stop examining me and wander away after some other toy."

Yeah. Humans.

So The Time Traveler tells us the year he has travelled to. It's 802701 AD. 

And he describes the community at that time as equivalent to Communism.

Where nobody seems to have any upper or lower class. Everyone seems to be wandering together, eating and sleeping together in one place.

In the narration, H.G. Wells suggests us that the new golden age he has entered — despite the fact that there is no private property — is a nightmare. In depicting the classless society of the future, Wells parodies the relationship between humans and the animals they eat.

The whole world will be intelligent, educated, and co-operating. This is Wells’s idea of what will result if his notions of industrial socialism and the unification of labor and production take effect. There will be no families, no nations, no patriotism, no religion.

Witnessing all this, even if the Time Traveler wish to return to his time, he could not as his time machine magically disappears. It's gone. And with this, he also notices one another thing, there is no sign of any wild animals around.

Where are they? Are they all extinct?

"There were no shops, no workshops, no sign of importations among them. They spent all their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going."

And tbh, I liked this way of living. No jealousy with anyone, or wondering who is superior/inferior to them. No stealing or begging for resources or bothering with who owns what and deciding who deserves to own what. Simply eat, play, sleep, repeat.

How cool is that?

Not many might agree, and I'm not here to start any debate so let's continue.

But there was a catch too, not only were they playful and mostly in their own world, they don't care one bit about what's happening around them. One could be drowning in front of them in the river, and they'll simply be curious about it. 🤷

So as mentioned earlier, the humans/Eloi folks were not communicating with him properly. Except for one.

Weena.

Now she isn't a woman who took a fancy to him as a woman. She was simply fascinated by him.

OR let me scratch my words. She did took a fancy to him, but not as a mature woman. The Eloi folk acted as children, so you can consider even Weena to be the little girl who suddenly happens to be curious about and admire the time traveler guy.

And The Time Traveler guy, albeit a scientist, is STILL a guy. So he proceeds and flirts with her, temporarily.

So since he finally has a companion to try and understand their lifestyle more, he learns one more thing. They are all afraid (very much afraid) of dark. They make it a point to immediately rush to their residing place once it gets dark.

And even the time traveler notices some figures when it got dark. It seemed like some white figures were wandering around. But he couldn't be so sure.

And one day he manages to notice them clearly when the sun was too close to the earth, they were creatures yes. but not completely animals. They looked white human like ape, the author has named them "Morlocks".

And from the looks of it, they don't seem nice.

The time traveler starts making assumptions. Clearly there are two species here now, one Eloi and the other Morlocks. But the Time Traveler thinks (or rather assumes) the Eloi are the masters and the Morlocks their slaves, probably as Eloi get to wander around in the day, enjoy the food and sleep peacefully in the shelter whereas the Morlocks are hiding somewhere around?

But the Time Traveler does not realize that the Eloi are nothing more than food for the Morlocks.

Yes.

And the theory of Eloi being afraid of dark makes complete sense here. Eloi rule in the daylight, Morlock dominate in the dark.

The moment the sun sets, Morlocks come out and hunt for food, and since they don't find anyone except for Eloi...

Do the math. Eloi becomes their food.

No wonder they immediately rush to their residing place once it gets dark.

And here The Time Traveler understands, since he has tried finding his time machine every nook and cranny of the place, the only possibility left is that the Morlocks have taken possession of it.

Now he is determine to leave the place, and he needs his time machine for that, so he bravely goes underground where the Morlocks would be present. [Not sure what he was thinking by just barging in unprepared.]

So when he does, he could sense them, and vice versa. They are probably confused too to find the food come knocking at their place.

So they grab him hesitantly at first, later they gained the confidence and started dragging him inside to butcher him and prepare their platter. That scared him enough to break free from their hold and rush back the way he came from.. only to fall unconscious once he reached above the ground.

It was at this point that I realized all this seems wayyy too familiar, only to realize I have already seen the movie years ago which is based off this book. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The movie wasn't exactly identical though. The Eloi folk in the movie were mature enough, and the woman protagonist was among the talented ones who somehow knew how to communicate in English. So she was translator for them.

