¿Te gustaría viajar en el tiempo?

Lo primero que quiero destacar de esta novela es el título. Imaginen que van a una biblioteca, ojean títulos de libros al azar y de repente se cruzan con una obra llamada «La máquina del tiempo». Independientemente, del gusto literario, es muy probable que solo el título te inyecte la curiosidad suficiente para tomar el libro en tus manos, abrirlo y conocer un poco sobre su contenido. En este caso no importa ni el autor, ni el año de publicación, ni la sinopsis. Es un título que atrae a miles de lectores cada año porque su sola mención nos lleva a pensar en los viajes en el tiempo, y nos despierta la imaginación necesaria para pensar en los avances tecnológicos y científicos que podrían crearse en el futuro. Un libro de estas características no necesita sinopsis, publicidad, ni tampoco un público recomendado. Es un libro que se viraliza solo, que sirve de inspiración para nuevos escritores, y que seguramente jamás caerá en el olvido porque su autor fue una gran influencia para el género que conocemos hoy como ciencia ficción. Probablemente, por la fuerza que transmite este título, es que inconscientemente muchas personas eligen este libro como una de sus primeras lecturas en su vida lectora. A mí me ocurrió hace algunos años, lo disfruté en su momento, y considero que fue una motivación importantísima para que empezara a explorar más títulos relacionados de ciencia ficción. Por eso hoy quise releerlo, no solo para recordar el argumento, sino para escribir una reseña digna de este gran trabajo de Herbert George Wells.

Considerando que es una obra escrita hace más de 120 años, La máquina del tiempo no puede juzgarse por la falta de lógica que posee. Obviamente, durante el trascurso del tiempo, la ciencia ha venido progresando de manera asombrosa (y peligrosa), y por tanto las teorías e hipótesis que se manejan hoy en día sobre viajes en el tiempo eran completamente desconocidas en aquel entonces. Además, el autor decide recurrir a la imaginación para dar explicación a los sucesos que acontecen, ya que en realidad, su objetivo no es escribir sobre la tecnología necesaria que se debería tener para viajar en el tiempo, sino sobre los problemas sociales y la decadencia que nuestra especie podría sufrir debido a la marginación de las diferentes clases sociales. Wells da a entender que entre mayores sean nuestras diferencias de raza, sexo, y posición social, más distancia existirán entre los pueblos, llegando incluso a que cada clase social sea una especie diferente de la naturaleza. Wells lleva esta idea al extremo mostrándonos un futuro en el que hay dos especies. Por una parte están unos seres bellos llamados Los Eloi, quienes viven con comodidad y placer, pero sin poseer inteligencia, mientras que por otra parte, existen los Morlocks que son aterradores, viven bajo tierra, son sensibles a la luz, y que tienen más maldad y brutalidad que los llamados cavernícolas. Este libro es una crítica directa a la falta de igualdad de derechos que se ha vivido en toda la historia de la humanidad.

Wells decidió usar como protagonista a un hombre que se sentía muy orgulloso de sus conocimientos y su invento; sin embargo, entre más avanza la novela, más vamos notando que el protagonista sufre un cambio tremendo de mentalidad, no solo porque se confunde de su verdadera realidad, sino porque al ser testigo de los sucesos negativos del futuro empieza a comprender que no siempre lo que deseamos es lo que necesitamos, y que gracias a lo que queremos eliminar como el peligro, o los problemas, es que hemos sido capaces como especie de evolucionar, crear y desarrollar sistemas que nos han ayudado a combatir dichos inconvenientes. El problema, es que si no existieran más problemas, ni más cambios repentinos, entonces nuestra especie entraría en decadencia por la falta de retos nuevos para nuestro cerebro. El protagonista empieza a comprender que un futuro perfecto sería equivalente a la lenta extinción de nuestra especie. Su caos interno, sus hipótesis y sus conclusiones son interesantes de conocerlas.

