The Island of Doctor Moreau

I've finished this book about a couple of weeks ago, and couldn't put it down. Here again, as in all books I've read by Wells, you will find a strange situation, product of Well's imagination, coupled with an analysis of humanity through the prism of that situation. And contrarily to The War of the Worlds, the narrative appealed to me and I find it quite modern, rapid, and found myself taken in the story.

(Spoiler incoming, be warned!!!) 

So Edward Prendick is dying alone on a small boat, when he is rescued in extremis and left on a completely isolated island with Montgomery, the mysterious doctor Moreau and quite a menagerie. The other companions of Montgomery have strange shapes and behaviours, and the island seems inhabited by quite a number of these strangely shaped individuals. Gradually, Prendick realizes where he has already heard the name of Moreau and he discovers what sort of experiences the mysterious doctor does on this island. Basically, Moreau is trying to transform animals into humans, by vivisecting them, transforming them into imperfect human images. In the process, these animals endure months of physical torture, which Moreau dismisses as a necessity for his experiments. Moreau also tries to put in them some notions of humanity which the creatures adopt like a law: to not taste blood, to not go on all four... He has turned dozens of animals, dogs, swine, apes, hyena; his current creation's screams of pain invade Prendick's mind... But one day, this puma escapes and ends up killing Moreau. Living with the "Beast folk", Prendick can observe that what's bred in the bone comes out in the flesh as the animals slowly lose the ability to speak and revert to animals, until he is finally able to flee on a raft and is picked up by a boat.

This novel certainly lacks the depths of thought that The Time Machine could bring you afterwards, but it's nonetheless a great story, with a great inventiveness, and a great storytelling. And when you know it's been written at the end of the nineteenth century, you have to realize what an incredibly advanced mind HG Wells must have been during his time!