MobileRead Discussion: The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells (spoilers)

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

1) I've seen authors give advice to avoid the type of recollective story-telling that is so common in Wells, but I enjoy occasionally reading a story that is told in this way.

2) Why does my spell-checker insist that "recollective" is a misspelling?

Occasionally sure, but for it to be effective as horror, it needed to avoid it to keep suspense and tension a little higher. That was all I was stating. I liked the reminiscent view in Tono-Bungay, but that's a different story.

[BenG]

Are we not men?
We are Devo.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Occasionally sure, but for it to be effective as horror, it needed to avoid it to keep suspense and tension a little higher. That was all I was stating. I liked the reminiscent view in Tono-Bungay, but that's a different story.

I don't think Wells ever thought of it as a horror story. It was written as a an anti-vivisection tract and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection was formed a couple of years later.
Also devolution and degeneration was a concern for European society at the time. If man could evolve, could he also de-evolve to a more primitive form? And of course Devo got their name from de-evolution and were inspired by the 1932 movie version of Well's book.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by BenG

I don't think Wells ever thought of it as a horror story. It was written as a an anti-vivisection tract and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection was formed a couple of years later.
Also devolution and degeneration was a concern for European society at the time. If man could evolve, could he also de-evolve to a more primitive form? And of course Devo got their name from de-evolution and were inspired by the 1932 movie version of Well's book.

I didn't know any of that. When a book is put into an historical context like that it certainly throws a different light on it. I didn't know about the Devo reference either.

Many thanks for your enlightening remarks.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I didn't know anything about the Devo story. Very cool.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by BenG

I don't think Wells ever thought of it as a horror story. It was written as a an anti-vivisection tract and the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection was formed a couple of years later.
Also devolution and degeneration was a concern for European society at the time. If man could evolve, could he also de-evolve to a more primitive form? And of course Devo got their name from de-evolution and were inspired by the 1932 movie version of Well's book.

Originally Posted by caleb72

I didn't know any of that. When a book is put into an historical context like that it certainly throws a different light on it. I didn't know about the Devo reference either.

Many thanks for your enlightening remarks.

Yes, thank you, Ben!!

to what Caleb has posted.

[BenG]

If you can get the Criterion Collection DVD of The Island of Lost Souls, it has several interviews among the extras, including John Landis and Rick Baker about the making of the movie, an interview with a film historian about the movie and Wells' novel, and an interview with Devo.

[issybird]

I hope I don't get Godwinned for this, but I was struck by how eerily prescient Wells was. Moreau was uncomfortably close to another famous vegetarian. And M'ling surely was short for Mischling, famous in another context.

I read that Wells intended Moreau as an indictment of colonialism. That's ok up to a point, but then I have to wonder what Wells meant in terms of "civilization" being a veneer which was lost without active maintenance. He was, properly, rejecting the notion of the white man's burden, but perhaps not sufficiently enlightened in terms of subject peoples and what constitutes a civilized society. Way ahead of Kipling et al., however.

For me, this fell entirely in the horror camp. In addition to the issues of torture and vivisection, the notion of superior beings remaking others by force in their own image qualifies on its own. I thought Wells set the stage with the reference to the Medusa, the famous shipwreck where the underclass was set adrift, to indulge in murder, suicide and cannibalism before rescue.



I will echo those who felt this would be more powerful in the third person, when we didn't know that the narrator perforce had to have escaped.

[WT Sharpe]

I thought it more sci-fi than horror.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by issybird

I hope I don't get Godwinned for this, but I was struck by how eerily prescient Wells was. Moreau was uncomfortably close to another famous vegetarian. And M'ling surely was short for Mischling, famous in another context.

That's quite interesting. It seems a bit problematic if you try to match up the ideals of Moreau vs his proposed counterpart though.