What I am reading

Being seen as the first dystopic and/or science fiction novel, The Time Machine has an indisputable historical value. Not only was the term time machine coined by this novel, but the concept of intentional time travel was introduced in here as well, providing endless material for future novels, comics, movies, artworks etc.

As H. G. Wells was no stranger to (critical) utopian thinking and a keen and smart observer of the social problems of his time,  it is no wonder that he painted such a grim picture of our future in which mankind has evolved into two separate species, based on the strong separation between social classes. Talking about species, to me both Morlocks and Eloi are equally „human-like“, because although the Eloi kept an outer human appearance, I think that the Morlocks actually have more human-like character traits.
First and foremost, Morlocks are a curious and inquisitive people, they build and maintain machinery, transform their underground environment according to their own needs and they care and provide for their food source. Sounds pretty human to me. Eloi on the other hand are naive, not interested in anything, pacifistic, indifferent and helpless. If it wasn’t for the cannibalism thing (which is definitely debatable given the fact that they are two already differentiated species), I can see no reason for the time travelling protagonist to despise the Morlocks as much as he does. They even cleaned his time machine for crying out loud!

Bottom line, I appreciate The Time Machine mainly for the contained ideas and concepts, not so much the execution (the writing and structuring is average). If you expect an action packed novel, you will be very much disappointed, but you’ll get your money’s worth if you are up for an ok-written, yet thought provoking story.