Book Review: The Time Machine

      Try to think far into the future, as far as you can. H.G. Wells' The Time Machine teleports you straight into the future thousands of years from now, or according to the book it does. 

     I remember that I was once told that ,”The past is a strange, distant land.”  That might not be exactly what was said, but the general affect is still given.  H.G. Wells published The Time Machine in 1895, which can easily be picked out by the writing style that H.G. Wells uses.  I feel a slight air of dislike for the writing style that H.G. Wells writes in, but I remember that his style was the normal in his time.  Some of the vocabulary can become confusing because many are no longer used in the same way.  Even though the vocabulary may be strange, the words used seem to better get a point across about the mood than I think normal writing would.  An exert from The Time Machine reads, “The Eloi, like the Carlovingian kings, had decayed to a mere beautiful futility.  They still possessed the earth of sufferance...”  If it were not for the footnotes on each page to help me to translate and understand some of the words, there is no doubt that I would have read this passage differently than was intended.

       It must have taken a vast amount of imagination to think up the environments of The Time Machine.  The present day surroundings would not seem that odd to us even in this time.  When the Time Traveler moves through time though, the area opens wide to vibrant and sometimes scary future.  As the Time Traveler traveled, he thought to have seen many amazing advancements, “I saw great and splendid architecture rising about me, more massive than any buildings of our own time, and yet, as it seemed, built of glimmer and mist.”  We are left to our own imagination to think of the advanced buildings.  As the Time Traveler stops moving through time, he finds himself first in a dim world occupied by a single sphinx statue.  This world opens to be what could almost be described as a strange paradise.  However, beneath this paradise is later recognized as a grim situation between fellow man.  The final known setting of The Time Machine is simply barren land.  The description given by H.G. Wells gives the feeling of depression or giving up and letting what will happen happen.

     The Time Machine, I believe, could easily be the definition of Science-Fiction because of its ability to draw imaginatively on scientific knowledge and speculation.  I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys Sci-Fi or who delights in looking deep into a story to pull out different meanings.