So, first of all, there's a little background on Wells by a fellow named Robert AW Lowndes. (Also, I'm going to mention that this is a really cool edition from the sixties. Actually, it was printed in sixty five--I find it funny, because of course you know what happened four years later... (And consider--a paltry sixty-eight years after the book was originally published!)
So yeah--a background on Wells. First of all, Wells was a son of the working class, and of course England was a very classed society in the eighteen-hundreds. It says that he struggled to escape those boundaries placed upon him, which of course he did, and even at the start of the book itself this is reflected. The main character, Bedford, was a banker--bankrupt at the start of the story. He sees that he will probably have to spend the rest of his life as a clerk (low-class work, of course--) unless if he doesn't think of something else. He decides to go to the country to write a play. At first when I read that, I was like, how stupid! But then I remembered that that's sort of close to when Oscar Wilde wrote his plays (like a decade off. Decade and a half at most), and since Wilde's plays were so awesome, it seemed like a perfectly acceptable idea. As in, "Oh, Wilde did it? Well then duh everyone would want to do it." So yeah...
Another interesting note in the introduction is that of course Jules Verne's works were widely read and very popular, they were only read as fantasies and romances. Apparently HG Wells made people see crazy scientific explorations and going ons as possible realities. It also goes on to say that while Verne would have liked the characters in his book, From the Earth to the Moon, to land on the moon, he made that impossible for himself. I don't know if HG Wells was aware of that and that's why he decided to go one step further, or if he just did for the hell of it, but I guess this is really the first book that dealt with aliens. Originally I was going to complain at how lame the aliens are, but... Ugh, fine. HG Wells, you did something novel, amazing and groundbreaking, and you improved on it later, too. But they're still sort of lame. (Listen, I read Animorphs, okay!? Compared to that, this is like... Well. The opposite of great.)
Not only that, this appears to be the book that CS Lewis refers to in the opening note of Out of the Silent Planet. He has a little note that says that he's aware of similarities between his and other works, and that some of his ideas are based on other works and so on. Of course, this means that almost all of my notes are based on differences between the two, though most of them are pretty superfluous and needn't actually really be discussed. (Things like the fact that the men with the ship in Lewis's first book knew what they were doing, had already completed the ship, whereas Bedford had to urge on Cavor and help him, Cavor still had to make the ship, similarities between the ships, and so on...) CS Lewis is very briefly discussed in the closing paragraph, and he is praised highly because he is pretty awesome, just saying: "It is interesting to compare the career of H. G. Wells and C. S. Lewis, a contemporary author on religious subjects, who examined and wrote about the same human problems as Wells, in his 'Perelandra' trilogy of science-fiction novels. Lewis lived to see far greater evils than Wells, who died in 1946; but Lewis knew there was no utopia, no simple solution to human ills, and showed far deeper understanding of the human condition. Wells died in despair; Lewis never despaired" (10). So I put this down mostly for that last sentence. The rest is all context. For whatever reason, that last sentence enthralls me.
Oh, I also want to mention that whenever Wells skews a scientific fact that we of today take for granted (remember, this was written in 1901--judging from the text, helium was only just recently discovered at the time of the original writing) I have a little moment of aw, Wells, you are just too cute. Even though he was undoubtedly nine thousand times smarter than me and more of a visionary than I'll ever be--I mean, his idea of a ship is amazing and all, but I can't wrap my head around it, either because I'm too dumb to understand it (very possible) or because I'm just automatically like funny story, Wells, that is not how we do it at all (possibly). Anyyyywayyyys. Yeah. His idea is a sphere powered by strips of cavorite which is an element like helium that can go against gravity. Or something like that... And I also want to mention that this is something else CS Lewis borrowed from HG Wells in Out of the Silent Planet. I don't remember if Lewis gets into all specifics, but their ship is a sphere with blinds, though I can't figure out how the control room fits into his ship. And the blinds in Lewis's book (I haven't read the other two in the series) seem to be more for aesthetic purposes than controlling the ship purposes.
HG Wells also decides it's no worse to go into space than to go on an arctic expedition. Again, Mr Wells, you are so adorable.
Also, that word/slang/whatever you'd call it tidbits--originally, the phrase was apparently tit-bits. (Insert everyone from the twenty-first century clawing their eyes out in disgust.) That was also apparently a very popular magazine at the time.
One thing that really makes me mad is the fact that Bedford pushes Cavor to make his machine and go to the moon (even though Cavor doesn't really see the point of it all, not really) and then when they've taken off he flips out and begs to be let off.
"It was not like the beginning of a journey; it was like the beginning of a dream" (36).
So they land on the moon and explore the landscape. HG Wells has a ball making up the strange environment--it seems like a barren tundra, but then the snow melts and strange plants sprout and bloom at amazing speeds and so on--it's actually pretty enthralling. Anyways, they start searching for food and find some edible fungoid. The fungoid are actually intoxicants, and Bedford declares that the 'discovery' (the landing, that is) is second only to the potato. It's hilarious and it's definitely one of the best scenes from the book. (It's page sixty-five in this edition.)
"Science has toiled too long forging weapons for fools to use" (104).
So the men part ways--the moon people take the two men into bondage, and they break free and kill a few moon people in the process. Cavor is eventually recaptured, but Bedford finds their sphere and takes flight. He then begins to bemoan his trip, and seems to view himself as an objective outsider--he "looks down" upon himself. "I saw Bedford in many relations--as an ass or as a poor beast where I hitherto been inclined to regard him with a quiet pride as a very spirited and rather forcible person. I saw him not only as an ass, but as the son of many generations of asses" (117). Hehehehe.
He goes on to say how after his little existential crisis, he set himself to "puzzle out the conditions under which I must fall to earth" (118). Just move along...
On earth he decides he must make a new identity for himself to escape his failings and so he'd never be obliged to explain the occurrences on the moon and Cavor's disappearance and all. He signs his name as Wells. He says the name seemed to be "thoroughly respectable" (126). I see what you did there.
The book sort of ends after that. I say it sort of ends because Bedford/Well's bit pretty much ends. He mentions that he received a few transmissions from Cavor, who came into contact with the
MLA Citation Information: Wells, HG. The First Men in the Moon. Airmont Books: United States of America, 1965.
This was a pretty good book. Not phenomenal, but I don't have any regrets about reading it.
Also, for all you film buffs--that famous 1902 film where--well, where the men go to the moon... It's based on this book. It's called A Trip to the Moon--its famous image is the moon with a face and a rocket sticking out of one of its eyes. It's mentioned in 99% of all film books, so yeah... It's pretty interesting. I haven't actually watched it in a few years.
Answer to last post's cryptic lyrics: I'm Going Slightly Mad by Queen
This post's cryptic lyrics: Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah!
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