La ambientación está marcada por un gran aura de tristeza. Es normal creer que el futuro será mucho mejor con respecto a lo que vivimos en nuestra actualidad, y eso se debe en parte a que cuando estudiamos historia observamos los cambios positivos que como sociedad hemos vivido. Sin embargo, aquí Wells nos muestra las dos caras de la moneda: La utopía de la felicidad y la calma, y el triste vacío de la extinción. No sé si pueda catalogarse como pesimismo, pero el estilo con el que describe el mundo —en el último tercio de la novela— tiene un toque fatídico que nos deja la sensación de que no tenemos salvación, ni escapatoria. Según el prólogo que tenía mi edición, se explicaba que justamente ese era el objetivo principal de los primeros cuentos y relatos de ciencia ficción: Mostrar los defectos y desgracias que el avance de la ciencia y la tecnología traerían con el tiempo a la humanidad. Y eso lo hace muy bien Wells porque realmente cuando lees este libro te queda una sensación de pesimismo y desazón por el futuro. ¿La humanidad estará tomando el camino correcto? ¿Será que hay alguna forma de escapar de este inevitable apocalipsis? ¿Hay algo que podamos hacer al respecto? Difícil saberlo, mucho más complejo comprobarlo.

Quizás la prosa no fue la mejor habilidad de este escritor, pero su línea argumental sí está bien diseñada. Fácil de leer, descripciones no excesivas, y una tendencia natural a usar sus elementos narrativos con el fin de criticar sobre lo que no estaba de acuerdo de la sociedad en la que vivió. El final es especulativo, deja abierta la puerta para cualquier hipotética continuación que nunca existió, y por estas y más razones seguirá siendo un clásico de la literatura por mucho tiempo. Este libro se recomienda para quienes quieren comenzar a conocer las ideas y pensamientos del autor, pero otra buena opción sería elegir El hombre invisible o La guerra de los mundos. Libro recomendado.

"Well, we should have been reading Ellison anyway."
"But we weren't."
"Who would expect science fiction over such a classic? I mean, really."
"Doesn't change that you screwed up."
"I'm just saying, Ellison is a fine writer. That's all."
"And I'm saying; Did you read the right book this time?"
--glowers-- "It has a 'The' at the front and everything."
"Ok then."
"Ok."
.
..
...
"You didn't read the illustrated children's book, right?"
"I hate you."
"Whatever, you're up. Go on."



*speaker steps up to podium to speak*

Greetings Pantsless lads and ladies,

This month's non-crunchy classic, The Time Machine by H.G. Wells, is about a tourist. That tourist. You know the one. The one no one not on the tourist board wants in their country. The one who, after spending a few scant days in a new place, thinks himself an expert on everything there is to know about that country. He knows their ills and their woes. Their joys and their struggles. He has completely absorbed all the decades of nuance contained within their social and economic structure. And of course, he is happy to tell you all about it. Our time traveler is such a tourist. That his travels are to the future changes little.

"Let me tell you about your history of oppression of the labour class," he says. "Let me tell you about the vast underground network of structures that exist in your country. I know because I saw some empty wells and a couple of towers in the distance." "Let me tell you why you turned to cannibalism. Oh, I can tell because I saw some meat on a table, so it must be human flesh." "Let me disrupt your sleep by storming through your sleeping area at night because what I need is more important than your rest." Ok, he didn't say that last one. His actions did though.

n  For I am naturally inventive, as you know.n

His actions. Oh, his actions. The tourist badgers people constantly, getting frustrated when the native peoples do not allow him to always be the center of attention. He claims some great conspiracy when his vehicle gets towed after he just parks it in the middle of the yard. He invades people's workplaces and homes uninvited. He burns down the sacred forest. And then... to top it all off, he assaults the native citizens. Those poor, legally blind Morlocks who get by mostly on touch. He just beats them. He invades their homes, and when they try to figure out who he is (by touch, because they can't see well), he kicks and punches them. Then when they are fleeing for their lives from the fire he started, he kills them. This tourist spends a few days in a new country and decides it is ok to murder the native people! It's sickening, really.

