Book Review: ‘The Invisible Man’ By H.G. Wells

The Guardian describes Wells as "The godfather of science fiction'

It’s rare – in fact it’s extremely rare, that I get scared from reading a book. Films are scary, but never books. However, The Invisible Man is the first book I’ve ever read which scared the living daylights out of me. Possibly, it’s the fear of the unseen or unknown which made me feel so terrified? In any case, this book is truly amazing.

The sheer excellence of Wells’ writing is what makes the story come alive. Within the first few pages, it’s almost impossible not to get sucked into the story of a mysterious invisible man trying to pass off as normal in a remote English village. Initially Wells refers to The Invisible Man as the ‘Visitor’, and then later, simply as the ‘Voice’. The fact that his name is not discovered until the 18th chapter, only adds to the ambiguity and secretiveness of The Invisible Man’s character.

The story is simple; an albino scientist makes himself invisible and uses his new found ‘advantage’ to cause havoc in a quiet little village. Obviously, there’s a little more to it than that, but generally that’s the best way of describing the plot. In the course of the story he manages to force a tramp (Mr Marvel) – arguably the best character in the book, to help him recover his precious lost belongings from an inn he was staying in. The utter cruelty and callousness of the Invisible Man is certainly a facet of his personality that seems to have dominated his life and ultimately led to his desire to make himself invisible.

On the whole, the story is good but really scary (I’ve said that enough already!). The ending, however, is slightly anticlimactic, but still enough to round off this brilliant story. The best feature is the small chapters which break the story down and make what would be a dense piece of literature, quite digestible.