Review: The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

I really enjoyed reading this classic.

What is incredible is how someone from Victorian England could have contrived such a gripping modern sci-fi. The prodigious story is knotted together through Wells' inspiration, ingenuity and the intensity of his plot. Most of the novel depicts the narrator's anxiety to locate his missing wife, against whom he had been unintentionally separated at the outset. This makes for a pleasing ending. Otherwise, from the unnerving horror of the martians to the depths of human despair; I felt Wells really takes us on wild ride (his favorite word in the novel being 'tumultuous').

My first exposure to The War of the Worlds is the Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise film which I thought was a terrific film. What is particularly striking is just how faithful that blockbuster was to Well's masterpiece.

Written in the style of a narrated diary, I was drawn to his plight, alienation and weariness. Wells gives us some deep reflections on the broader plight of mankind. For example, I really enjoyed the subtle intuition that the protagonist says to a clergyman - who having survived the initial annihilation - who starts beseeches 'what sins have we done?'. The response:

"You are scared out of your wits! What good is religion if it collapses under calamity? Think of what earthquakes and floods, wars and volcanoes, have done before to men! Did you think God had exempted Weybridge? He is not an insurance agent."

Haha. Love it. One of the most misconceived aspects of the monotheistic religions is the latent assumption that the natural world - from weather conditions to tectonic activity - occurs specifically for and about us, as its subject. But, stepping back, and looking at the natural world and physical laws that govern it; one gets a radically different perspective. Instead, death and suffering is the norm; and a part of everything. Life is a constant struggle of survival, and even stars die. I think Wells taps into a serious misunderstanding people have about death and our perception of ourselves in the world. He is fond of evoking the image of hapless bees and ants being massacred, or rabbits facing a bulldozer, or a rat scurrying. What is the point? I think Well's wants us to pity those suffering who are different from us:

I, who had talked with God, crept out of the house like a rat leaving its hiding place ... Perhaps they also prayed confidently to God. Surely, if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity—pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion.

Then, I was struck by the convulsions in the story to the moral and psychological effect that the nightmare bears on the individual as well as the masses. The fleeing throngs of people is starkly depicted with an almost Biblical quality. London's population is fleeing northwards along cramped narrow roads amidst an eclectic miscellany of social classes, unanimous in fear, torment & hunger.

There's a cheerless incident involving a desperate man - in the midst of a marching throng - lunging to retrieve a heap of coins he had dropped. He narrowly avoids being crushed under a horse's hoof; only to hear a scream as the wheel passed over the poor creature's back. Thus, back-broken, he is then positioned at the side of the road still clutching his coins. In the film, there is a similar scene involving gunshots for the sake of a car.

Then, there are also the imaginative and inventive analytical details of clinical horror which are fascinating. For instance, incandescent heat-rays, poisonous black smoke, or that the martians are said to inject their 'food' into the blood streams (circumventing a digestive system). Similarly, the martian's reproduction process is some mitosis-like splitting into twos. Then, there is the suggestion that natural selection favoured a steady diminution of the martians nose, teeth, ears etc in favour of the brain. Immediately afterwards, the protagonist even wonders if "the Martians may be descended from beings not unlike ourselves". 

It's also interesting that the martians are eventually slain by the humble Earthly bacteria - and not some machinery or science, human intelligence or strength, or even divine providence. Even in the demise of our foe, humankind is rendered impotent and useless. I find that ending resonates with me. I think it speaks to the reckoning that chance and randomness ultimately bears on our continued existence in the solar system. The harsh reality that we are not in control.