leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (06/18/85)
H. G. Wells and Frank McConnell's THE SCIENCE FICTION OF H. G. WELLS
Oxford University Press, 1981, $4.95.
A book review by Mark R. Leeper
One of my earliest memories was going to see the film WAR OF THE
WORLDS. I was not yet three years old and my parents, who usually hate
science fiction, for some reason went to see it. I hated it. And we sat
through it twice. By the time I was six, I would have sold both my parents
into slavery to see the film again. I was bitten by science fiction early
and hard. And the paragon of science fiction writers had to be H. G. Wells,
I thought.
Finding in the library the Dover book SEVEN SCIENCE FICTION NOVELS BY
H. G. WELLS was a high point of my youth. I remember how I originally
acquired each of the fives "Classics Illustrated" comic books based on his
science fiction books. When I was growing up, Wells was "Mr. Science
Fiction" for me.
Of course, now I am somewhat more widely read and can put Wells into a
perspective. In perspective, Wells is merely the best and most creative
science fiction writer who ever lived. There are very few current types of
science fiction story that Wells did not write and the majority of those he
invented. Time travel, alien invasion, post-holocaust, space travel--they
all descended from stories and novels by Wells. His shorter stories include
the invention of the modern tank and the "atomic bomb" (Wells coined the
phrase "atomic bomb" in 1914 and gave a surprisingly accurate appraisal of
its use in war, particularly considering that he was writing about it thirty
years before its development). Another early story describes a London
described by terrorists with biological warfare. Most SF authors predicting
the future only extrapolate the present without breakthroughs. Some
actually put in breakthroughs but are way off base about what the
breakthroughs will be. Wells predicted a surprising number of the real
breakthroughs.
That brings me to THE SCIENCE FICTION OF H. G. WELLS by Frank
McConnell. McConnell is an Associate Professor of English at Northwestern,
and he approaches Wells as an Associate Professor of English rather than as
a science fiction fan. None of the pleasure of reading Wells comes across.
He does mention, dryly and in passing, that certain novels were written
during the period when Wells was "a great storyteller," and McConnell
speculates that after that period Wells decided that he no longer wanted to
be a great storyteller, but he never talks about what made a Wells story
great. Instead of that, he gives us dry-as-dust speculations of how Wells
may have been influenced by Darwin's theories and goes into long digressions
about the history of Social Darwinism.
In fact, much of the matter of McConnell's book reminds me of my own
writing when I was in high school and wanted to make a small idea fill an
assigned number of pages.
He says things like INVISIBLE MAN presaged politics of the 20th Century
in that Griffin is a terrorist who is damaged by his own tactics. Even
assuming the point is true about terrorism, which it probably isn't, it is
not an idea that is particularly worth considering. Wells knew nothing
about 20th Century terrorists when he wrote the book, and McConnell's whole
point is contrived.
Also, McConnell talks about the way the giants' nursery in FOOD OF THE
GODS had brightly colored tiles the children could re-arrange. "The child
psychology of Jean Piaget and the inspired practice of the Montessori
schools... have both borne out the wisdom of Wells's ideas about the early
training of children in creative play." Time and again, McConnell seems to
be missing the essential points of the Wells story, but he will waste a
half-page on what a good way these giant children were raised.
Earlier in his biographical chapter, he digresses to explain the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and Godel's Proof. He botches both but
goes on for pages on their implications. (Actually, he is not alone in
this. It is amazing how many people can correctly state neither the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle nor the meaning of Godel's proof, but can
wax eloquent on their philosophical implications--implications that are not
borne out by Heisenberg or Godel at all. ) McConnell says that Godel was
saying "mathematics had the structure not of a 'real' world but of an
elegant fiction." To me that shows a complete mis-understanding of the
implications of Godel's proof, yet he fills pages explaining it to his
reader.
In another place McConnell does a metric analysis of the sentences in a
paragraph of INVISIBLE MAN. I could go on and on with a list of how what he
says may vaguely concern Wells, but how he totally misses essential points.
McConnell's only really interesting sections about Wells are facts he
gleaned from a biography of the author. To all appearances, that is the
book I should have read.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper