PUTOPIS KATASTROFE LONDONSKOM OKOLICOMRat svjetova ima zanimljiv zaplet, otvaranje u kojem mirnu i idiličnu okolicu „majke svih gradova“ Londona uznemiri pad navodnog meteor, a beznačajna astronomska pojava postaje veća od svega do tada viđenog je definitivno najbolji dio knjige. Misterija i pomutnja koja se javlja dolaskom nepoznatih i nepozvanih gostiju je odlično dočarana, ali sve što slijedi u romanu me je razočaralo nedostatkom prave radnje. Razrada se svodi na opisivanje krajolika umjesto na djelovanje, a likovi su potpuno pasivni i poprilično naivni. Sve se pretvara u čekanje nekakvog obrata uz bezidejnost i psihološka stanja glavnih likova. Radnja je ispričana kroz glavnog naratora, koji trećinu knjige posvećuje pustolovinama svojeg brata kroz aktualnu katastrofu što je najslabiji dio knjige. Većina priča i radnji nemaju apsolutno nikakav značaj za veliku radnju pa sam dobio osjećaj nebitnosti i pomalo praznine nakon pročitanog. Likovi su plošni, njihova karakterizacija je slaba, a sami po sebi su vrlo nebitni i potrošni. Unatoč tome, Wells kroz knjigu progovara o zanimljiv pitanjima poput nespremnosti društva da se bavi nečime nepoznatim izvan njihove domene svakodnevnog života, a pritom izražavajući općeniti stav o nadmoćnosti čovjeka nad drugim bićima. Vrlo je realno prikazan kaos koji nastaje u društvu koje raspolaže nepouzdanim informacijama. S povijesnog aspekta zanimljivo je promatrati navike društva krajem 19. stoljeća s obzirom na tadašnji stupanj tehnološkog razvoja, a vjerujem da poznavateljima Londona česta i dugotrajna opisivanja lokacija, četvrti i okolice tog grada dođu kao zanimljivi detalji, ali za prosječnog čitatelja je toliko detaljiziranje oko geografskog položaja svake gradske četvrti ili prigradskog naselja zamorno.Vrlo je nezahvalno komentirati i suditi SF djelu više od sto godina nakon njegova nastanka. Rat svjetova izašao je 1898. godine i sasvim je razumljiva da određene ideje i opisi koje je H. G. Wells prezentirao danas izgledaju naivno i pomalo smiješno. U eri u kojoj imamo određena saznanja o planetarnom susjedu vrlo naivno zvuči da su Marsovci bića koja su evolucijski toliko odmakli da su prije više eona iskorijenili bolesti, a opis njihove vrste se svodi na velike mozgove koji nemaju potrebe niti spavati, nemaju spola, a Mars je obavijen crvenom travom. Iz današnje perspektive takve rečenice zvuče apsolutno klišeizirano, ali s obzirom na vrijeme nastanka tada su zasigurno zvučale revolucionarno kao što danas nama zvuče moderna SF djela, uostalom da nisu ne bi ovo djelo imalo status kakav ima. Još jedan primjer je kotač, odnosno nevjerica da Marsovci u svojoj tehnologiju nemaju taj „najvažniji dio svih ljudskih mehanički sprava“. Iz današnje perspektive kotač je još uvijek prisutan u našim životima, ali napredak tehnologije već desetljećima nije vezan uz sam kotač, već uz uređaje s jako puno silicija i raznih drugih materijala. Ovo djela nadahnulo je mnogo radova svih vrsta i žanrova. Vjerojatno najpoznatija adaptacija je radio emisija iz 1938. godine u kojoj je Orson Welles adaptirao knjigu u jednosatnu epizodu slijetanja Marsovaca na Zemlju što je, iako je na početku bilo upozorenje da se radi o predstavi, izazvalo veliku pomutnju među slušateljima. Emisija koristi najzanimljivije dijelove knjige, kako bi u obliku izravnog javljanja uživo, prenijela kaos koji nastaje kad posjetitelji počinju aktivno djelovati, a izvrstan dokumentarac iz 2013. godine prikazuje na zanimljiv način nastanak same emisije i posljedice koje je imala u jeku sve veće prijetnje iz Europe što je rezultiralo da su mnogi slušatelji prijetnju Marsovaca poistovjetili s prijetnjom Nijemaca. Smještaj radnje je preseljen iz okolice Londona u SAD pa je tako mjestašce Grovers Mill iznenada postalo popularno zbog događaja koji se zapravo nije desio, a kasnije je rezultirao i prigodnim spomenikom. Nije to jedini spomenik inspiriran ovim djelom, jedan se nalazi i u gradu Woking i vrlo vjerno prenosi izgled opisan u knjizi. Prva filmska verzija uslijedila je „tek“ 1953. godine, da bi nakon nje uslijedilo još nekoliko adaptacija od kojih je najpopularnija ona iz 2005. godine. Adaptacija iz 1953. godine slijedi radnju romana u samom zapletu i raspletu, ali razrada je poprilično drugačija s obzirom da je vremenska razlika između radnji veća od 50 godina. Film je dobar, a glavnu zamjerku mogu uputiti da je Marsovce prikazao potpuno drugačije (lošije) nego su opisani u knjizi, moguće da je razvoj specijalnih efekata tu odigrao značajnu ulogu. Kad smo već kod te razlike, moram uputiti prigovor na naslovnicu hrvatskog izdanja koja je inspirirana upravo filmom iz 1953. godine. Umjesto da je autor inspiraciju potražio u onom što je napisano u knjizi, dobili smo neimpresivnu i nevjerodostojnu naslovnicu za samu knjigu. Što se filmske adaptacije iz 2005. godine tiče ona je također djelomično izmijenjena (čitaj prilagođena tipičnom