n  Weena I had resolved to bring with me to our own time.n

If all of that wasn't bad enough, he even had plans to lure one of the local women back home with him. Despicable. This tourist is too dumb to bring a camera on a trip to a new land. Too dumb to bring a pencil and paper even though he calls himself a scientist. But he thinks one of the native citizens would be better off with him. And of course, through it all, he claims his own virtue.

n  
I was almost moved to begin a massacre of the helpless abominations about me, but I contained myself. n

As if not being a mass-murderer is somehow a virtue. Perhaps to this worst of all tourists, it is. But for the rest of us, not assaulting strangers is a given. And so we must prevent such tourists from coming to our country! We must protect our forests! We must protect our defenseless! We must build a wall. A wall in time! A time wall! A...

*speaker's friend rushes up and drags him off the stage*

*friend whispering furiously in his ear* "This is a book club. It's all fiction. What is wrong with you?"

*after a moment of confusion, the audience gets up for snacks before the next round of reviews from these pantsless readers:*

Evgeny, Jeff, Carmen, Ashley, Dan 2.skull, Erin, and Jess (once she finishes).

"In a moment I knew what had happened. I had slept and the bitterness of death came over my soul."

H.G. Wells is such a good writer. Not only does he have an amazing imagination that carries him to impossible places, but he is very skilled at writing. The descriptions in this book are absolutely stunning.

The book deals with a British, upper-class white man who has invented a time machine telling all his cronies about it in the smoking-room. He has traveled to the year 802701, and you have to admire Wells for not making the classic mistake of setting the future too close to the present. I'm certain this story will have impact for millenia to come due to his far-reaching decision.

In the year 802701, there are the kind, playful, gentle child-like people who live on the surface of the planet: the Eloi. The Time Traveller goes on and on and on about how humanity is going to kill itself by becoming "too safe" and "too peaceful"... something I am rather doubtful about happening, BUT ANYWAY, there's also a dark secret lurking in the year 802701, and the Time Traveller gets his first glimpse of it when his Time Machine mysteriously vanishes. Who has taken it and why? Can he ever get it back?

"At once, like a lash across the face, came the possibility of losing my own age, of being left helpless in this strange new world. The bare thought of it was an actual physical sensation. I could feel it grip me at the throat and stop my breathing."

Of course there are missteps in here, things that will have you shaking your head like comparing "savages" to animals, and the threat of COMMUNISM(!) that actually had me laughing out loud.

"Looking round, with a sudden thought, from a terrace on which I rested for a while, I realised that there were no small houses to be seen. Apparently, the single house, and possibly event the household, had vanished. Here and there among the greenery were palace-like buildings, but the house and the cottage, which form such characteristic features of our own English landscape, had disappeared.

'Communism,' said I to myself."

LOL LOL LOL He thinks the weak, gentle, friendly people of the upper earth are indolent.

"They spent all of their time in playing gently, in bathing in the river, in making love in a half-playful fashion, in eating fruit and sleeping. I could not see how things were kept going."

And he's like, "Those fucking communists!" LOL LOL LOL I couldn't stop laughing. *wipes eyes*

Okay. ANYWAY, the book is good. Short, gripping, with suspense and excitement - paired with Wells exquisite writing.

Here's him describing what travelling through time feels like:

"I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has upon a switchback - of a helpless headlong motion! I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed, and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness: the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous colour like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space, the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue."

I don't know about you, but I could read Wells all day. It's so pretty.

My 1978 copy of this book was literally falling apart in my hands as I was reading this. Oh, well, I'm sure it's free on Kindle.

Tl;dr - Not too long, full of amazing writing, this book is truly transporting. Wells is good at building suspense and creeping you out. He also delivers on some excellent descriptive passages. If he is a little misguided on his ideas about the future, that can be forgiven. It sure is entertaining reading, and understandable why this has been a classic.

"I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then."

