H.G. Wells is often praised for being a pioneer in the field of science fiction. While I think his foresight and imagination are commendable, the fact that Wells was one of the first to write of alien invasions and time machines and so on has nothing to do with my love of his work.
I love H.G. Wells because he takes general story premises and structures them around ideas that are not only incredibly intelligent, but weird, mysterious, spooky, and cool by any modern’s standards. For example, in The War of the Worlds, the reader encounters alien invaders in the landscape of Victorian England. Now, given the time period in which Wells was writing, this might not seem as intentional and therefore impressive, but even so, the atmosphere he creates with this juxtaposition of futuristic science fiction and contemporary (for him) horse-and-buggy England is at once incongruous and prophetically mystifying. Another example comes with his following evolution to its most extreme end in The Time Machine, where the future of humanity finds two races--one dominant, lazy, and sickeningly happy and loving in their world of ease and comfort, the other a subterranean-dwelling race of monsters who are subservient to the happy race that walks in sunshine. A final example is the way in which Wells takes the idea for an invisible man (guess which novel?) and makes him an unapologetic bastard. All of these are general ideas--an alien invasion, a time machine, an invisible man--but Wells comes up with certain twists that render the stories freakish anomalies that transport the reader into territories never before experienced in book or real life.
I recently finished reading The Island of Dr. Moreau, and while it has taken me a rambling paragraph and a half to get to it, my point in this entry is to explore in some brief detail the genius idea that takes the mad scientist trope to the next level in this 1896 Wells novel.
To briefly summarize without giving anything away, I think it is sufficient to say that a man (our narrator) out on the open sea is at the mercy of an unmerciful ship captain and ends up stranded on a strange island where Dr. Moreau and his lackey are involved in experiments creating a grotesque and various race of Beast Folk. I think that sums up the premise well enough.
The brilliant twist in The Island of Dr. Moreau is the way in which the story becomes a religious model with man playing the part of god. I realize this does not initially sound like so much--almost every mad scientist in literature or film has a god complex. But Wells literally manages to create a vast, panoramic prototype of Western religion, Christianity in particular.
Let me offer some specific examples:
1) There is, first and most obviously, Moreau, who in his creation of the Beast Folk falls into the role of God. This role is deepened and further put into conversation with Christianity when after his death Prendick insists on his ascension and non-death. He tells the Beast Folk that Moreau can still see them and hear all that they say and will be back someday. Even Moreau himself insists that while Prendick is the materialist he is the religious man.
2) Prendick can be viewed as the general wayfarer caught between opposing forces, unsure of what to believe. At times he does seem to view Moreau as a god, at other times as a devil.
3) The Sayer of the Law is Wells’s version of Moses come down from the mountain, bringing the Beast Men a series of commandments that, if upheld, will keep their fledgling humanity intact (“Not to go on all Fours; that is the Law. Are we not Men?” / “Not to eat Flesh nor Fish; that is the Law. Are we not Men?”).
4) The Leopard Man is the Adam figure, who, in eating the flesh of a rabbit, brings about the Fall and triggers the reversion back to beast.
5) The House of Pain is Moreau’s version of a temple, where the redeeming flames of pain burn clean the beasts and brand them with humanity.
6) Most of the Beast Folk play the part of disciples--M’ling to Montgomery and the Dog-Man to Prendick, for example.
There are probably other illustrations, but these are the most apparent to me. There are also other things I have not quite figured out but feel certain Wells intended them to mean something--what Montgomery and the puma represent in this prototype religion, among other things.
As I said before, the mad scientist thing isn’t new (even Shelley's Dr. Frankenstein and his infamous monster appeared some eighty years before this book), but the way in which Wells takes this stereotypical plot device and creates a strange and sinister cult of Moreau separates this novel from other similar science fiction and gives me yet another reason to love H.G. Wells.
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