Here in the book forget English, The Eloi don't communicate with each other too. And they also act childish.

Both of which points have already been covered in this review so it would be wise if I simply proceed.

So yeah. The brave time traveler realizes how stupid he really was and realization is dawned on him that he is scared of Morlocks after all. Just like Eloi. And he is scared of the upcoming new moon too as when they come out, there would be no way of sensing/seeing them wander around. They could be beside you and you'll never know. 🤫

"Ages ago, thousands of generations ago, man had thrust his brother man out of the ease and the sunshine. And now that brother was coming back—changed!"

With this, we understand one thing. Whatever might have happened in between our present time and this future time, somewhere and sometime one side of humans stayed underground. And remained there for years, such that, they lost their sense of humanity (literally), and turned into creatures. Creatures who can't communicate, can't think, have no intelligence whatsoever.. they only know how to grab food and eat for survival.

Much like animals.

And another point, all this explanation was actually given in the movie (oh Spoiler alert!) but not in the book. Watching the movie beforehand made me understand the book.

Orr in case the book actually explained all this stuff, then maybe I was too dumb to understand?

Either way.. the point remains the same. That's how we now have two species, bred from same humankind.

So since he needs a plan to take back his time machine, and planning takes time, the time traveler utilizes this time to get to know Weena more. And vice versa.

‌"My pockets had always puzzled Weena, but at the last she had concluded that they were an eccentric kind of vase for floral decoration ."

Weena is cuute, tbh. After this she legit started putting flowers in the time traveler's pockets. Which he has kept saved when he returned too (remember, this entire story is his narration), and he wistfully looks at the flower as that is the ONLY proof he ever travelled to the future.

The one and only.

"These flowers, which Weena stuffed into his jacket pockets, are the only evidence of his journey."

The time traveler spends time with Weena during the day, and returns to Wimbledon (the place where the Eloi stay) by the night.

At night, he gets philosophical about the time.

He wonders how in all these years, the mankind has forgotten science, speech, culture, everything.

He wonders how in all these years, the precessional cycle has taken place 40 times already,

[Wiki time: Precessional cycle is basically a gradual change in orientation of the earth's axis itself as it changes slowly, veryy slowly at an angle and completes the change in orientation after every 26000 years. So in all this time he has time travelled, it has already happened 40 times.]

And thus he spends the days, he spends the night, and eventually comes the new moon. The time traveler goes and hides in a hill to avoid the Morlocks, as it's during this time they are too confident to wander around freely everywhere. They even start capturing the Eloi while they are asleep.

And since he is hiding in the hill, nothin much happens.

At dawn, he wanders around and finds a museum. He got pretty excited about it as this is the closest thing to a civilization which he could fine. Now, a museum has GOT to have some stuff right? Which might explain their past?

But alas he doesn't find much, so he sticks around trying to collect supplies which will be helpful to him later on.

He finds and gathers supplies which will be helpful in producing a flame - Matches, Camphor, etc. And on his way back, he carries twigs and dry grass. Since Morlocks are afraid of daylight, surely lighting a fire is one way he could scare the Morlocks away in the darkness. And while he was at it, he realized one thing..  Eloi never produced fire. 

😐

I mean, what will our ancestors think, that yeaaars later, generations down the line, their descendants are going to forget the very first thing which they had first learnt to cook food. Leave about forgetting, they should at least make our ancestors proud by discovering again, maybe? 🤷🏻‍♀️

So yeah, the time traveler hatches a plan to make use of fire in scaring the Morlocks and getting his time machine back. 

But alas.. things don't go too well. This part was bit too quick for me to understand. 

They are travelling at night when suddenly many Morlocks ambush them. Although the time traveler manages to scare the Morlocks away by lighting his twig on fire, however it gets a bit out of control and there's fire.. everywhere. Some Morlocks gets injured, some are still too determined to take them.

And that's what happened. 

Too many Morlocks start approaching them, one pulls his hand while the other pulls his legs. They drag him and Weena away separately. it seemed very chaotic. 

