The Invisible Man

I am still in my cycle of dystopian books, but « The invisible man » by H. G. Wells is not about a dystopia. It just came with the version of “The time machine” I have bought so I figured I’ll just read it right now.
I’ll make it a short entry though. I’ll make it a short entry though. It has the same background as “The time machine” and was written at the end of the 19th century. As seen with today’s eyes, it can be seen as yet another invisible man story, but it could be the first invisible man story.

The fact that the man is invisible is certainly important, and was an innovation in itself when the novel was written, but it’s not the most important point of the story. The way I felt it, the story is more about acceptation and racism than about the scientific experimentation.
First he thought being invisible would only have benefits, but when one is naked, London is rather cold... So he tries to blend in, disguises himself and tries to resume his research to become visible again. The twist is that in order not to arouse suspicion, he doesn’t mix with people and people can sense that he is different. They try to reveal him, and he resists; his difference cannot be accepted by others and he can only find relief in vengeance.
To me, it is a classical story of racism and hatred, and the “invisible man” could have been replaced by the “stranger” in the novel to no great difference.

Next in the list of dystopian novels is 1984. I’ve already read it several years ago, but I am ashamed to say that I remember very little of it; which definitely proves the usefulness of this blog ;)

The Time Machine

I've just finished The Time Machine by H. G. Wells. It's a short novel, which has been written in the last 19th century, and that's what makes it remarkable. Would someone write such a novel today, it probably would not get a fraction of the success this one had, because time travel stories have been extensively covered since.

In this story, the narrator is invited to the Time Traveller’s home for dinner; during this dinner, the host tells his guest he has built a model of a time machine (I won't go into the details of the theory, just that time is seen as a fourth dimension, just as the three space dimension, and that travelling back and forth along this dimension, if not as easy, should be at least as possible as moving along the 3 other ones). To prove his point, the Time Traveller makes his model disappear in front of his surprised guests. Another week, another dinner with his guests and the Time Traveller has finished his real-size construction and is just back from the future, from year 802 701 AD to be precise. He seems ruffled, tired and excited at the same time, excuses himself to his guests, takes a shower and comes back to the dinner room where he rushes to the meat. Then, he tells the most improbable story to his dubitative guests.

*** SPOILER WARNNING ***
He has travelled far in the future where he spent a week and encountered two species that seem to inherit from man, the Elois and the Morlocks. The former, which he first discovers, live happily but futilely in the sun, they are richly clad but have no evolved language, do nothing but frolic in nature, eat fruits that hang from trees and are afraid of the dark. As the Time Traveller founds later, the latter live underground, where they seem to maintain some kind of machinery, although it seems that they do it out of habit since they do not seem to have an evolved language either, are afraid of the day and light and they feed upon the Elois. The Time traveller makes the assumption that the Elois who are now just cattle to the Morlocks, are the ultimate (d)evolution of the former upper / richer class of human society, which must have lived happily and richly in the sun. The Morlocks must be the remnant of the poor working class of that society, which must have been working underground; he supposes that in this condition, they have lost their humanity. Dark vision of the future indeed! The Time Traveller leaves his guests free to believe his story and the next day, he disappears with his "Time Machine", to never come back.

It's a nice novel, and a very interesting read (although it's pretty short) and, for the nineteenth century, brings pretty groundbreaking imagination to the table. But nowadays, it's probably not so groundbreaking. The added value of the "take it or leave it" attitude of the storyteller really adds to the story and forces you to choose side, to believe or not to believe, which is always an interesting experience!

Jennifer Government

Latest read in my current series of dystopian novel is Jennifer Government, by Max Barry.

Great book, great vision of society, and great story. I could bitch that it doesn't last long enough but apart from that, it's a great read :)

First the dystopia: in the novel, private companies have taken over the society, just as the United States have taken over most of the world. Your job is the most important thing and people take the name of the company they work for as their last name (which is why we get two "John Nike" in the story), children attend Mattel or MacDonalds' schools and the governments' only purpose is to ensure that people are globally safe by preventing crime. Quoting the book: "The Government's budget only extends to preventing crime, not punishing it." so no one is going to look for a murderer unless the victim's family is able to provide the operating budget, the Police is a for hire mercenary force, competing with the NRA depending on corporate alliances...
If you thought that this corporate world brings the worst in human nature, you're in for a treat: people don't get more selfish and indifferent about other humans than when they have budget, power, and sell sneakers...
Another great quote from a NRA general: "In the military, we have always had a healthy disrespect for democracy"

Then, there's the story: most of it takes place in Australia, which has just been assimilated by the US. There works Hack Nike, a lowly logistics employee; when John Nike offers him a job in marketing, Hack signs the contract without reading it. John's idea is that, if about 10 teenagers get killed just after buying the latest Nike model, people will go crazy over the shoe! And Hack is to do the killing... Since he signed a contract, he has to do the killing or it's a breach of contract and jail! But since he does not want to kill innocent kids, he goes to the Police, who offers to subcontract!
The story goes crazy from this point on, and we can follow it through a large cast of characters, in a pretty classic style nowadays, where each chapter is narrated from the viewpoint of a different character. The form is classic, and it has some slow moments but overall, the story has several plots, is interesting and it's a page turner, so I guess it values the dystopia.

And finally (and probably the most important thing), I'm now able to brag that I read the same book as Superman!

Brave new world

I'm starting a cycle of dystopian books; I’ve bought Brave New World, Jennifer Government, The Time Machine and I’ll probably read 1984 again. First in the list is "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley, which I wanted to read because I‘ve read a lot of comparisons between this novel and 1984.

It’s been a great read. The actual transition from the society as we knew it in the thirties (when the novel was written) to this new one is not too documented and a bit unclear: we’re only told that violence had to be used because humans prefer the freedom to suffer to a forced happiness… But there’s a great deal of detail on how such a society can be better for humanity, be stable and eliminate sufferings, by depriving man of what makes him really human: his individuality.

A broad look at the society and the way it works gives this:
• Humans are not born from women anymore, and the birth process has been industrialized; humans are grown in hatcheries, in batches of similar individuals which are specifically engineered to fit castes.
• Society is layered in castes, and humans thus belong to a caste from alpha to gamma, where alphas are few and cogent, while gammas are numerous and dumb. But all have their place and role in the society. Since each individual is groomed for that caste and conditioned from the infant stage on to like to belong to it, everyone is happy. Conditioning includes things like neo-pavlovian training and hypnopaedia (being repeated thousands of times in your sleep until the lesson becomes a reflex). Basically when you are repeated “I’m happy to be a gamma, being a delta would be annoying and dumb and being a beta is too complicated to be worth it” over and over, you believe it…
• Industrialization is everywhere; this society is a society of progress, consumption and production. The people are encouraged to participate in this society: “Ending is better than mending” or “the more stitches, the less riches”. And which better god for this society than Henry Ford: the new calendar of the society is not based on Jesus Christ anymore, but on the production date of the first Ford T model and the novel is rich of expressions like “My Ford”, “His Fordness” or “For the love of Ford”…
• The one concept that primes upon all the others is the stability of the society. To achieve this, all sources of instability have been dealt with using scientific means; for instance:
  • Promiscuity and gregarious behaviours are encouraged since individuality and loneliness are seen as dangerous.
  • Since people are not born, the concepts of father, mother, family, husband and wife do not exist anymore, eliminating all the drama usually coming with feelings and competition
  • Sex is a recreation that you should have with anyone and sexual games are encouraged among children in order to inculcate the motto: “Everyone belongs to everyone else”
  • Of course, there are no real culture, no book, no poetry and there’s no need for it since there are other society-approved activities and pleasures
  • Fear of death and decay does not exist: people look 25 years old and are fit until they’re old and then, they surrender their life.

