The Time Machine

“The whole surface of the earth seemed changed- melting and flowing under my eyes.” This is an excerpt from the book ‘The Time Machine’. Written by Herbert George Wells, and published in 1895, the book ‘The Time Machine’ gives us a very deep understanding of how time works and shows us scientifically how travelling through time could be possible.

At the start of the story, the protagonist, The Time Traveller explains to his fellow guests that besides the three dimensions of space i.e., length, breadth, and height, a fourth dimension also exists which is ‘Time’ that one could harness to travel back and forth in time. Later, he himself travels forth through time and transports himself to the year 802,701. Then, he finds out entirely different from what he had expected. The Time Traveller thought of a ‘future’ as a place where humans thrived, considerable advancement in technology made, and the world overcomes challenges that he was facing in his time. Instead, he saw the human species dividing in to two sub-species: The Eloi and The Morlocks. The world was still, boring, and dull and nothing interesting happened. It was like a dead planet. As the story unfolds, the Morlocks steal the protagonist’s time machine, and the Time Traveller spends his time there trying to get it back. In the process, he learns a lot about the world in 802701 including the people, and their way of living, which, when he returns to his time, he explains to his guests.

The book intertwines lot of interesting events that can stop one’s breath and binds one to the story which is being narrated.

Best remembered for his science-fiction novels, The Time Machine was his first one, followed by The Island of Doctor Moreau (1896), The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898) and The War in the Air (1907).

In this book, the author has touched upon something unique, something extraordinary which people have of course heard of, but not witnessed before. To convey the same, he has used ample number of dialogues, and these make his plot of travelling through time as well as the action scenes in the story more interesting. The character of The Time Traveller has been portrayed excellently; his qualities, thoughts and emotions were conveyed intricately well. Visual imagery was utilized to the hilt; how explicitly the author tried lifting the curtain to a whole new, different, and unseen world to a clueless reader like me, was remarkable.

With all the pluses the book has, it has its’ downside too. To my perceptible mind, if the characters were given their names instead of roles they got identified with, it would have made the story more personalized and easier to identify with. Secondly, the protagonist got all the spotlight leaving no room for other characters to rise and shine.

Nevertheless, the story was awesome and I enjoyed reading it. I am sure who believe in the possibility of time travel would love to pick this book. I would give this read 4out of 5 stars.