"The Time Machine" by H.G. Wells

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It’s incredible how *not* dated it is. I was surprised to hear a discussion of time-space equivalency, how time is just another dimension in physics, 10 years before Einstein’s theory of relativity! (it was my belief that “spacetime” was popularized only after Einstein’s physics revolution, but now I know better). I was equally surprised by his use of evolution in all of its nuances as such a fundamental part of the plot.

Of course, he doesn’t get it right: evolution works way too fast on his story, and a few things aren’t quite right regarding how stars work, among other things. But the biggest problem are his ideas of how society and people work. A lot of the story revolves around the premise that the higher classes are better, in general, than the working poor - not just better in terms of how well they are doing, or how schooled, prepared, etc… Actually better, in some innate sense, such that the poor could never rise above their stations because they lack something. That the poor do the hard work because they are better suited for it, they even like it, they are happy to do the hard labor. Wells devotes a lot of pages to describing his ideas of society, and speculations on how it will evolve in the future. Maybe it’s part of an elitism inherent to 19th century England, but it was irksome. At the end, though, the dynamics between the Eloi and the Morlocks might be pointing that exploitation of the workers will lead to disaster, and some social justice is served.

Despite the long, sometimes repetitive and boring monologues, it was not a bad read.


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