The Invisible Man

There were two things about this short novel that took me by surprise. First, I didn't realize how much humor there would be. Wells added a lot of slapstick and dry wit, revolving around the various citizens of a small town chasing and being terrorized by the title character. I always thought of Wells as deadly serious, so this book was more entertaining than I was expecting.

The second thing was my preconceived idea that this was going to be a book about a “misunderstood monster. I was thinking this would be an Incredible Hulk-type story where a scientist's experiments go horribly wrong and ruin his life. You felt bad for him because it was an accident and now he had to deal with the struggles of his humanity. He would travel from place to place and people would hate and fear him, while he tried desperately to restore himself to normal.

But instead of all that, this Invisible Man is a jerk. You can't feel bad for him. He made himself invisible on purpose, thinking how superior he would be to everyone else. He never considered the implications of his discovery for the future of science and certainly doesn't want to share it. He robs people without remorse and scares the hell out of them on purpose. He's also selfish, bad tempered, and violent.

His brilliance in figuring out how to render himself invisible is cancelled out by his lack of consideration of the consequences. His thoughts are, “great, I can rob people!” and “oh crap, I can't eat in restaurants.” Not to mention all the times he's nearly run down or crushed because people can't see him. It's not easy being invisible. Being a genius doesn't guarantee that you're very sharp.

The Invisible Man's obnoxious nature takes a more serious nature later on in the book, when he decides a “reign of terror” and revenge on his old friend are in the works. Then, the book gets less funny but more exciting. Fund and quick read for a rainy afternoon.