današnjem filmskom blockbusteru), ali je pohvalno da je vrlo vjerno prikazala posjetitelje. Film je solidan s popriličnim brojem klišeja tipičnim za film katastrofe i dodatkom elemenata koji Hollywood obožava i zapravo mi se više svidio od starije varijante. Osim filmova postoji i TV serija emitirana od 1988. do 1990. godine, koja služi kao nastavak radnje filmske adaptacije, a za potrebe ove recenzije nisam imao volje gledati 43 epizode s obzirom da ionako kasnim s tonom aktualnih serija. Još jedan utjecaj ovog djela je vidljiv i u kultnoj videoigri Half-Life 2, gdje određeni izvanzemaljski neprijatelji izrazito sliče opisu marsovskih mehanizama.U konačnici, kao što sam već spomenuo, izrazito je teško i nezahvalno ocijeniti ovako jedno epohalno djelo SF žanra više od sto godina nakon njegova nastanka. H. G. Wells je pridonio temeljima razvoja SF književnosti i lijepo je vidjeli kako je žanr evoluirao u dobrom smjeru od onda, ali nažalost Rat svjetova je na mene ostavio mlak dojam, previše je tu geografskih podataka a ono što danas smatramo jezgrom SF-a postoji u tragovima. Evolucija žanra je u njega unijela tehnološku komponentu koja ovdje gotovo ne postoji. Takav „humanizirani“ SF, okrenut pojedincu i njegovom psihološkom stanju te filozofskom promišljanju u trenucima katastrofe možda je zanimljiv, ali mene se nije pretjerano dojmio. Zbog svega već prethodno nabrojano knjizi dajem ocjenu 3/5.IZDVOJENI CITATIO Marsu: „ Čovjek je toliko ohol i zaslijepljen vlastitom taštinom da niti jedan pisac, sve do kraja devetnaestog stoljeća, nije iskazao misao da bi se na njemu mogao razviti život uvelike, ili bar donekle, napredniji od razine što ju je dosegao ovaj na Zemlji.“O Marsovcima: „Jesu li to razumni mehanizmi ili u svakome od njih sjedi Marsijanac, njime kormilari i upravlja onako kao što ljudski mozak upravlja tijelom? Po prvi put u životu počeo sam se pitati kako nekoj razumnoj životinji izgleda oklopnjača ili parna lokomotiva?“„Ispuzao sam iz kuće kao štakor, kao inferiorna životinja koju gospodari mogu loviti i ubiti iz čistog prolaznog hira. Ako ništa drugo, ovaj nas je rat naučio milosrđu -- milosrđu prema svim onim neumnim stvorovima koji trpe našu dominaciju.“„Postoje gomile ljudi koji stvari prihvaćaju onakvima kakve jesu, a gomile njih će mučiti osjećaj da sve to ne valja i da bi trebali djelovati. I onda kad mnogi osjećaju da bi trebali nešto poduzeti, oni slabi uvijek izmudruju nekakvu religiju nedjelovanja, vrlo pobožnu i uzvišenu pa se predaju u ruke progoniteljima i volji Božjoj.“
The next stop in my end-of-the-world reading marathon was The War of the Worlds, the classic of alien invasion and interplanetary paranoia by H.G. Wells. Published in serial format by Pearson's Magazine from April 1897 to December of that year, the story originated after the author's relocation to the town of Woking in Surrey County. It was here that Wells also wrote his comic novel The Wheels of Chance, as well as The Invisible Man, which has now been replaced as my favorite Wells invention with this one.The novel begins on a warm summer's night in June and unfolds from the point of view of an unnamed narrator, an academic in the field of philosophy who lives with his wife in Woking, southwest of London County and bordered on the north by the River Thames. A celestial alignment of Mars, Earth and the sun has generated much interest by members of the Astronomical Exchange, among them Ogilvy, a well-known astronomer and friend of the narrator's. Ogilvy believes the possibility of life on Mars to be absurd. The narrator isn't so sure about that. Early in the morning, a "falling star" is reported in the skies over Berkshire, Surrey and Middlesex. Ogilvy tracks the descent of what is assumed to be a meteorite to a "common", or public land, near the town of Horsell. Climbing into the sand pit where the object has been buried, Ogilvy discovers a huge cylinder, which he determines to be hollow. He runs to get help and news quickly spreads of "the dead men from Mars". While Ogilvy and a few other men from the Astronomical Exchange begin to excavate the cylinder, the narrator clings to rational thought, doubting there might actually be any intelligent life inside. He's dispatched to secure fencing needed to hold back the crowds that have begun to converge on the site. The narrator returns at dusk in time to witness the cylinder open. Expecting to see a man, onlookers are aghast at their first glimpse of a Martian in the flesh:Those who have never seen a living Martian can scarcely imagine the strange horror of its appearance. The peculiar V-shaped mouth with its pointed upper lip, the absence of brow ridges, the absence of a chin beneath the wedgelike lower lip, the incessant quivering of this mouth, the Gorgon group of tentacles, the tumultuous breathing of the lungs in a strange atmosphere, the evident heaviness and painfulness of movement due to greater gravitational energy of the earth--above all, the extraordinary intensity of the immense eyes--were at once vital, intense, inhuman, crippled and monstrous.A deputation including Ogilvy approaches the pit with a white flag in an attempt to communicate with the Martians. The party is met with what the narrator refers to as a "heat-ray", a flash of light which leaves the men charred and distorted beyond recognition. The narrator manages to flee the massacre and returns home to his wife. He's confident that the episode may all be a big misunderstanding and trusts that a company of soldiers heading to the site will sort everything out. Meanwhile, a second shooting star lights up the sky.By afternoon of the next day, guns are heard firing and the narrator observes damage to the spires and chimneys about town. Concluding their home is now in range of the Martian heat-rays, the narrator procures a horse and dog cart from the local pub owner, quickly fills it with valuables and spirits his wife to the town of Leatherhead, where her cousins live. He insists on returning the horse and cart as promised, but upon his return to Woking that night, encounters a pair of giant Martian tripods stepping through the pine trees.Higher than many houses and dangling steel tentacles, the tripods use their heat-ray to destroy the horse and cart. Through the hail and lightning of the dark, the narrator makes out the shapes of tripods on the march through the English countryside. Seeking shelter at home, he briefly takes in a soldier who initially can only mutter "They wiped us out--simply wiped us out." In the morning, the narrator sets out in search of his wife in the middle of, not a war, but the extermination of mankind.The War of the Worlds is one of those classic tales that through more than a century of radio, television and film I was sure that I knew. Initially, Wells' typically British stoicism and reserve -- the narrator witnesses his mates microwaved by a Martian death ray and returns home, composes himself and tells the little lady it'll be quite all right in the morning -- kept me removed from the story. It was headed toward two stars and a box checked next to "War of the Worlds, Wells, H.G."I caught up to the novel at the end of Book One, when the Narrator fishes himself out of the Thames and takes on a companion, a parish priest convinced divine retribution is at hand. The men become unwilling partners, plundering houses for food until a Martian cylinder crashes nearby and traps them. The story became much more thrilling through here, with the danger up close and personal. Instead of running, the narrator is able to study the Martians for the first time, uncovering unpleasant facts of the invader's diet.Wells' "man on the street" reporting -- adapted by Orson Welles for his infamous 1938 Halloween radio broadcast -- has a unique way of putting the reader right in the middle of an invasion with a remarkable amount of verisimilitude. The heroics exhibited by his narrator are thankfully limited to his ability to stay alive and observe the enemy up close, as well as use his knowledge of the humanities to give what he's experiencing context.-- Wells cites the names of so many towns and villages that a tourist could probably find their way around London by reading this book. -- Next to New York, London has been destroyed by more science fiction writers than any other city. Panic takes the heaviest toll in The War of the Worlds. The scenes where the narrator wanders the empty city, certain he's the last survivor, were chilling.-- The biology and technology of the Martians are ingeniously drawn and truly menacing. I haven't seen an alien in film or television in quite some time that were as designed as well as the Martians.-- Wells does take an unnecessary detour, shifting focus to the narrator's brother as he flees the siege of London by poisonous black smoke, but even here, Wells' impeccable writing style kept me hooked:In Sunbury, and at intervals along the road, were dead bodies lying in contorted attitudes, horses as well as men, overturned carts and luggage, all covered thickly with black dust. That pall of cindery powder made me think of what I had read of the destruction of Pompeii. We got to Hampton Court without misadventure, our minds full of strange and unfamiliar appearances, and at Hampton Court our eyes were relieved to find a patch of green that had escaped the suffocating drift.I found the depictions of how rustic the England of Wells' day truly was to be captivating. Most of the country is connected by rail, but once you left the train stations, you were in the 19th century, with horse cart, carriage or bicycle the best options for travel. Without telephone, television, radio or aircraft to provide news, the reader's imagination is allowed to run amok between pages and fill in the details of the invasion.
