The Island of Dr Moreau

The question that "The Law" posits in this novel -- "Are we not men?" -- drives us to question so many, many assumptions we have about ourselves as human beings.This book has a rather special place in my own reading life. It gave me deep chills, indeed, it horrified me when I first read it in late childhood, and a recent re-reading reminded me of that experience and led me to reflect on just what, exactly, caused that reaction.I think it came about because good novels touch us at points of intuition, rather than rationally. Reason, that's for science classes and textbooks. Novels work through our imagination and take hold in a different part of our minds, and so this one poses a fundamental question: if people evolved from animals, how different from them are we? This leads to corollary questions: is civilization just a thin, fictitious construct? Is there no ultimate law? Under the right circumstances, do we revert to our beastly nature?In short, the book invites us to take a long stare into the abyss of chaos, and, once staring, it's hard to avert ones gaze, terrible as it is.There, I think, is the power of this novel. Like any great work of science fiction, it drives us to ponder, uncomfortably, "what if? ... what if? ... WHAT IF???" Because if this novel has a scintilla of truth in it, we live in a very, very dangerous world.The novel was first published in 1896, while the controversies over Darwin and the theory of evolution were fresh and ripe. In addition, there was the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who wrote in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" that "God is dead." Hence, the novel raises so many questions for which there are no very sure answers. Are humans no more than evolved beasts? If evolved, can we devolve? Is law nothing more than an elaborate fiction perpetrated by the powerful on the powerless? Are all the elaborate trappings of civilization we have just illusions to keep our animal instincts in check? Are the government and the police no more than "The Master" and "The Other with the Whip"? And what do we do when we discover something different, like a man who walked into the sea? And if "The Master" is dead - or as Nietzsche put it, God is dead - is there a Law?This novel becomes all the more poignant today given certain philosophical and political developments. On the philosophical side, militant atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris insist there is nothing to us but our animal nature, to the point of Harris even arguing in a recent book that humans have no free will, just obedience to natural laws (in which case I have to ask what natural law led Harris to write that book? - just sayin'). Several more rigorous and more precise philosophers (here I think of David Dennett and Alain de Bouton) struggle seriously with the question of how morality is possible in the absence of God - they have some interesting answers, so please explore their books.On the political side, libertarians and some conservatives (and even some more traditional liberals) are rather exercised about the notion of "Rule of Law" (and it is an important concept). That is, they argue that civilization becomes impossible if there are not consistent rules that apply to all and that are uniformly enforced regardless of who is in charge. I'll grant that for the sake of argument, but what, then, is the source of law? Moreau? Some sad, sick ambitious creator who didn't give a thought for the moral consequences of his experimentation?So that's what I love about this novel: unless you aren't paying attention, you have to ask fundamental questions about your very existence, and about the very existence of human society.This note about Wells as a novelist: honestly, he frustrates me. I've read much of what he's written, and in almost every case, to include this one, he gets a great plot going, and then can't seem to keep it going, so he comes up with some Deus ex Machina to get him out of the corner he's written himself into. And in almost all of his novels at some point he drops off of the painstaking task of showing us what's going on and devolves to just telling us what happened. And that's why he's hardly a novelist of the first rank, and why this novel doesn't get five stars.

I enjoyed reading this book. You won't be disappointed. Holds your attention throughout. Didn't want to put the book down.

Can we compare this book with Frankenstein? I don't know. Dr. Frankenstein made his " monster" with human parts, but Dr. Moreau only used animal parts. But nature is more powerful than science. Moreau and his partner Montgomery were always afraid of when the animals will start going back to their "main" animal behavior. And they always said WHEN not IF.About the courageous 10 months Dr. Prendick spend in the island, mostly by himself also change him. It was difficult for him to be around people and to trust them...when he was going to be totally human again.

Vivisection is the cutting apart of living organisms for experimental purposes. By the 19th century, there were swathes of the medical community doing this with no anesthesia on dogs and other companion mammals, and there were no laws to stop them. Advances were made in the medical sciences (like the discovery of hormones), but terror was inflicted upon the animals, who often still acted like the companions we've bred them to be:"Hundreds of times I have seen when an animal writhed in pain, and thereby deranged the tissues, during a deliberate dissection; instead of being soothed, it would receive a slap and an angry order to be quiet and behave itself. . . Even when roughly grasped and thrown on the torture-trough, a low, complaining whine at such treatment would be all the protest made, and they would continue to lick the hand which bound them till their mouths were fixed in the gag."~Dr. George Hoggan, 1875Wells' contemporaries didn't just accept the practice as a required part of medical research. There were anti-vivisection organizations, riots over the practice, and calls for legislation and criminalization - but it wasn't enough. The practice remained legal because professionals convinced most people that it was necessary for the progress of science.This is the missing context for The Island of Dr. Moreau. Many people were horrified by the practice, angry at the medical establishment for doing it, but convinced that it was necessary. This is the perfect environment for fears of unethical research, of man "playing god" with the animal kingdom.The book explores one vivisectionist's attempts to raise animals to the level of man by surgery and splicing. The science is silly in the early 21st century (we'd use genetics), but the ethical questions remain. Moreau's monsters necessarily degenerate into their bestial nature, taste blood, go wild, and turn into murderers, leaving his protagonist to fear that all men will degenerate into the same Hobbesian condition.For Wells, it's simply a fact that they are less than men. The one character who sympathizes with them is murdered by them, deep drunk in his own stupidity and whiskey. He has been abandoned by the society of men and resorts to animals and liquor, and among them, he deserves his death.I find it interesting to consider what the modern story would be. We've had to honestly consider whether a machine can develop awareness, and if it could, would it be a person? Chimpanzees can learn rudimentary sign language, and have been seen using tools unprovoked. Are they people? In a modern environment, the tragedy of this story would revolve less around Moreau's sin in creating his monsters, but around his sin in treating them as slaves, as something less than men.If a scientist today somehow created a dog/human hybrid that could speak with the language skills of a five year old child, what would the result be? Maybe the scientist would be jailed, but that hybrid would certainly be considered a person, not a monster.

Came in good condition.

I thought the book would be in better condition, but it's old anyway so that's okay. Otherwise, everything went fine and the parcel came early.The edition I got came with a very interesting introduction :)

Um clássico da literatura da fantasia e ficção cientifica mundial! Não deve perder a oportunidade de ler e comprar. É imprescindível na sua biblioteca.

Aumentando mi colección, es un libro delgado, con letras un poco pequeñas, pero muy practico para llevarlo en un viaje, y practicar mi inglés.

Impressionante la sua modernità, la lettura causa ancora angoscia e dimostra l'eccezionalità dell'autore. L'ho letto in originale, non difficile.

Comecei a ler pensando que fosse uma ficção científica voltada aos limites éticos da ciência, mas não é nada disso.No intuito de preservar o real significado da obra e não estragar a experiência a futuros leitores, paro por aqui.