For many science fiction writers, hindsight has not been kind. But we should not judge the work of sci-fi writers based on the fact that their conjectures did not come true, but the imagination that goes behind it. For Wells, his conjectures may not take place at all — The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine and The Invisible Man can still be considered farfetched even with a century of hindsight. The First Men in the Moon is Wells’s often overlooked novel. Perhaps because the premise did become a reality, that men was able to send himself to the moon in a giant leap.
And perhaps we can laugh at the Selenites, the ocean running in the hollow of the moon and the vegetation that grew and lived for the day and died at the end of it. But it is still a work of vivid imaginings. Even though I really liked his previous works (the last I read was Tono Bungay which I found an incredible read), I really struggled through this one. I thought the fiction hard to follow, and the description of the moon although not lacking in detail, more difficult to read.
The other main issue, which is the main issue in the book for me was the lack of likeable characters. The narrator, Bedford, was unlikeable from the beginning as he refuged somewhere in Italy to write a play and turn a blind eye to his bankruptcy. Stumbling upon Cavor, a scientist with his heads in the clouds, Bedford saw a path to quick profit as the material that Cavor was developing, Cavorite, allows things to stay airborne by cutting the invisible link to gravity.
The premise of using the Cavorite to do all sorts of practical applications went out the window when they decided to go on a trip to the moon. Creating a sphere-like rocket which can propel the Cavorite from underneath, the two managed a rough landing on the moon. For modern readers, the moon no longer holds too many secret charms, we can substitute the events that happened in the moon for events that can happen in Saturn perhaps, or some other distant planet: vegetation lasts for one day in the moon where the temperature fluctuates from freezing cold to warm af in few hours. Its inhabitants only go to the surface during the day, the civilisation is all underneath in a system of underwater sea and caves.
The Selenites, the moon’s inhabitants are insect-like but their bodies vary according to the functions of their lives. Those who store knowledge will have bigger brains, those who are butchers will have bigger arms. This prescient to Huxley’s Brave New World where human beings are determined into classes the moment they were born. We only get to learn about the society of the Selenites towards the end of the book, which is an interesting alternative to the world as we know it. What we don’t read about it is the emotions of the Selenites, even though we can deduce that they are intelligent being — eventually capable of communicating with man.
But for the first half of the book, it made me frustrated as I saw Bedford as a colonial man whose brute strength allowed him to overpower scores of Selenites. Bedford was an aggressive character and unjustifiably so. His presence in the moon was an interruption to the calm and undisturbed life of the Selenites. Cavor, on the other hand, was a bit of a wimp who refused to fight to save his own life and somehow the two extremes really annoyed me.
Some Wells fans would consider this book as an overlooked classic, but I do think that this is through the association of Wells’ other works. The First Men in the Moon was a problematic read for me because it took me a huge mental effort to build the world that Wells created in my mind. Funnily enough, I don’t feel that I had an issue with his other works. I can’t detect anything profound in the book that made me wanted to reflect back on it, and I don’t think the alternative society offered by Wells of the Selenites really cracked new grounds for discussion. Still, I will continue to read novels by Wells whenever I come across them, and if you’re a first time reader I won’t recommend you starting with this one. I thought The Time Machine was a good intro for me, so I would recommend that first.
