List Price: $4.95
www.amazon.com's Price: $4.95
Condition: New
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Release Date: 2002-09-03
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Lowest New Price: $1.77
Lowest Used Price: $0.90
| Features• ISBN13: 9780451528520
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
A Classic and A Great Read!
In the beginning of The Invisible Man, by H. G. Wells, attention is brought to a scientist named Griffin who has discovered the means of invisibility with an invisibility serum. Griffin has apparently gone insane in the process. The book is very descriptive and with so much of a scientific background you may think that the serum that the invisible man produced is real. Very frustrated and upset with his situation, Griffin causes a major upset at an inn in rural London which makes him an infamous beast, with London at it's peak of terror already because of the Boer War. When frustrated by failure in his many attempts to restore himself back to visibility, Griffin is determined to embark on a reign of terror upon the world.
H. G. Wells was a very strong writer and it is the situation from which the novel draws most of its power. Invisibility sounds quite enticing, but what if you were to actually become invisible? How would you cope with the ordinary details of every day life? Griffin does not cope well at all, and though Wells suggests that the invisible man's madness had arisen from a number of places and past events, he also implies that it may have arisen from the cold reality of invisibility itself.
Published in 1897, The Invisible Man was one of H. G. Wells's earliest novels. It is an extremely influential novel and it has tremendous energy and style throughout it. It's a very entertaining read and is also quite witty in a sort of way. The sense of realism and scientific explanation creates a story so heart pounding that you will not want to put it down.
What is unseenImagine if you were invisible and could come and go as you pleased, with nobody able to see you. Cool, right? Well, not really. H.G. Wells' "The Invisible Man" has the sci-fi master exploring what would happen if a person took an invisibility elixir, and discovered too late that invisibility has some definite downsides. It's possibly Wells' funniest novel, but it also has some wonderfully chilling moments.
A strange man arrives at a hotel in Iping, wrapped up in goggles, bandages, scarves, and heavy clothes. He spends most of his time hidden away in his room, doing odd scientific experiments, and avoiding contact with other people -- while still keeping everything except his nose hidden. Meanwhile, the local vicar and his wife are robbed by a mysterious thief... who is completely invisible.
Well, you can guess what's up with the stranger -- he's an invisible man, and after a blowup with his landlady he reveals his true.... um, lack of appearance to the entire town. After a series of disastrous encounters, the Invisible Man encounters Dr. Kemp, an old friend to whom he reveals how he became invisible, and what he's done since then... as well as his malevolent plans for the future.
H.G. Wells isn't really known for being a funny writer, but the first part of "The Invisible Man" is actually mildly hilarious. He writes the first third or so of the book in a fairly light, humorous style, and there are some fun scenes speckled through the story, like a homeless man dealing with the Invisible Man ("Not a bit of you visible--except-- You 'aven't been eatin' bread and cheese?").
But things get much darker after Mr. Kemp enters the scene, and we find out that the Invisible Man is... well, kind of malevolent and crazy. Very crazy.
And as the plot grows darker and grimmer, Wells also inserts a clever (if far-fetched even by Victorian standards) explanation for how a person could become invisible, using a mix of science and fantasy. The plot hurtles through wild chase scenes and the occasional riot, and some moments of bleak tension ("When dawn came to mingle its pallor with the lamp-light and cigar smoke of the dining-room, Kemp was still pacing...")
The Invisible Man himself (aka Griffin) is a pretty mysterious character for most of the story, since all we know about him is that he's invisible.... and also kind of a jerk. I mean, the guy constantly flies off the handle and even robs a nice little old vicar. And the more we find out about him, the more malignant and insane he turns out to be.
Even if you had a way to become invisible, "The Invisible Man" would be a pretty effective way of dissuading people from using it. A deserving classic.
Invisibility as a Result of ScienceH.G. Wells was a scientific man. He wrote this book in the burgeoning scientific society (The book is published in 1897), which was to transform the entire world in the 20.th century. H.G. Wells was acutely curious about the most far reaching possiblities of science. This book actually ponders upon a scientific theory about making matter invisible. According to this theory matter is visible because it is granulated. Wells gives an example with glass: When glass is whole it is transparent and you can look through it. If you break the class and crushes it into a powder, you granulate the glass and makes it into a white powder, which is not transparent. It is the uneven surfaces of the granules which makes them non-transparent. If you can smoothen these surfaces of the granules you can make matter more transparent. Wells gives an example with paper. We can't look through paper because it is made of tiny paper fragments with uneven surfaces. But if you poor oil on the paper it has the effect of smoothening the jagged surfaces of the paper fragments making up the piece of paper, thus the paper is becoming more transparent. This is fundamentals of the theory which the scientist of the novel, Griffin, uses to make himself invisible.
Okay.Not really what I was expecting but now I can at least say I read it.
ehhhhhI expected this story to be similar to Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but it wasn't. In those two books the researchers/scientists struggled with the morals of their work. The story revolved around the struggle of IF they should have done what they did and the results of their actions.
The Invisible Man could have been titled The Violent Man. It basically followed the events of Griffin who, while invisible, hurts, burns, and kills people at every turn. There really was no story, lesson, moral or point.
I do give kudos to Wells in that his fight scenes were very well written.
Product DescriptionThis masterpiece of science fiction is the fascinating story of Griffin, a scientist who creates a serum to render himself invisible, and his descent into madness that follows.
Read more...
Similar Products:The Island of Dr. Moreau (Dover Thrift Editions)
The Time Machine
The War of the Worlds
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Dover Thrift Editions)
The Portable Edgar Allan Poe (Penguin Classics)
|