BOOKS THIS REMINDED ME OF:
Gulliver's Travels
The Sparrow

Group-Read with my Pantsless Friends. :)

The Time Traveler invites over his friends and tells them of his theories about time traveling. The next day when his friend returns he stumbles in late and then tells them a tale about his journey through time. I really admired the writing though it may be dry or dense for some, I think I've been reading long enough that it wasn't too much of an effort to read through this one. The premise was interesting and I was anxious for the Time Traveler when he was recounting his journey to get back to the present so the story did draw me in. Some of the social commentary felt quite questionable and pessimistic though. I enjoyed reading it though, it's not very long and it was interesting. Towards the end of the Time Traveler's journey I got a little bored but the ending was really good, I appreciate an open ended ending that lets you keep imagining what happened.

Probably an interesting novella in it’s day and thus become a Classic. Science Fiction is not really for me and this has confirmed it thankfully. I know there are themes of political, society, class and humanity scenario’s but compared to what’s out there it just did not grab my attention.

J. Verne'in bilimsel serüven romanlarının aksine Wells, bilimsel yaklaşımlı toplumsal eleştiriyi, kitaplarının merkezine koymayı amaç edinmiş. Bu yüzden Verne ile kıyaslandığı bir çok inceleme mevcut.

Bilimkurguya yeni başlayan biri olarak türü sevdiğimi söyleyebilirim.
Belirli bir mantık çerçevesinde, aşırı tesadüflerden ve absürtlüklerden uzak her edebi türü okumaya açığım ve bu kitap da başlangıç için bence ideal.

İyi polisiye iyi edebiyattır mottosu aslında türlerden bağımsız hepsi için geçerli.

Zaman Makinesi'nde alt metinlerde yoğun bir kapitalizm eleştirisi olduğunu düşünüyorum.
Sırf bu yüzden dahi gözardı etmeyeceğim :)

Kitapla ilgili tek eleştirim, dipnotların ne yazık ki kitabın arkasında olması. Ne yazık ki hala bu yöntem iş bankasınca bile kullanılıyor.

I remember really liking this as a kid. I still enjoyed it as an adult reread with my non-crunchy but pantsless pals, Evgeny, Jeff, Carmen, Christopher (and some other lovely people who haven't gotten around to reviewing it yet), but not as much.

My review-let for the reread is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This is my first reread of The Time Machine since my mid teens, over four decades ago. Back then, I was just beginning to explore science fiction, and responded to it simply as a pretty cool SciFi tale. Rereading it now, I’m able to appreciate it on so many more levels. Wells was doing a lot with this short book, and he did it elegantly.

Not only is The Time Machine among the earliest examples of science fiction literature, but it is the granddaddy of all modern time travel tales. Wells made the mold, right down to the devise of the use of a machine to travel in time, which has become ubiquitous. This by itself makes the work significant.

Yet The Time Machine is much more. It is a powerful political parable of the consequences of the stark economic inequities between the capital class and the working class. The Eloi and the Morlocks of Wells’s far future represent the grim endgame of the propertied class’s callous disregard for the well-being of the working class that Wells observed in Victorian Britain. His socialist conscience was on full display in this short novel, so much so that it can almost be considered a work of political philosophy as much as an Ur-SciFi novel.

Wells constructed his tale with such skill that, despite its heavy moral, it never comes across preachy or didactic. Its framing story puts us at a bourgeois, Victorian dinner party, where several men, identified only by their occupations, are discussing new scientific theory. It is here that the time traveler introduces first his theory, and then his model of a time machine. The following week, at another dinner party, the time traveler enters gaunt and disheveled, claiming to have just returned from travel in time. He regales the incredulous table with the fantastic tale of his journey, little caring that his companions obviously do not believe him. Every detail of this framing story, and story told within it works elegantly, down to the detail of leaving all the men, including the time traveler, anonymous, thus focusing all on the story being told. It is not by accident that this early science fiction tale from the Victorian Age has become a classic, and is still read on its own merit today.

THE TIME MACHINE begins with the time traveller requesting absolute silence and no interruptions while telling the story of his astonishing journey into a strange and dangerous futuristic world of unfamiliar creatures.

And When he had concluded his tale of the little people, his fear of the underground and the dark nights, he was greatly disappointed of his inability to convince his esteemed colleagues of its validity.

