Among the shelves of ‘classics’ in bookshops there are some that you think you probably ought to read, some you think would really be enjoyabe and a few that you’re just curious about. I’ve been curious about War of the Worlds ever since I can remember.
It’s been sitting on the bookshelf for almost as long as I can remember too, a leftover from an effort to make an Amazon order up to the free delivery price years ago. Finally I got round to opening it up and I can’t say I’m any less curious having read it.
Like a lot of Victorian and Edwardian books with action in them it’s a yarn. There’s no suspense or action on the part of the protagonists that leads to the resolutions, they’re just bystanders watching the action. The unnamed narrator tours the south of England running away and hiding from the Martians, completely powerless but giving us a picture of the events.
As everyone surely knows, it’s not resistance from the humans that sorts out the invasion but terrestrial diseases that they have no immunity to. As we work towards that we see only two fighting machines being destroyed by earthly weapons (one by a lucky shot and one by a suicidal ramming ship crew) and the total breakdown of English society.
Narrator guy runs around trying to get to his wife who he sent to Leatherhead in the early chapters, meets some people who are equally useless, and eventually sees the final death of the invaders. The death scene itself is rather moving, as the human personal voice seems to step to one side to describe the lingering hoplessness more objectively. As soon as they’re dead, we’re back to hiding in taxi huts and not really knowing what to do.
Contemporary references abound which means you spend a lot of time flicking to the footnotes at the back, which is a bit of a pain for such a lightweight text. It’s like listening to Lenny Bruce.
Life is hopeless, this book seems to say. You don’t really have any control over anything and big schemes come to nothing, no matter how superior your intelligence or technology might be. Run around and look for your wife, there’s no real point to anything.
Is that really the subtext of this incredibly famous book? That there’s no meaning to life and you might as well just hide under a hedge until everything goes away? Curious.
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