And the one thing that makes it all work is soma. Soma is the omnipresent happiness/forgetfulness drug which a person takes in any situation of either happiness or unhappiness and it solves everything. “A gramme is better than a damn”, it is the ultimate drug! It discharges violent instincts, makes you forget your problems, makes you happy and balances the society. Says a World Controller, it has “All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects”.

So, in the novel, there’s the description of the society, of this different ideal, far away from Utopia; and that part is great! And then, there’s a story. A story about John, who was “really” born in an Indian reserve, where people live in the dust, refusing the progress of the new society. John has a mother, feelings, creeds, thoughts, has read Shakespeare. And since John’s mother is in fact from this society (she’s been lost in the reserve for years…), John has a chance to go in this society and make a choice as to where he’d like to go from there: stay in the society or return to the Indian reserve.
I won’t delve in the story, its development I found disappointing and its characters shallow; its only purpose is to oppose a crude humanity to an advanced dehumanized society and it serves it OK. What I found disappointing is the choice that is proposed to John is a false choice between two bad solutions; which could be OK but the Indian reserve option is so badly crude compared to the refinement of the dystopian society that you can’t help thinking that there’s more than a hole in this story of a choice…

Overall, it’s well worth reading and I’ll only retain that the vision of the dystopian society more than makes up for the weak storytelling.

L'Oeuvre

L'Œuvre est un épisode (le 14ème) relativement peu connu dans la série des Rougon-Macquart, mais j'ai particulièrement été conquis par la puissance de ce roman: il ne reprend certes pas le thème de l'hérédité que j'affectionne particulièrement, mais il permet de comprendre la torture de la création artistique.

Zola nous fait suivre son personnage principal, le peintre Claude Lantier, ses pensées, son processus de création, ses obsessions, ainsi que sa vie d'inspirateur parmi un groupe d'artistes "naturalistes" qui tentent de rompre avec la peinture romantique trop établie... Si on sent bien que Claude représente la vision esthétique de Zola, le groupe compte aussi l'écrivain Sandoz, qui est l'incarnation de Zola dans le roman. Claude semble lui extrêmement inspiré de Manet, et son "plein air" reprend clairement "le déjeuner" de Manet. Le groupe est par ailleurs composé d'autres membres, peintre, sculpteur ou journaliste qui sont tous en rupture avec l'esthétique artistique romantique et trop classique de leurs maîtres.

En toile de fond, Claude rencontre et épouse Christine, et ils ont un enfant: si cette vie prend une place majeure à son début, elle sera petit à petit mangée par les obsessions et angoisses de Claude qui est incapable de concrétiser ses rêves de grandeur. Sa relation avec sa femme, la santé de son fils, seront les victimes négligées de son drame artistique. En parallèle, le groupe d'amis, s'il est uni derrière Claude au début du roman, va se fissurer petit à petit, sous la pression de la vie, à travers les parcours artistiques personnels, les victoires, jalousies et défaites, rythmé par les salons officiels, auquel les tableaux de Claude sont toujours refusés, malgré le coup d'éclat du premier "plein air".

Si Sandoz connait le succès, à l’image de Zola, à force de persévérance, la fin du roman est assez classique de l'écrivain: l'échec de Claude qui n'arrive pas a finir sa grande œuvre, devenu aveugle dans son acharnement, ne voyant plus vraiment que ce qu'il peint n'est pas ce qu'il veut peindre; la misère de Christine qui aura tout donné dans son amour pour Claude et qui se fait définitivement supplanter par la peinture; et la mort misérable de Claude, qui se suicide devant son œuvre.

Une phrase qui m’a marqué de Dubuche, à son ami Claude, lorsqu'il s'occupe de ses enfants souffreteux et malingres: "Adieu, tâche de t'en sortir... Moi, j'ai raté ma vie."
Un roman peu joyeux donc, comme tout bon Zola qui se respecte , mais qui éclaire puissamment cette impuissance de l’artiste qui sait ce qu’il veut faire, qui sait l’imaginer, mais qui n’arrive pas à créer à l’image de sa vision…

Prochain roman, La Terre.