Можда нешто на��забавније што сам читала у последње време. Велсов стил писања је једноставан, а опет генијалан и успе да увуче читаоца у причу чим отвори књигу. Овај писац је доказ да се на довитљив начин и с не много речи може изнети мноштво идеја и поука које ни након читавог века не бледе.

I enjoyed his more than I expected to - I thought it very cleverly written, and while I am typically late to the party with reading this, I see enjoyment of it varies fairly widely in my GR friends opinions.

Included in the enjoyable aspects were Griffin being an unpleasant protagonist - a scientist with the goal of using his discovery to further his own life, to cause trouble and even terror, and to protect the secrecy of his discovery at all costs. This story just would not have worked had he been a scientist with morals, who would perhaps seek glory, but would still have published his findings etc. I admit also that I found much amusement in the fact he was running about stark bollock naked when invisible.

HG Wells has shown again how future thinking he was - I am guessing this book was a revelation when published. He had a reasonable stab at justifying the science, and I thought he did well to consider all the aspects of invisibility from a practical perspective - for example the fact food remains visible until it becomes digested enough; blood becomes visible when it coagulates; and how limiting it is for him not to be able to carry anything eg money. There were plenty of unintended and unforeseen consequences as Griffin made his way.

And so with Griffin being, most of the time, his own worst enemy - the story rolls out until it's inevitable conclusion.

A quick and straight forward read, one which I appreciated at this time, the last few books I have read having taken longer than I might have liked to get through!

Perhaps a little generous, but 4 stars!

Koronalı günlerimde elimden düşürmeden okuduğum bir bilim-kurgu klasiği. İnanılmaz akıcılıkta ve hiç düşmeyen bir tempoda.

Ana karakterimiz bir sosyopat. Sanırım bunu dediğim için büyük bir ayıp işlemiyorum. Fakat öyle. Bir bilim insanı ve kafayı ışık, optik, kırınım ve görünmezliğe takmış. Edindiği tecrübeler ve edinimler ile bu görünmezlik işini başarıyor da. Fakat bundan sonraki yaşamı geri döndüremeyeceği cinsten bir hal alıyor. Görünür olmayı yeniden başaramıyor.

Wells bize hoş bir eser sunmuş. Başarılı bir bilim-kurgu örneği. Belki favori kitabınız olmayacak ama muhtemelen seveceksiniz.

İyi okumalar.

2.0 stars. I had not read this book in many years and so I decided to re-read it over the weekend. In retrospect, this might have been a big mistake. Previously, I had very fond memories of the book as one of the best of the “classic” horror stories along with Dracula, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Well, it is certainly a classic of the genre, but I no longer feel like it deserves a place among the elite of its peers.

If can I may borrow and paraphrase from the late Lloyd Bentsen in his famous Vice Presidential debate with Dan Quayle:
n  n

So what changed this time around? For me, I just found the characters (including the title character) to be paper thin and pretty uninteresting. I thought the plot was very “vanilla” and had about as much tension as a Brady Bunch marital spat. As for the Invisible Man himself, in addition to being uninteresting, he came across to me as a fairly lame villain. By this I mean he didn't really inspire a lot of fear, loathing or even pity.

One thing that didn't help and is not the book's fault is that at one point, I got a picture of Claude Rains (from the original movie version) in my head shaking his fist behind those bandages and all I could think of was him screaming
n  n

Even without the intrusion of Colonel Klink, the Invisible Man came across as a second rate bad guy. It was like Vincent Price in those Saturday afternoon horror flicks if that gives you an idea of the kind of “menace” the character inspired in me. As Doctor Evil would say, the Invisible Man is “semi-evil, quasi-evil, the margarine of evil. He’s the Diet Coke of evil... Just one calorie, not evil enough.”

I know it sounds like I am really bashing the book and that is not my intention. It is certainly not a bad book. For me, I just don't think I can rate it higher than “okay” (hence the 2 star rating). I think part of my rant may be that I am a little bitter because I feel like one of the “classics” has been pulled out from under me.

Oh well, sometimes ignorance is bliss!!!

