"The Invisible Man"

Nathania Carissa Vida Octaviani (392020032)

February 15th, 2021 

Reading Diary - Entry 5 

    

     Introduction 

  "The Invisible Man" is a science fiction novel by H.G. Wells. Originally serialized in Pearson's Weekly in 1897, it was published as a novel the same year. The Invisible Man to whom the title refers is Griffin, a scientist who has devoted himself to research into optics and who invents a way to change a body's refractive index to that of air so that it neither absorbs nor reflects light. He carries out this procedure on himself and renders himself invisible, but fails in his attempt to reverse it. A practitioner of random and irresponsible violence, Griffin has become an iconic character in horror fiction. The name of the illustrator is not listed in this book. I read it in books.google.co.id and the e-book is only available for 120 pages. So, I have completed the 120 pages. I choose to read this e-book, because I was interested with the title and the cover of the book. 

    The Characters 

Griffin
He is the Invisible Man. Primarily an albino college student, he changes his area of study from medicine to physics and then becomes interested in refractive indexes of tissue. While studying, he stumbles across formulae that would make body tissues invisible. Finally, he successfully tries the formula on himself and thinks about all the things he could do if he were invisible. Sadly, the positives are far outweighed by the disadvantages, so Griffin starts opting for crime as a means of survival.

Mr Marvel
This is the first character that Griffin makes his assistant and uses as a partner in crime. Mr Marvel is a short, fat loner who is the area tramp. Griffin thinks that he stupid and so trusts him by believing that he will not be believed even if he tries to tell anyone about his predicament.

Dr Kemp
Griffin’s former associate from his college days. As students, Griffin was aware that even Kemp was keen about strange and idiosyncratic aspects of science. Griffin actually goes to Kemp’s house in his final attempt to find an accomplice and start leading a more normal life. Kemp; however, does not have a sense of loyalty to his former student and is not willing to be a part of Griffin’s grand schemes. He is also quite cunning and lands up betraying the invisible man by pretending to support Griffin’s experiments.

     Plot

In the story of The Invisible Man, a mysterious man goes to a village called Iping, which is in the middle of a snowstorm. He then stays in an inn that is owned and run by the husband and wife George and Janny Hall. They ask him to not be worried about the storm, so he goes to his room with his luggage. This man’s name is Griffin, a scientist, who usually spends his time in his room experimenting with different chemicals and formulas.

He is an introverted guy, which becomes a huge problem as he lives in a town where the there is a lot of gossip.

Griffin goes outside at night; however, be keeps himself completely bandaged up and wears a fake nose. The villagers think that he is very peculiar, especially because there are suddenly weird break-ins and a lot of robberies start happening in the village. But things become worse when the owner Janny Hall asks him to pay up his overture rent or leave. So, he gets depressed and frustrated, taking off all his bandages and clothes and manages to disappear into the night with his invisibility tricks.

Griffin then forces Thomas Marvel, a tramp, or migrant worker by profession, to become his assistant. But Marvel betrays him and takes him to the police, so Griffin runs away again. The Invisible Man beats them up and wreaks some major havoc while leaving.

While he is on the run again, Griffin happens to meet Dr Kemp, his old acquaintance from medical school. Griffin then tells his friend Kemp about his experiments with invisibility. He also tells him how he has made plans to terrorize England by using his discovery of invisibility. Here’s the gist of what he tells him: he was poor and was desperate to study invisibility, so he steals money from his father, who later commits suicide (it’s not revealed why he does that). Finally, Griffin gets a grip of the idea of invisibility and proceeds to do these things: (1) set his landlord’s building on fire; (2) wander around London; (3) rob a department store; and (4) wear a ridiculous outfit hired from a theatrical costume shop and go to Iping for work, but soon Kemp realizes that Griffin has gone berserk, and hands him over to the police.

But Griffin still breaks through the police line and starts chasing Kemp into the town. But unfortunately, the locals get hold of Griffin and kill him. At the end of the story, it is revealed that Marvel has saved all the notes  written by Griffin in his room at the inn, but luckily, he can’t make heads or tails out of them.

    Conclusion 

 I thought Wells did a good job building up the eerie atmosphere that is prominent throughout the story. Actually, the atmosphere is the star of the book as none of the characters resonated with me and the storyline, which mainly consisted of wrecking havoc for havoc's sake, was not very inspired. The story itself is also quite funny, I thought and many of the scenes played in my mind as slapstick. 

However, one could certainly tell that Wells is a master storyteller, and I find myself engrossed in the story for several chapters (mainly at the beginning and end). I also found the period details in the book very interesting.

So, I recommend this book for those of you who like books with the mystery, horror, and thriller genres. this is a very exciting book for you to read.