When somehow the time traveler managed to escape from their grasp and rush to find Weena, he sees her lying.. dead.

It isn't clear to me even now as to how she died. Did Morlock's eat her? Or did the fire take her out?

I don't remember the book describing any sign of injuries or burn marks in her body.

She simply just.. dies.

RIP Weena :(

The time traveler mourns. As Weena was the only person from Eloi whom he had a connection with. And now she's gone.

And with her gone, he is even more determined to return home. He watches the place and Eloi one last time from the hill and falls asleep.

He wakes up near the time of sunset and goes to the White Sphinx place (the place where he first landed on after travelling here), and finds that his time machine is trapped inside the White Sphinx.

He had anticipated that his machine could be inside, but earlier the opening was closed. And now it seems to be open.

He enters, and gets inside his time machine, to find himself trapped by Morlocks (no surprise there, why else would the opening suddenly be opened? 🤨)

They were closing in on him when he manages to start the machine in the nick of time.

Finally, he is out of this place.

And from here on, things were slightly interesting for me. There isn't much left of the book anyway :P

This time, he doesn't come back to the present, but goes further into the future now. We witness many things, many interesting things.

There was a point the earth stops rotating, and then another time in which there were crab like creatures in existence (Now, where did they come from :/ They weren't even present in the Eloi time!), those crab like creatures were approaching to devour him when he travels again. He wanted to see the fate of the earth, maybe wanted to travel until earth ceases to exist anymore?

Then in another time, there were no creatures, eclipse happens, the entire planet is very dark save for the light from the stars.

Then travels again. In this time, he sees a beach which is dead red. Why is it red, we'll never know. But one significant thing about this visit is that the time traveler notices someone hopping in the dead red beach. 

Before he could comprehend what he had just seen, he starts his time machine again.

And finally, finaallyy, he returns to present time.

Here's another interesting part

“And yet, not exactly! The thing had started from the south-east corner of the laboratory. It had come to rest again in the north-west, against the wall where you saw it. That gives you the exact distance from my little lawn to the pedestal of the White Sphinx, into which the Morlocks had carried my machine."

Interesting, isn't it? He means during his entire travelling through time, he was at the exact same coordinates in every time. 

He started from one corner, and returned in another corner which was the same distance the Morlocks had carried it in the future time.

If you think about, this piece of land (which has his laboratory on top of) will eventually be a grassy land having a White Sphinx on it, and then eventually red crabs like creature are going to be around, and years later the same land is going to be a red beach and - well, you get it.

So we are almost nearing the end of the book. The time traveler finishes his story and goes to take some rest. And the actual narrator of the book, who was narrating the time traveler's actions and his story, wraps it up.

In the book the main narrator calls himself as "I", and this is what they have to say at the end..

"At that I understood. At the risk of disappointing Richardson I stayed on, waiting for the Time Traveller; waiting for the second, perhaps still stranger story, and the specimens and photographs he would bring with him. But I am beginning now to fear that I must wait a lifetime. The Time Traveller vanished three years ago. And, as everybody knows now, he has never returned."

The End.

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Considering this book to be written in 1895, it's a great one. Coming up with theories of what were to happen to the world in the far far future, and making us ponder over that with the help of time machine.. it's actually great.

However, considering my own interests, I found this to be sort of mediocre type. 

The title felt like a clickbait (or titlebait?), it was less about the time travelling and more about how the society can be turned into in given time. And that's how the genre "Dystopia" is justified here.

If you think about it, the Eloi lived in Utopian world, no hatred or jealousy, simply love, fun and happiness. It's too good to be true. Only the existence of Morlocks made it very dystopian like story.

Anyway. So yeah, this book didn't meet my expectation and gets a 3/5 from my side.

But the idea and concept got some gears turning in my head into thinking about this, seriously, how WILL the future be like?

Do you know?

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Quote from the book:

Face this world. Learn its ways, watch it, be careful of too hasty guesses at its meaning. In the end you will find clues to it all.

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