And Then......the ending......uh oh......not what I was expecting.

Published in 1895 H. G. Wells had quite the imagination for the bizarre as evidenced in this timeless sci-fi classic.

Poți reciti o carte doar pentru a verifica un amănunt? Poți.

Ce fel de floare aduce din viitor călătorul în timp? Jorge Luis Borges a spus (și Mario Vargas Llosa a repetat) că exploratorul aduce din viitor un trandafir și că această floare anacronică reprezintă „paradigma obiectului fantastic”. Am avut o îndoială, eu știam altceva, și am deschis cartea lui H. G. Wells, a cărui biografie redactată de David Lodge, Un om făcut din bucăți, tocmai o citesc acum.

Călătorul nu se întoarce în mînă cu un trandafir ca să-și dovedească isprava. Oricine poate arăta unui grup de fani SF un trandafir (la mine în mahala costă doar 5 lei), dar asta nu înseamnă că a ajuns cu „mașina timpului” în 2021 sau în oricare alt an din afundul erelor viitoare, în 802701, să zicem, anul propus de Wells.

Călătorul aduce, de fapt, două flori necunoscute. Și nu pentru că s-a gîndit la o dovadă, ci pentru că Weena i le-a pus în buzunar: „ea a început să alerge în jurul meu, repezindu-se să culeagă flori”. În timp ce-și povestește aventura temporală, „exploratorul timpului se opri, îşi vîrî mîinile în buzunar şi puse apoi pe măsuţă două flori veştejite, care nu se deosebeau prea mult de nalbele mari, albe”.

Așadar, florile culese de Weena (imposibil de identificat) i-au rămas în buzunar printr-o întîmplare. Iar călătorul în timp nu dorește să dovedească nimănui nimic. Știe prea bine că nu va fi crezut de prieteni. Nici povestitorul nu pare să-l creadă...

Încă o dată: poți reciti o carte doar pentru a verifica un amănunt? Firește că poți...

P. S. Am deschis chiar acum volumul de Eseuri al lui Borges (Polirom, 2015) la textul intitulat „Floarea lui Coleridge” (pp.165-168). Și, nu, Borges NU spune că eroul povestirii lui Wells aduce un trandafir: „Mai incredibilă decît o floare celestă sau decît floarea dintr-un vis este, desigur, floarea viitoare, contradictoria floare ai cărei atomi ocupă astăzi cu totul alte locuri și nu s-au combinat încă între ei”.

Inexactitatea aparține, prin urmare, lui Mario Vargas Llosa: „Lui Borges îi plăcea să citeze povestirea aceea a lui H. G. Wells (alt autor fascinat, ca şi el, de tema timpului), The Time Machine, în care un om călătoreşte în viitor şi se întoarce cu un trandafir în mînă, ca dovadă a aventurii lui. Acel anormal trandafir nenăscut exalta imaginaţia lui Borges ca paradigmă de obiect fantastic” (Mario Vargas Llosa, Scrisori către un tînăr romancier, traducere din spaniolă de Mihai Cantuniari, București: Humanitas, 2010).

I expected something better from H.G.Wells,the father of science fiction. A good idea,poorly executed.
Lacked excitement and action,was pretty dull and dry. Redeeming features : it was a quick read,and the ending wasn't bad.

I read this in summer school 2003 and didn't think much of it. I reread it now and thoroughly enjoyed it after all these years. The story is told in second person but from a first person perspective because the Time Traveller is telling his story.

My interpretation of the story was as The Time Traveller progressed in time, humanity regressed into a primal state. When the Traveller landed in this new world it appeared surreal and beautiful. He gradually discovers a split and dichotomous environment that contains a dark side.

The unique coexistence between the Upper World and the Under World was neat for me to rediscover. The polarity of beauty and hideousness, have and have-not, and the search for knowledge were themes I interpreted.

Though written in 1895 the storytelling is a little dated and archaic but remains solid nonetheless. I would recommend this piece of classic literature to anyone. Thanks!