Reviews with content warning for Body horror - The Invisible Man (AmazonClassics Edition)

Most of the characters in The Invisible Man is unlikeable, and I really enjoyed reading a book with that quality. From Mrs. Hall and her morbid curiosity about what's under Griffin's bandages when she thinks he's disfigured, to Griffin's descent from general asshole willing to rob a priest to villainous murderer, few of the characters in the novel have redeeming qualities. Reading a novel where the large majority of the cast of characters are inherently flawed was a different from what I normally read. Modern novels often try to appeal to the reader's empathy, but H G Wells actively wrote a main character that is easy to hate and who is the antagonist of everyone else's stories. The Invisible Man was a fun and easy read, and it's a good book to recommend to readers who are trying to get into the classics or older literature. It has some of the issues most older books have, along the lines of racism, antisemitism, sexism, etc., but not to the extent where it cannot be edited out. I switched back and forth between an old and new edition of the book, and the new one lacked a lot of the bigotry the original copy had.

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challenging fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

The book is fun and well done; it actually still stands as an interesting book despite being over 120 years old. But when reflecting, I found that the foreword (in the 21st century reprints) and afterword were more thought provoking than the actual book.

I find it funny how the afterword poses The Invisible Man as a commentary on how power can currupt “good” people, when really the whole story is about how bad it would if already morally bad people were given absolute power and what kind of damage they could do with it. It’s the whole, “absolute power corrupts absolutely,” but I think that argument would stand better in a story where the person was morally “good” and then given the corrupting power of invisibility.
The 2020 Invisible Man would actually be a better commentary on this if, for example, a sequel followed Elizabeth Moss’s character post coming into possession of the invisibility suit, and followed her as she either did “good” things or “bad” things with it.

Absolute power has the chance to corrupt, but it only corrupts absolutely if the person were already corruptible to being with.

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