The Island of Dr. Moreau

I first read this book when I was in high school, MANY years ago. Really enjoyed rereading it.

The question that "The Law" posits in this novel -- "Are we not men?" -- drives us to question so many, many assumptions we have about ourselves as human beings.This book has a rather special place in my own reading life. It gave me deep chills, indeed, it horrified me when I first read it in late childhood, and a recent re-reading reminded me of that experience and led me to reflect on just what, exactly, caused that reaction.I think it came about because good novels touch us at points of intuition, rather than rationally. Reason, that's for science classes and textbooks. Novels work through our imagination and take hold in a different part of our minds, and so this one poses a fundamental question: if people evolved from animals, how different from them are we? This leads to corollary questions: is civilization just a thin, fictitious construct? Is there no ultimate law? Under the right circumstances, do we revert to our beastly nature?In short, the book invites us to take a long stare into the abyss of chaos, and, once staring, it's hard to avert ones gaze, terrible as it is.There, I think, is the power of this novel. Like any great work of science fiction, it drives us to ponder, uncomfortably, "what if? ... what if? ... WHAT IF???" Because if this novel has a scintilla of truth in it, we live in a very, very dangerous world.The novel was first published in 1896, while the controversies over Darwin and the theory of evolution were fresh and ripe. In addition, there was the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" that "God is dead." Hence, the novel raises so many questions for which there are no very sure answers. Are humans no more than evolved beasts? If evolved, can we devolve? Is law nothing more than an elaborate fiction perpetrated by the powerful on the powerless? Are all the elaborate trappings of civilization we have just illusions to keep our animal instincts in check? Are the government and the police no more than "The Master" and "The Other with the Whip"? And what do we do when we discover something different, like a man who walked into the sea? And if "The Master" is dead - or as Nietzsche put it, God is dead - is there a Law?This novel becomes all the more poignant today given certain philosophical and political developments. On the philosophical side, militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris insist there is nothing to us but our animal nature, to the point of Harris even arguing in a recent book that humans have no free will, just obedience to natural laws (in which case I have to ask what natural law led Harris to write that book? - just sayin'). Several more rigorous and more precise philosophers (here I think of David Dennett and Alain de Bouton) struggle seriously with the question of how morality is possible in the absence of God - they have some interesting answers, so please explore their books.On the political side, libertarians and some conservatives (and even some more traditional liberals) are rather exercised about the notion of "Rule of Law" (and it is an important concept). That is, they argue that civilization becomes impossible if there are not consistent rules that apply to all and that are uniformly enforced regardless of who is in charge. I'll grant that for the sake of argument, but what, then, is the source of law? Moreau? Some sad, sick ambitious creator who didn't give a thought for the moral consequences of his experimentation?So that's what I love about this novel: unless you aren't paying attention, you have to ask fundamental questions about your very existence, and about the very existence of human society.This note about Wells as a novelist: honestly, he frustrates me. I've read much of what he's written, and in almost every case, to include this one, he gets a great plot going, and then can't seem to keep it going, so he comes up with some Deus ex Machina to get him out of the corner he's written himself into. And in almost all of his novels at some point he drops off of the painstaking task of showing us what's going on and devolves to just telling us what happened. And that's why he's hardly a novelist of the first rank, and why this novel doesn't get five stars.

Prendick, the protagonist, is victim of a shipwreck. His ordeal starts there but never ends. After almost dying he is rescued by Montgomery, a sad man with secrets. In his weak state the small world of the ship is like a floating nightmare populated by doomed animals. The nightmare gets worse when he is left stranded in the island of the elusive doctor Moreau. Is like he never really gets to recover conscience or has just died and is into a hell made of creatures, an island where everything seems bound to fail. In the end (without giving spoilers of course), as it happens with any story in hell, even the horrors left us alone, without place to escape, to ourselves. I loved so much to read The Island of Doctor Moreau and I can recommend it effusively.The horrors I felt reading this novel are in part due to our modern world. Viral videos of cruelty of today toward animals around the world give body to the descriptions of yesterday of the fictional experiments in the story. I don't know if contemporary readers of Wells felt the same, maybe yes: the characters are well developed and the events are told in a masterful way that it possibly felt gory and painful for them too. What Jonathan Swift tried to (unsuccessfully) express in his "Gulliver's Travels," that idea that civilization perhaps is not that human nor civilized, Wells gets to say it in a mature way. It doesn't feel preachy or resentful, just illuminating. Suddenly myself as a reader started to be conscious of my own monstrosity, my hands with bones and blood and nails grabbing the kindle, and recalled about the mystery that still today are islands to us.About the AmazonClassics Edition this is an excellent edition. The formatting is professional, the typography is modern and both makes the experience of reading comfortable. There is the X-Ray function, which I did not use much here, as the book despite being set in an exotic geography, with exotic animals and medical and biological experimentation... actually is quite clear to read. The book is pure as the first day it was published, without introductions or studies to spoil the plot, only a short biography at the end. The only absence is the lack of the year of original publication, I don't know why. A minor detail that doesn't discourage me to recommend without reservation this edition.

I am quite quickly binging my way through everything Gollancz has to offer in the way of Wells and am enjoying all of it so far. The S.F. Masterworks collection never ceases to satisfy in their choice of publications, introductions and cover art.So far I have made my way through The Invisible Man, War of The Worlds, The Time Machine and now this. Personally I would have to say that I enjoyed The Island of Doctor Moreau more than the rest (aside perhaps The Time Machine), and have come to really enjoy Wells' style of writing and choices of protagonist; almost always from the perspective of a more learned man than myself.To anybody new to Wells, Sci-Fi or the S.F. Masterworks collection - you will not be disappointed.

The Island of Dr Moreau is an early SF classic with a precautionary moral about man playing God with animals. It was written at the time that Darwinian evolutionary theory was becoming more accepted and reflects many issues and concerns arising from this and man's ability to alter nature. Dr Moreau's attempts to produce animals with human characteristics, including ability to speak and reason, using surgery seem dated and absurd now, but I think the story should be read as a morality tale, and if we imagine that genetic engineering to produce chimeric organisms using modern technology is substituted, then the story's main themes remain relevant.Dr Moreau, isolated on his island with his assistant Montgomery, seems like a classic megalomaniac James Bond villain in the Dr No mould, and naturally his attempts end in disaster.There are so many themes in this short novel that would no doubt have been groundbreaking and shocking at the time that have been subsequently developed and re-worked in latter books and films, that despite now being dated in prose and detail we should remember that the pioneering Wells got there before others.There is also a good introduction and a short one page biography of Wells. A nice edition in the SF Masterworks series which is important in giving a good historical perspective to the genre.

I have never thought a horror story might shock me but this little novella from Mr Wells has shocked me quite a bit. When Doctor Moreau is experimenting pain treatment on the puma next door behind which the shrieking and howling disturbs the main character Mr Prendick, I also feel discomposed. Such creeping effect is extremely powerful even after a lengthened gap of more than one hundred years.Despite its nightmarish depiction, the work itself cries out to the reader that it is very good. Right from the first page, its setting reminds me of Robinson Crusoe as island fiction, except it is an even richer story in which man tries to be god and creates monsters that in the end haunts the ungodly master. Shocking but never shallow!I must say, Mr Wells is a genius, mastering several genres with perfection. His Time Machine is a sci-fi work. But his range is wide enough to cover the Gothic and the fantasical: The Island of Doctor Moreau is a Gothic story with a moral; his First Men in the Moon is a fantasy. He is not just a sci-fi writer; he is an imaginative prophet.I am very pleased with this OUP edition with the introduction by D. Jones. The suggestion of degeneration in the late Victorian times is implicitly linked with the sexual orientation of Oscar Wilde is very revealing about contemporary reception of the work. Of course with the benefit of hindsight, modern readers can say such alarm was rather mis-attributed. But given the fact that Darwin's idea and its implications greatly disturbs the Victorians, it is hardly the case that Victorians might think otherwise.The introduction is also very informative as well. If the editor did not mention the set-up of Royal Society of Prevention of Cruelty against Animals, I would not have been aware that the impending 200th anniversary of RSPCA and how humanity has made the leap forward.

Shipwreck survivor Edward Prendick is picked up by a dodgy cargo vessel and befriended by the secretive Montgomery. When the latter is dropped off at his destination – a mysterious island – Prendick is reluctantly offered refuge, but his welcome is not all-encompassing and the sinister Doctor Moreau and his bizarre experiments quickly throw our hero into a difficult situation. Including notes by Steven McLean and with an introduction by Margaret Atwood, The Island of Doctor Moreau is billed as a parable on Darwinian theory and a biting social satire.I’m a big fan of HG Wells and have been meaning to read this for years, but this book really didn’t do a darn thing for me. I struggled through it to the bitter end, but while I can see it must have been pretty shocking/thrilling to contemporary audiences (it was published in 1896), I really can’t see the appeal now. Compared to his other books, I found the writing tedious and the story hard going. All in all, there was very little to keep me interested.I realise I’m in a minority here, but this won’t be a book I’ll cherish for years to come – rather, one I’ll pack up for the second-hand book shop.

The Victorian fin de siecle wasn't exactly short of mad scientists but, even in a crowded and highly competitive field, Doctor Moreau stands out. He is, if you like, the Mad Scientist's Mad Scientist: the deranged genius lesser madmen in laboratories aspired to be. Moreau is Frankenstein, but without the self-awareness that what he is doing transgresses Nature.Wells's tale, published in 1896, tapped into contemporary fears regarding the gloomier conclusions arising from Darwin's theories of evoultion. Doctor Moreau, a brilliant biologist who believes the pursuit of knowledge is such a worthy aim that feeble debates regarding right and wrong shouldn't be allowed to impede his research, sets up a laboratory on an idylic island and conducts experiments into accelerated evolution. Taking animals and putting them under the knife he attempts to turn them into something closer to human beings. His experiments meet with varying degrees of 'success' but, as the pain-wracked creatures escape and stuggle with their newly acquired human characteristics, the island becomes transformed into a ghastly inversion of Eden - complete, as one memorable episode relates, with its own serpent.As ever with H G Wells the serious investigations into contemporary concerns are wrapped inside an engaging story. Edward Prendick, the somewhat self-pitying narrator of the tale, finds himself trapped on the island following a shipwreck and the gradual realisation of what Moreau's work entails, and where it is leading, is revealed through his eyes. There is a great deal of adventure and some brilliantly described action sequences, but ultimately, after reading the book, it is the horrifying nature of Moreau's ethically barren scientific research that lingers in the mind. As mad scientists go, Moreau really is up there with the true greats.