What do You think about The War Of The Worlds (2002)?
First of all, I wish I never saw any of the movies before reading it because I couldn't get the imagery from them out of my head as I read. It was super annoying. Fucking Tom Cruise. In any case, I gotta say that I really didn't care for it. The radio show was probably much more captivating than the book. The way it was told, in third person and everything having taken place in the past, was just not working for me. The story was intriguing enough to keep me going, but boy did I feel like not finishing it sometimes. However, I persisted. "Book 2" of the story was much more gripping, where the protagonists began discussing humanity. On of my favorite parts, as is probably for many, was the explanation for the Martians demise. I mean come on, you gotta love how in the end it wasn't our guns that took down the aliens, but instead the microorganisms that inhabit our world! Read the following quote in your best Morgan Freeman voice and tell me you aren't impressed:"By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain."
—Kennis
An absolute classic of science fiction. We take alien invasion stories for granted these days, but when people read The War of the Worlds for the first time, they were experiencing something absolutely new. It is impressive to think that this book was written in the nineteenth century.There is a lot of action in this book, and the description gave me vivid pictures in my head. I really did enjoy the clash of alien technology in Victorian England. I'd actually like to see a movie adaptation that keeps the story in its original setting.The big weakness I found in this book was the characters. All the characters in this book, including the protagonist, were blobs. Only the most insignificant characters even had names. We would care much more deeply about the plight of these people if we knew more about them.The ending might be described as deus ex machina (in a very literal sense) but it was well foreshadowed so I didn't have a problem with it. Actually I really enjoyed the end of the book.The edition I read included an introduction by Orson Scott Card, which really opened my eyes to the themes of the book, and made me think as I read the novel.All in all a great sci-fi story that deserves its place as a classic and forefather of all alien invasion stories.
—Adam Collings
I acknowledge that I am one of the few people who actually enjoyed the recent "War of the Worlds" movie. The reason for this has to do more with the original book than Tom Cruise or Steven Speilburg's tendency to wittle everything, including alien attacks, down to simple family problems. In a lot of ways, "War of the Worlds" (2006) was a close to dead-on adaptation of the original Victorian novel. Just a few words on why you should like, or if you don't like, respect "War of the Worlds" as a movie:It avoids alien movie cliches:1. There are no characters (Presidents, generals, etc.) who tell you what is going on on a global scale--all information is through rumors. 2. You do not see a major city destroyed nor any iconic landmarks. 3. Instead of humanity banding together to defeat a common foe, the characters and others they interact with are left increasingly fragmented and isolated. That being said, Speilburg's "War of the Worlds" adapts much of the plot line and themes from the original novel. Instead of the 1950s version which pits a united front against the aliens (Cold War adapted), the original Victorian novel has a character travel isolated. Wells' narrater, like Tom Cruise, finds himself on a ferry-crossing, holed up with a panicked priest (who conflated with the artillery-man, provides us with a freaky Tim Robbins. Robbins even shares a few lines with the artillery-man). The ending is much the same, a kind of "Now what?" sense pervades. And of course, Morgan Freeman's opening and closings, are practically word by word from the novel. The movie is also a great window into some of the novel's most important themes. "War of the Worlds," is a very Post-9/11 movie. There is the dust, the annhilation of things we find familiar, clothing floats from the sky in mimic of office paper...There is a pervading fear of complete and nonsensical annhiliation. Whereas the 1950s adaption pits humanity against an enemy, the updated version worries itself with unknown enemies who spring from the ground. And, Speilburg, not one to be subtle, has Dakota Fanning ask Tom Cruise, "Is it the terrorists?"That being said, the Victorian novel is a catelogue of Victorian anxieties. This is the age of colonialism, afterall, and suddenly England is beset by a much more powerful force, unexpected, and completely foreign. 'Reverse' colonialism? The aliens take England's resources, kill off its people, and even cover the landscape with alien plant-life. And perhaps the most over-arching anxiety of all: Darwin. Here we have evolution at its cruelest; then consume us (drinking our blood like in Bram Stoker's Dracula). Just when humanity seems at its lowest, nature kicks in and saves the day. The ending seems anti-climatic now, but you have to remember that H.G. Wells did not have a pop-reference that included Will Smith destroying the mother-ship. So my point is, "War of the Worlds" is an amazing book and good movie, and one can inform the other. "This is not a war any more than it's a war between men and ants."
—Joeji
