Book Review: THE INVISIBLE MAN by H.G. Wells

The original "incel"?

Book Review: THE INVISIBLE MAN (1897) by H.G. Wells.

Invisibility has only now become technically possible, but already back in the 1890s H.G. Wells wrote a novel about it. THE INVISIBLE MAN holds up very well today.

Wells's stroke of genius was that he ignored all previous fairytale tropes about becoming invisible — and instead treated the subject seriously. The result was a gripping thriller, and a parable about isolation.

The protagonist Griffin, working in Britain around the year 1900, invents an invisibility serum. Already a malicious character, Griffin imagines that invisibility will give him great power over people.

And the serum works — he really does become completely transparent. (Some nitpicking critics have pointed out that if Griffin’s eyes also became transparent, he should’ve gone blind — but we can overlook that.)

We then get follow how all of Griffin’s schemes as an invisible man fail. He runs into one practical obstacle after another. It’s really quite entertaining.

The worst side effect of being invisible, it turns out, is psychological. Griffin grows increasingly deranged and hateful, and begins to plot a "reign of terror" — i.e. he develops a terrorist mindset.

Surely a cautionary tale for our times, eh? Today we suffer the terror of "invisible men" who, like the protagonist of Wells' story, have gone mad from social isolation.

The difference between the society of the year 1900 and 2025 is that back then, you needed physical social interaction with other people in order to live. Now we have a society where you can — in principle — live socially “invisible.” The character Griffin was, in a way, more than 100 years ahead of his time.

Internet-based technology makes the false promise that invisibility (=no human interaction) will make us masters of the world... but we risk losing our minds.

Apart from the almost prophetic portrayal of Griffin going mad in his isolation — long before the Internet — this novel is also an entertaining portrait of everyday Britain before radio and television.

The other characters are not scientists or military men, hunting down the mad scientist Griffin, as one might expect from science fiction. Instead there are quite ordinary working-class and middle-class Englishmen, who are going about their lives when Griffin intrudes on them like a supernatural menace. The down-to-earth depiction of them makes Griffin all the more an aberration and a monster.

THE INVISIBLE MAN is recommended for young readers who need to get out and meet people... and everyone else.

Listen to the audiobook version of THE INVISIBLE MAN on Librivox