While a short read at only 115 pages, The Time Machine introduced the world to the concept of time travel and a machine in which to achieve it. It is such a foreign idea to me, the concept that at some point in the not too distant past (in the case of The Time Machine which was published in 1895), that there were no stories about time traveling devices. And a far stranger idea is that the story of a time traveler traveling through time in a machine has hardly developed past Wells’ initial concept. This is why The Time Machine is considered a classic, and why H.G. Wells is a king in the science fiction community.
The book begins with a conversation between the Time Traveller (as he is called in the story) and his dinner guests (who all but one, Filby, have professional titles for names). The conversation is one of those talks that walks the line between science and philosophy, between known and unknown, between what is and what could be. It is, even by today’s standards, considered a thought-provokingly cumbersome topic reserved for high-minded academics or potheads regurgitating ideas beyond their understanding. As with most academic discussions, theory is theory, but when it comes down to it, people want to see the idea in action, and that’s just what the Time Traveller gives them. He shows his dinner guests a working model of a time machine to help them understand the abstract concept, and not just a smaller version of a fully functional time machine – he shows them a scaled-down working time machine. He sets it up and permits the Psychologist to do the honors, so as not to waste his only working model, and after a breath of wind…it is gone. And that’s just chapter one.
The remainder of the book is the Time Traveller regaling his guests with the week he spent stuck in the future after his time machine goes missing. In his tale, he was trapped in the year 802,700.
This is truly a fun and inventive work of literature. The most surprising thing about this book is how well its ideas and conceptual discussion hold up even against modern science fiction. I like how H.G. Wells gives a sense of credibility to this book by refusing to give his characters names and simply addresses them by their professional titles instead. It is because of this that the book reads more like an actual account retold to us by the narrator rather than a work of fiction. That was one of my favorite aspects of the entire book. It allowed me to let my mind run wild with the idea of this not being a work of fiction but rather a book inspired by true events.
Unfortunately, Wells does employ the use of a few old fashioned words from the Victorian era that are in little use in today’s literature. Luckily, however, those are far and few between. However, to keep things in perspective, we the readers (much like the Time Traveller’s dinner guests) are being told this story from a man from the 1890s. So, while the turn of the century phrasing seems out of place to a modern audience, they do lend authenticity, further immersing the reader in this science fiction classic.
If you liked this book, check out our "The Book vs. The Movie" blog to see how it compares to the movie!
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