We all know the basics of this story. On a cold and snowy night, a mysterious traveller shows up at the Coach and Horses inn. His face is swaddled in bandages, he never removes his dark glasses, and he always wears gloves. The curious villagers have various theories for these oddities but it is generally assumed he is an accident victim. When the truth is revealed it is almost incomprehensible — he is an invisible man. As he struggles to survive and discover the antidote, we follow his progress in a story that is funny, exciting, and alarming.
I have liked this book as a scary tale ever since I first read it many years ago. As I've grown older and wiser I increasingly appreciated H.G. Wells's skill, both as a writer and as an observer of human nature. This book does a lot in relatively few pages. It tells a story that we don't expect to be truly scary because it is so old and well known. However, by the time that Kemp was fleeing from the invisible man, seeking asylum in a bar, and everyone was worried about which doors they forgot to lock, I felt real chills of terror.
H.G. Wells asks the question, "What would you try to get away with if you were invisible?" We've seen a lot of super hero movies look at this sort of issue but this early piece of science fiction is one of the most effective. It also serves as a nice corrective of the modern tendency to give every villain a sympathetic back story. The invisible man actually has a story that you can feel sympathetic about at the beginning. Very quickly, however, the reader is disabused of any tendencies to think him misunderstood, put upon, or simply different.
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this again.
Scott Danielson and I discuss the book in episode 311 of A Good Story is Hard to Find podcast.
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