Narration is something that I'm always hyper-aware of when reading. I seem to be more drawn to stories in which the story is told from the perspective of someone listening to a story teller for the majority of the story. It always makes the story seem so much more lively. The tale being conveyed has purpose, there isn't need for awkward "Oh yeah, you're reading a story still. Hi, I'm breaking the fourth wall." moments which takes me out of the book, and the story teller is telling the story because they're very excited about the events or they must pay penance for their actions (see: The Rime of The Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge) which ensures that I'm going to care about the story and that it will hold my attention.
Oh, and this style also leaves the author free to kill off/do bad things to the story teller, whom is usually the main focus of excitement and mystery. The listener of the story can simply take over, as they were in the background conveying anyways. This is the way The Time Machine was narrated, which delighted me.
I was initially disappointed with the time machine. The disappointment stemmed mostly from my love of Doctor Who. The time machine in the book was just a time machine, while the T.A.R.D.I.S is, as we know, is for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. What can you learn from travelling through time in the same fixed position? A surprising amount according to this book.
The book gave me a lot of pause about the concept of "Peace on Earth" and progress. We're in a constant struggle for something. Women's rights, LGBTQ rights, economic equality, and human equality in general. I've always thought that this was a noble struggle. One that I will not live to see the conclusion of. So I never thought to ask, "What then? What happens when there is equality?" As Frederick Douglass said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress." Of course, in the year 802,701, there is still struggle. However, this isn't immediately evident and there was apparently equality at some point.
So the Eloi are free to frolic and giggle. They appear unconcerned with most things, are amazed by fire, and have short attention spans. Whenever I give any thought to the distant future, I don't think of regression. I think of people utterly dependent on technology. I consider that human kind as we know it may not even exist in favor of AI (I got this notion from Skinned by Robin Wasserman and thought it seemed fairly plausible). Yet here they are. They don't even know what fire is. It's as if society has come full circle, which is further confirmed by the Time Traveler's voyage to the end of the Earth. This circle seems fairly likely. Maybe my imagination just hadn't stretched past all of the technology and equality to what would happen after.
I still don't entirely buy the idea that technology, written language, and ambition would so profoundly just...die out. Especially when there is a museum...18 miles or so away from the Eloi that the Time Traveler found. And why is the museum mainly filled with items that we could just as easily see in a museum today? Apart from the machinery that seemed new to him, the natural history and archaeology sections seemed profoundly lacking once you take into account how many years in the future they are. Why have the super ancient things preserved, but not the slightly less ancient ones?
And then there's the genetic mutations, evolution, social castes, and segregation that had to take place to create the distinct Elois and Morlocks. In many ways, this book was a commentary on the world as 1895, when it was published, knew it. It also, like most enduring books about time travel and the future, is a still-relevant commentary about society today. We're still struggling towards equality slowly. We're still facing a future that we can only guess at. And the funny thing is, it won't affect us. It will affect our descendants in ways that we can't possibly imagine. I'd love to think that the effect of equality would be nothing but positive, but that's an unrealistic expectation, of course. Nothing is so black and white. Hopefully, any future state of equality will be more beneficial than harmful. I guess that's really the best we can hope for.
I've told many people about the importance I place on endings. I'm admittedly predisposed to unhappy endings (they're more interesting) but as long as the ending is fitting, I'm fairly happy. I'm not even sure why I was so happy with this ending. It's probably to do with the element of mystery. Where did he go? Why didn't he return? Is he dead or imprisoned? It's up to the reader's imagination, which is wonderful. The book makes you consider new possibilities by leading you to its own conclusions, and then cuts you loose to come up with your own.
Overall, this was just a wonderful read.