Classic

Interesting read, good description of what it might be like to invisible, among general population. Including some of the physics that made him invisible.
It can be a little dated at times with unusual language, and attitudes. Can be difficult to understand the value of the money in that time.
Overall a great experience.

n  El pánico lo persiguió dando grandes zancadas, lo sobrepaso y en pocos segundos se apodero de todo su pueblo.
-¡Ya viene el Hombre Invisible! El Hombre Invisible.n

Este libro para mi consta de dos partes, la primera, ante todo me pareció algo cómica, no tiene nada de horror o misterio, inmediatamente sabemos quién es el hombre invisible, y más que un peligro, parece (al menos en personalidad) un viejito cascarrabias, si existe alguna incógnita es el ¿Cómo se volvió invisible?

Ahora la segunda parte me parece mucho más seria, y si me causo gracia en un principio, era porque no conocía la historia de El Hombre Invisible ni de todo lo que sería capaz. Cuando n  Griffinn empieza a narrar su historia, se nota que a diferencia de, digamos, otros científicos locos, como el Doctor Frankenstein o el Doctor Jekyll, él no tiene dilemas éticos o morales, él es un genio y se considera a sí mismo mejor que los demás, y como la mayoría de las personas que se consideran mejor que los demás, tiende a pensar que las reglas que rigen el mundo de la gente común no son para él, eso unido a un profundo enojo hacia la humanidad, nos da a un sociópata con habilidades bastante terroríficas.

n  ¡El dominio del Terror! Éste es el primer día del primer año de una nueva era: la era del Hombre Invisible. n

Aunque el mismo Griffin nos dirá que sus habilidades vienen con limitaciones, hay un momento en el que sentí la paranoia que El Hombre Invisible puede causar a sus enemigos, como humanos, el sentido más importante para nosotros es la vista, entonces ¿cómo te sentirías seguro si eres perseguido a muerte por algo que no puedes ver? ¿Alguna vez volverías a dormir en paz?

n  Hoy comienza la muerte para él. Puede encerrarse, esconderse, conseguir guardaespaldas, ponerse una armadura si quiere, pero la Muerte, la invisible Muerte, ya está en camino. n

Como thriller está bastante bien, unas cuantas muertes más aquí y allá lo mejorarían un poco, aun así por ser un precursor de la ciencia ficción, que ha servido de inspiración para muchas otras historias, y por tener un científico loco bastante enojado, lo recomiendo.

„Невидимия“ е доста интересна и вълнуваща книга... В нея става дума за тежката съдба на загадъчен учен, който е успял да стане невидим. Главният герой се оказа агресивен и противоречив образ, но и описаните в историята обществени нрави не са по-добри. Чрез много добре замисления и напрегнат сюжет Уелс майсторски критикува човешката природа, също както във „Война на световете“.



„Всеки човек, дори най-интелигентният, запазва в себе си известна доза суеверие.“

Ενδιαφέρον βιβλιαράκι, όχι κάτι το ιδιαίτερο όμως. Δεν είδα κάπου να δικαιολογεί την φήμη του, παρόλο που αποτελεί το πιο γνωστό βιβλίο του Γουέλς μαζί με τον Πόλεμο των Κόσμων. Είναι δύο ταχυτήτων, με τα πρώτα ~2/3α να είναι ανάλαφρο και κωμικό ανά σημεία, ενώ οι τελευταίες 50 σελίδες που μαθαίνουμε την ιστορία του αόρατου ανθρώπου μέσα από πρωτοπρόσωπη αφήγηση, αλλάζει τόνο. Γίνεται πιο σκληρό, πιο σκοτεινό και φορτωμένο με πληροφορία. Αν και τέτοιου είδους αλλαγές mid-book είναι συνήθως ευπρόσδεκτες γιατί διώχνουν την υποψία κοιλιάς, στην προκειμένη ο τρόπος που ήρθε ήταν εκτός τόπου και χρόνου, πιάνοντας τον αναγνώστη εξ'απροόπτου. Ίσως το μέγεθος του βιβλίου δεν βοηθάει, παρά προσθέτει στο άνισο της αφήγησης.

Προσωπικά, το έβγαλα δεκασέλιδο το δεκασέλιδο και με κούρασε παραπάνω απ'όσο του αναλογεί. Στα θετικά του παρόλα αυτά, ότι το κομμάτι του exposition σχετικά με το πως έγινε ο πρωταγωνιστής αόρατος είχε ενδιαφέρον και ο χαρακτήρας και τα κίνητρά του σκιαγραφούνται ικανοποιητικά (θα μπορούσαν και πολύ καλύτερα).

A reread with the Evolution of Science Fiction group. It's been a long time since I read this, a thin paperback, so I listened to it this time. Well narrated, but it's in that winding Victorian style that I don't care for. The occasional funny turns of phrase aren't worth all the chum that separates them.

I really didn't care for the first half of the book much. It sets the stage well in some respects showing just how ignorant & iconoclastic the locals are, but it took too long to do so & never gave me a great sense of the main character. Still, the 'salt of the earth' were well & firmly painted. There aren't any likeable characters in the story.

The invisible man's story really comes out in the second half & that was quite enjoyable, if fairly horrible. He's not a very likeable character, but could have been far more so if Wells had mixed his motivations into his behavior earlier. As it is, his story unfolds & it's not pretty. He's  the driven, amoral scientist who strives obsessively toward his goal with childish expectations & things go badly quickly once he achieves it. He saw only the great abilities it will confer, but what he finds are all the downsides. His true personality emerges as his disappointments mount until he is a mad animal that has to be destroyed.

All together, it's a pretty sad story of human greed, corruption, & ignorance. The pseudoscientific explanations aren't awful. They're better than many later works during the Golden Age of SF, but not particularly fulfilling today. It's definitely one of the foundations of the genre & well worth the time spent.

I read most classics in high-school at 16 years old or something, I remember the novel that slumped me. I think it had this guy called Cortez that was searching for gold in some amazon like location. It was probably the least exciting at the time and I got distracted and didn't go back to reading until college.
They were all abridged versions though, maybe that's why I read so many of them, just remembering their size they were 200 pages each.
I am saying that because this was one of them of course.
Still, I didn't remember a single detail in the novel, everything was a surprise for me, except for the spoilers that were in the introduction, which took a back seat in my mind and I didn't think about them while reading and ended up enjoying this even more.

It's fascinating what H.G. Wells did here, I remember a few years back I read book 1 of a complete short stories collection of his. Not sure if the translation was bad, or the stories were subpar but I ended up taking over a month to read the book, and not enjoying it very much, and not remembering any of it. I remember that short story about a land where only blind people live or something!

I kept waiting for an excuse for The Invisible man to not treat him as a villain, but he was throughout the story.
There was no excuse.
I thought maybe the experiment he did on himself ended up making him have fits of anger, but that wasn't the case.
He was just a bad person plain and simple.
A mad scientist who would do anything to reach his goals.
A supremist who thought himself better than everyone because of his invention. Who thought himself above the law.
Who thought that all evils were okay because nobody could see him!

I remember coming to this realization at one point when I was working at this store a few years back, people steal really pitiful things just because they know you can't see them.
Grown young woman who was about to marry stealing half a kilo of chocolate just because I gave her my back to bring something from inside.
Grown young man who was working and didn't want for money stealing a liter of juice and hiding it in his clothes!
A school friend stealing valuable things to go sell them to a different store until I finally got warned that he was doing it.
Never punished any of them, it was beyond pathetic honestly, the invisible man here is thinking along the same lines but way more extreme, he would harm and kill just because nobody can see him.

The weird thing for me, for someone who loves science as much as H.G. Wells why did he choose to make his protagonist evil? Kind of counter productive really!
The weirder thing yet would be if that's how his novels usually go but that would be crazy.

Anyway I enjoyed this immensely, I had to stop reading a few times because of neck pains, but I finally learned a simple stretch that fixes the excruciating pain.
Time to think of what to read next.

I really enjoyed this. Read like a classic Black and white horror film. The concept of and invisible human is a familiar one many authors and filmmakers have taken the concept which probably predates H.G Wells and expanded it.

