Book Review 3: The Time Machine

The Time Machine, by HG Wells, is worlds apart from my usual read (I'm not a sci-fi kinda gal) but it was a nice little breather from the heavy reads I so love. Why, Silly Little Lady, what on earth made you choose such a book? I hear you ask. Well, my lovely inquisitive audience, I'll tell you why. One Christmas many moons ago, an even littler Silly Little Lady strayed away from her crowd of festive relatives in order to fetch something or other. She happened to glance at the TV, and found herself lost in the most enchanting tale of Eloi and Morlocks and the ever lovely Weena. She could hardly tear her eyes away from the Time Traveller's antics, and lost most of the afternoon engrossed, while her family was nearly about to file a missing persons ad. I do believe that a story that can tear a child away from her brand-spanking-new Santy presents on Christmas morning is one worth taking a little time to get to know. That, and I had a 'book set in the future' box just begging to be ticked off on my 2015 Book Challenge.

The Time Machine is simply about a unnamed time traveller (unless Time Traveller was a popular English name in the late 1800s) who begins to tell his sceptical acquaintances (can you blame them?) all about his awe-inspiring experiences in the year 802,701.

As a piece of literature, this is pretty basic. The writing style is simplistic, the characters undeveloped, but it's the plot that saves this classic. It's this novel that is alleged to have made the idea of time travel popular, and Wells even considers some interesting philosophies about future civilisations, and muses the purpose of intellect in nature: "It is a law of nature we overlook, that intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger, and trouble. An animal perfectly in harmony with its environment is a perfect mechanism. Nature never appeals to intelligence until habit and instinct are useless. There is no intelligence where there is no change and no need of change." It's thought-provoking ideas like this that many futuristic novels and movies today lack, and instead stick to the tried and tested. Y'see, time travel, I can take it or leave it, but when you turn time travel into a hypothesis of the future of humanity, count me in.

Overall, I did enjoy this novel, as silly and little as it is. As far as recommendations go, if you're looking for a nice little 2 hour read that'll give you a short break from tragedies and tearjerkers, and don't mind a kids book type read, go ahead and give The Time Machine a go.