The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Two goats were grazing on a rubbish dump.  One goat came across an open can of motion picture film and started chewing on the film that had spilled out.  After a while, the second goat asked the first 'How is it?'  The first goat replied 'I enjoyed the book better.'

It's like that, isn't it?  Sometimes the book is better, sometimes the film is better.

I have very fond memories of the 1960 film of The Time Machine starring Rod Taylor as the Time Traveller and Yvette Mimieux as Weena, which I first saw when I was quite young.  I remember being struck by the exotic set designs and by the design of the time machine.  Also, while the scary bits of the film didn't scare me, it did have me sitting on the edge of my seat with curiosity as the Time Traveller edged his way into the near future through a number of vignettes showing us the unfolding 20th Century that we knew and an apocalyptic vision of a nuclear war that was to come (remember, it was the 1960s and there was a Cold War brewing).  The Time Traveller then jumps into the far future to the year 802,701 CE.  Here we are shown a utopian society and the awful truth that underlies it.  There is some derring-do, and then the Time Traveller escapes back to the present day and to his friends.

How different the book is.  There is no vision of the future other than the awful year 802,701, and beyond that the vision of a dying earth under a bloated red and giant sun.  It is a dystopian vision.  The Time Traveller tells his circle of friends: 

I grieved to think how brief the dream of the human intellect had been.  It had committed suicide.  It had set itself steadfastly towards comfort and ease, a balanced society with security and permanency as its watchword, it had attained its hopes - to come to this at last.

The Time Traveller argues that change, danger and uncertainty are necessary to keep us recognisably human.  It is an argument that Robert Graves echoes in Seven Days in New Crete.  Also, that there is a ferocious animal side to human nature is a theme Wells revisited in The First Men in the Moon.

The Time Machine is a well-written story.  The narrative moves along briskly, the description and exposition are vivid without being either purple or boring.  The argument in the book is disappointingly brief, and it is a pity the body of the book is so monopolised by threat and violence, when it could have been so much more.  Wells himself admits that the body of the story is perhaps less substantial than the opening chapters.  Still, as a story that was whipped up in a brief period when the author was between jobs, it is not too bad (and being short it can be read in an afternoon).

Would I read it again?  No.  Am I glad that I read it?  Yes, and it has made me long to see the movie again.

I read the Penguin edition which contained a thoughtful and interesting introduction by Marina Warner.

Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad

Inspiration is a funny thing: I find that my motivation for reading Joseph Conrad came more from the Alien series of movies (Ridley Scott named his spacecrafts after ships in Conrad's novels) than it did from the more conspicuous Apocalypse Now (a modernised vision of Heart of Darkness).  And I chose to read Lord Jim after I saw a cartoon drawing of some castaways floating on a raft.  Yes, sometimes my choices are as capricious as that!

Lord Jim is a story of redemption.  The eponymous protagonist of this story (we never do learn his last name) is confronted with a crisis and then has a serious lapse in judgement.  The consequences of Jim's actions are twofold: firstly,  he is publicly humiliated and branded a coward; secondly, he has to try to reconcile the person he knows himself to truly be with the man who panicked in a crisis, and this eventually leads to his death and to his redemption.

Conrad's narrator Marlow ( who appeared in Heart of Darkness) spends the greater part of the novel dissecting and re-dissecting Jim's action, character and mental state.  It is as though he is in pursuit of the true and tangible core of any human being; however, he finds nothing but doubt and mystery.  Marlow's motivation for doing this is simple: in Jim he recognises himself and his audience.  On at least six occasions he says of Jim: "he was one of us".  Sailor? Whiteman? Human?

While the unrelenting analysis of Jim's character and situation did get a touch wearisome, Conrad was able at times to produce intense prose capable of lifting the reader out of the narrative and onto new planes of thought.  Here are two examples:

To fling away your daily bread so as to get your hands free for a grapple with a ghost may be an act of prosaic heroism ... and men who had eaten and meant to eat every day had applauded the creditable folly ...  He was indeed unfortunate, for all his recklessness could not carry him out from under the shadow.  There was always a doubt of his courage ... but what I could never make up my mind about was whether his line of conduct amounted to shirking his ghost or to facing him.  (Page 147)

 Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds.  I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your imaginations to feed your bodies.  I do not mean to be offensive; it is respectable to have no illusions -- and safe -- and profitable -- and dull.  Yet you, too, in your time must have known the intensity of life, that light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as the glow of sparks struck from a cold stone -- and as short-lived, alas! (p.166)

I am very glad to have read this book by Joseph Conrad.  I found it challenging and thought-provoking, and the prose was a joy to read.

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

The Man Who Was Thursday is a very interesting novella.  I have not read one that is quite like it.  Here is the rub: if I say too much, I spoil the strategy and novelty that Chesterton has employed to make for an interesting and thought-provoking story.

I suppose it is safe enough to say that Gabriel Syme, a poet, is introduced to a dangerous and clandestine organisation operating in London and Europe.  The more he becomes entangled with the members of this group, the weirder and more dangerous become the events that entangle his life.

Chesterton moves the action rapidly from basements to backstreets, from coffee shops to vacant fields, with a deft hand.  The action rises surely and steadily, culminating in a hectic climax.  This is followed by an unsettling denouement in which Chesterton's devices are fully revealed.

I am glad I read this story.  Of course, the ending won't appeal to everyone; but if you are looking for a short, fast-paced thriller with a difference, here it is.