The Sleeper Awakes / HG Wells

The Sleeper Awakes

category: science fiction, author:

HG Wells

(introduction by Patrick Parrinder, notes by Andy Sawyer)
published by Penguin, original copyright 1899, read in May 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 8 out of 10

I can't help but compare Wells' The Sleeper Awakes with Heinlein's For Us, the Living. Wells takes a "modern" (1899) man, gets him to the future, throws him into excitement, wonder, action, discovery, conflict, etc, etc -- and allows us to discover Wells' view of where the world could be going. Heinlein takes a "modern" (1939) man, gets him to the future -- then bores us to tears as characters spend many pages stating Heinlein's views of where the world should be going.

Every science fiction aficionado knows that Heinlein was a key influence in science fiction writing. Every person who can read knows that Wells was a great science fiction author. Compare Sleeper to For Us and it's obvious why Wells is more widely known and admired.

So, the book:

Perhaps the majority of Wells' predictions are wrong. Rewrite the book to take advantage of today's science and engineering and many of the predictions stand up quite well. We may not have giant lakes of "Eadhamite" for road-building but we do have giant tanks of equally poisonous materials, stored, distributed and in daily use. We do have rich people using products and services with no regard for the effort and possible danger faced by the people who provide the products and services. Just watch the tv show Dirty Jobs to see what I mean.

One very accurate prediction was, that workers would be de-skilled: "some dexterous machine" would be used to replace the skill and muscle of production workers. If computers had existed in 1899, Wells could also have predicted the replacement of workers' minds.

Then there's the advertising of Wells' future age -- it's everywhere! Early in The Sleeper's sleep, perhaps by 1910, there are giant advertising posters covering the famous white cliffs of Dover. When he awakes, 200 years later, every available surface is used for ads. Picture the nurseries: mechanical wet nurses, just torso, breasts and arms. Plus a flat disc for a face, with the disc covered in advertisements which may appeal to the parents...

The social separation of workers from the idle rich, however, appears to be a poorer prediction. Wells himself, in a preface to a 1921 edition, sees the error of his earlier thoughts... with some interesting comments:

"I was young in those days [1899], I was thirty-two". Young?! By 32, a man of this century should have forged a career, become CEO of a major company, perhaps been bankrupt -- or be considered to be a failing and worthless cog in the machine of success.

Wells then goes on to say, that the total oppression of Workers by Capitalists was not, after all, a realistic threat. In 1899 he thought of "big businessmen" as being "wicked, able men." By 1921 he had met more businessmen and come to realise that they were, "for the most part, rather foolish plungers, fortunate and energetic rather than capable, vulgar rather than wicked, and quite incapable of worldwide constructive plans or generous combined action."

That was observation. Observation which is as true in 2010 as it was then, in 1921. So we are, as Wells realised, safe from the worst oppression that he foresaw while writing The Sleeper Awakes.

The Penguin Edition

The Sleeper Awakes is, I admit, a little hard to read. Its style, and assumptions, are dated. Nevertheless, it is an excellent book. Read it as an okay book for now and as an excellent book for its time. Read it for its insight into the interests and concerns of its famous author.

Do not read this 2005 edition for its chapter by chapter "Notes"!

Penguin have provided biography, introduction, various other items of interest. Okay, not that much interest: I simply skimmed a page here and there. There are also numbers in the main text which point to Notes at the end of the book. For example:

Monkshood and delphiniums are noted... they are flowers. Any dictionary or google could tell you that. Between the two, a character "struck a match in the virile way..." What? The virile way ... of striking a match!? I wonder what that means... The note writer may also have wondered, he gave no explanation.

The Notes are like that: the obvious is explained, the confusing is ignored. Some Notes are, I admit, interesting. Many are simply dictionary definitions. A few are explanations which become clear as you read further in the novel.

The actual book is excellent. The various extra sections are interesting. The Notes really, really need to be rewritten -- to help the modern reader with words and terms which may no longer be current. But please, don't tell me where Boulogne is. And don't distract me with the colour of delphiniums and monkshood.

..o0o..

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