The invisible man door H.G. Wells

Ik heb het boek the invisible man van H.G. Wells gelezen. Als opdracht heb ik gekozen voor nummer 12 van de toelichting bij het leesdossier op de internetsite. Deze opdracht luidt: Schrijf een recensie n.a.v. het verhaal. First of all I would like to say that I’ve read the book with great pleasure. It was a very interesting subject to read about. It’s also a very suprising book, because of the weird situations Griffin (the main character) goes through. Personally I thought being invisible would be more amusing. The subject of the book, being invisible, was very original back in 1897. For me the subject for a book was new. I never read a book before about being invisible. However I have seen a movie (Hollow Man, Paul Verhoeven) about this subject. It’s a very taking subject, I often thought about what I would do when I was invisible. Being invisible isn’t as amusing as you would think. This is one of the most important subjects that comes back in the story every time. For example Griffin loses friends because they don’t trust him anymore. They accuse him of being a thief and being a sneaky person who watches you when your in the bathroom or in another place where you expect some privacy. You see Griffin having a hard time losing all his friends this way. You really think along with Griffin and that’s a compliment for the author. You see he really did his best to make the story as real as possible. The moment he tells his life history to dr. Kemp is one of the most taking passages I’ve ever read. On the contrary Griffin doesn’t always react as a an ordinary person would do in certain situations. If I were Griffin I think I was going to work for the police or a certain spy organisation like the CIA. Griffin has another big problem with his invisibility: His clothes aren’t invisible. So if he wants nobody to see him he has to walk around naked. This results in some funny situations and directly puts you back to thinking again. This is another good argument for not wanting to be invisible. And worth a second compliment for the author: One moment you wish you’d be invisible, the other moment you think about how lucky you are for not being invisible. Either you can choose to catch a cold or you can choose that everybody can see your clothes and not your body. This way you have no advantage of being invisible and Griffin thinks he isn’t very attractive for women in this case. Of course all these things also result in funny moments where the author shows he’s also humoristic: page 158, in Oxford Street, there are some boys hanging around on the street and Griffin passes by without his clothes and steps in the mud. One of the boys suddenly starts screaming: “Feet! Look! Feet running!”. Nowdays this joke is used so much it’s almost predictible but I think Wells was the first to use it, because he was the first to write about the subject an invisible man. The whole story is based on some humorous fragments relieved by some tragical and exciting fragments. The author seperates these elements in a very good way. One moment your laughing, because Griffin does something stupid or something funny happens, the other moment your hoping for Griffin to have some joy in his life, when you see him suffer again. The accent lies on the things Griffin goes through. All the things he has to/does to become invisible. The feelings of Griffin are therefore very important. You really get to know these feelings because of the things he does and the way he reacts in certain situations. Since people don’t like Griffin and since his friends leave him alone because they don’t trust him like they did, Griffin starts to react as an evil person. All the people around him keep saying he’s a thief. And so Griffin starts stealing and not using his powers for good purpose. The author deserves another compliment for the fact that you (the reader) keeps believing your Griffin, although Griffin is an evil person who terrifies ordinary people. You’re in fact as angry as Griffin! Although you know it’s all fiction, it’s still an exciting book. Griffin is in fact very dangerous because he’s invisible and you don’t know what he’s going to do next. Maybe it’s not all that exciting because it’s sometimes to unbelievible. Nobody has ever been invisible and I have never seen an invisible man (Hûh, see an invisible man). The end disappointed me a little bit. His study friend dr. Kemp kills Griffin in the end. I hoped for a more open ending. Now he’s dead which made me feel sad for the man. Also there’s no room left for a sequel. The building of the story is very clear . This is the result of the good connection between the fragments. I also liked the use of a lot of chapters. This way it’s easier to stick to the plot. The use of language wasn’t all to difficult, I read the book pretty fast. Normally I have to read a page three times before I really understand what’s going on. I personally missed a good description of the surroundings. This would have made the story more exciting. And also more real, which is very important when you choose a subject like this. The feelings of the main characters are also not very detailed. This is not really a problem because like I said before it’s a very taking story. The author has the ability to make you feel sorry for Griffin in just a single sentence. There’s not a lot of dialogue in the story. I prefer fragments in the form of a dialogue, because it reads a lot easier than long fragments without dialogue. The characters in the story all react like normal people would do in these strange situations except for Griffin. I think I would have reacted in the same way the people around Griffin did. Although I wouldn’t kill him. I would offer him a lot of money to work for the police. This way he’s a happy person, has a lot of money and stops stealing from ordinary people. I think it was a great book to read and I have a lot of respect for the author, maybe I’ll read his other famous book from the 19th century ‘The Timemachine’ in the future,