How to hunt an invisible man

As you might remember from one of last month's posts, I have rediscovered H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man, a classic of science-fiction. Something that struck me in the novel is how meticulous Wells is about showing what would happen if it was possible for a man to turn invisible. And, if he had decide to turn evil (as of course he does), what would he do, and finally what would need to be done protect people against him and to hunt him down. One of the novel's chapters is titled The Hunting of the Invisible Man and explains exactly how to, well, hunt the Invisible Man. Among the tricks, use dogs, as they can smell him and detect him, even though they cannot see him. Keep in mind that his digestive system will remain visible for a while after he consumes food and drinks. Hide weapons and anything that the invisible man could use as a weapon. And also, as he goes around naked, put powdered glass on the roads. Learning about the last one, one of the characters, a police officer, gives some protest: "It's unsportsmanlike." That made me laugh when I reread it. I thought it was the Englishest thing someone could say. You have an homicidal maniac running wild, and the police officer worries about being unfair to him. Anyway, thanks to Wells, we now know what to do if an invisible man goes on a rampage.

The village of Iping

As you may remember from a recent post, I have been (re)reading H.G. Wells' s The Invisible Man, which I had read more than 30 years ago. I noticed something I had not paid attention to the first time I read the novel: a lot of the plot is set in the village of Iping, where the Invisible Man is first, errrr... seen? I checked quickly online and it turned out to be a real village, not a made up one. I thought it was pretty neat, it gives Wells' tale a veneer of authenticity. It also means that an obscure English village got its name immortalised in a classic work of sicence-fiction. And that is pretty cool. Now we don't live near there, so we will not be visiting any time soon, but it could be interesting one day. I wonder if there is anything to see there since its most infamous visitor showed up (sort of showed up). Maybe some H.G. Wells fans? Academics perhaps? If you know anything, please let me know in the comments.

Rediscovering The Invisible Man

I read very little science fiction. It is simply not my literary genre. When I do, it mostly has a lot of horror elements in it. But I do enjoy reading the father of science fiction, English writer H.G. Wells, albeit I read fairly little of his work. The very first book I read of him was The Invisible Man, when I was 12. I had barely started discovering old British classics and I remember my mum suggesting I tried this one when we found it in the local library. I was not expecting much of it, but ended up reading it in a few days and loving every page. Maybe because I was already an Anglophile, I don't know. Surprisingly enough, it took me decades to read more of him. But a few days ago, I decided it was time to revisit The Invisible Man, this time in the original language. I am surprised that I remember quite a lot of it, so it must have made a sreally strong impression on my young mind. I also find it surprisingly violent. I knew it was, but I had thought it had been mostly my impressionable young mind. I love how Wells never shies away from the more sinister implications of scientific discovery. The novel is subtitled "A Grotesque Romance" and this is very fitting.

Scary reading suggestions

Since Halloween is coming soon, I thought I would give some reading suggestions to my readers. I did the same thing same time last year. I may not be particularly inventive year after year, but this blog is called Vraie Fiction after all and should be sometimes about fiction. This year, instead of giving a list of books, I will give short story titles (and hopefully I can find them all online). So here it is:

-The Judge's House, by Bram Stoker. Not merely because the story was written by the author of Dracula, but because it is a really good spook in its own right. And it has some elements that Stoker will later develop in his most famous novel. (Talking about Dracula, I will blog about it soon. I have wanted to do so for years as it is my favourite horror novel.) What I particularly love about this short story is that the ghost is not merely scary, he is malevolent and can hurt physically. And there are rats, which makes the story even scarier.
-Canon Alberich's Scrapbook and Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You, My Lad by M.R James. Respectively the first story he wrote, the first story I read of him. Little gems of atmospheric horror. Alberich is more straightforward as a ghost story and so is the threat, but Whistle has a long, slow build up of terror that is a real feast for the reader.
-Thrawn Janet by Robert Louis Stevenson. I only read it once, more than twenty years ago, in a French translation, but I still remember it. I am going to read it again this month. Why did he kept haunting me? Stevenson is great as putting the little sinister details that stick to your mind like a bloodthirsty leech to your vein. I don't want to spoil the ending, but it just makes me shiver still today.
-The Tapestried Chamber by Sir Walter Scott. A classic ghost story from the early days of the genre. 
-The Red Room by H.G. Wells. Wells is of course better known as a science-fiction writer, but he shows he can work in other genres. This story is a deconstruction of the genre, almost an anti ghost story, but it still manages to be scary.

So here it is, there is enough here to keep you in the mood until Halloween.