One can easily break the invisible man into three parts. The first is a sort of mystery where the reader is introduced to the man and hints are dropped as to his condition. no need to be careful about spoilers it's in the title he's invisible. so the locals trying to catch and subdue him. This actually struck me as funny like a Charlie Chaplin slapstick bit. he escapes and ends up at the house of a colleague. The second part is the invisible man an albino named Griffin telling his friend Kemp of how he became invisible. this is probably the boring bit. I like the eloquence of the Victorian writing and get a kick out of the turn of the century sci-fi science. Its turn out Griffin is a dangerous man and a law breaker so kemp calls the authorities. Griffin takes this as a betrayal and vows revenge. thus begins the third part. which is really exciting it's a thrilling hunt as griffin tries to kill kemp and the cops try to capture griffin. The invisible man ends with a creepy twist. nothing to scary.

The invisible man is a classic thriller sci-fi. if you don't like classics maybe skip this but i enjoyed and it's less than 200 pages long and easy to find. pick it up and give it a try! at the very least you can say you read it and then watch one of the many movie adaptations!

This was part of a massive buddy read of this title and usually for a buddy read I do something other than a serious review.

Jeff, have you ever done a serious review?

*sigh*

I might do a poor rendering of a passage from the book, kind of in the author's style in order to embarrass a few of my Goodreads “friends”, who quite frankly usually have it coming or if I’m feeling inspired, I’ll do something really creative.

Jeff, do you set some sort of bar for “creative”? Is there a sliding scale? Define “creative.

Shaddup!

Or I’ll just do a list.

The poor man’s review, right, Jeff?

Grrrr!

So, the list I’ve been toying with would be “Ten Non-Pervy Things You Can Do with the Power of Invisibility.” Let’s face it, the power of invisibility kind of lends itself to the baser sort of thing and it would be too easy to come up with these types of degenerate examples.

It would be too “easy” for you, Jeff.

Heh!

And fellas, men who have shortcomings, being invisible would leave you that much more nondescript. Just sayin’.

So non-pervy uses of invisibility it is.

Top Ten Cool Things You Can Do With This Super-Duper Power of Invisibility.

Hold your horses!

This poses a problem because, Wells in his fine book points out the inherent issues with this type of ability:

1)tUnless you have invisible clothes you’re constantly running around naked, which is great if you live in a moderate climate, but not so much if you encounter extremes in weather, e.g. Rain, snow, fog, cold weather.

2)tIf you eat, you have to stay hidden, because people can see that taco as it is going through your digestive tract. So being invisible involves eating next to nothing.

3)tAnything with an acute sense of smell (dogs, Daredevil, Wolverine) will be able to instantly detect you. So get ready to be bitten, have a billy club bounced off your noggin or gutted.

4)tPeople can still hear you, so if you’re clumsy or stoned you’ll lose that sense of surprise.

5)tThe invisibility process as outlined in the book increases paranoia and enhances mental instability, or was that the fact that Griffin was smoking strychnine. Not sure, but if you want to be invisible, kids, don’t do drugs and stay in school.

6)tWithout the force field power that usually accompanies invisibility in comics, you could end up like Griffin did in the League of Extraordinary Gentleman.

So we’ve gone from having a great super power to being a pest.

Top Ten Annoying Things You Can Do If You Are Invisible

1)tStrange voices – if you there’s someone who doesn’t have a firm grasp on reality, you can do the voice of God or evil Jiminey Cricket. Or find out where Kelly lives and become the voice of Mitchell, although you might be too late for that one she probably already converses with him.

2)tSmack some annoying kid in the back of the head. This should have been number one.

3)tTeam up with a ventriloquist, a circus carney, mountebank or a seer.

4)tRing people’s doors late at night and instead of running you can stand there and watch their puzzled expressions (What fun!)

5)tDrive a car or ride a bike while invisible and post it on the internetz.- remember vinyl seats and being nude don’t really mix for prolonged periods of time.

6)tFreak out tourists at some echoy place by answering them back.

7)tBecome someone’s “imaginary” friend.

8)tTake public transportation and signal for every stop.

9)tHelp your favorite sports team win by deflecting a ball or tripping someone– no football or hockey of course – because naked!

10)tHaunt a house – scary voices, move things around, write stuff on the walls in blood, walk around at night, rattle chains.