Reading List: The Time Machine

Get the book from Amazon.
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

One of the great books of all time. It is not only fun and covers a fascinating topic, but it is jam-packed with symbolism.

Spoiler alert – but I am sure you do know what it is all about – The Traveler goes forward into the future (802,701 AD) and encounters the descendants of the human species, the Morlocks and the Eloi. You have seen the movies. You know what they say, that a movie is like an iceberg - only the top is visible. It is like that with this book as well.

Upon arriving in the future and meeting the Eloi, who live in what would seem to us as paradise at the first glance, The Traveler first thinks that he found an ideal society, but this is soon proven to be far from true. Not to spoil it any further, in case someone is not familiar with the story at all - in which case - you need to get familiar ASAP. This is one of the earliest, if not the earliest Time Travel story and it left a huge impact on the genre.

What's really good about the book is symbolism and the ultimate message - If we become too weak and only concerned about our own pleasure, we will become irrelevant as a species. It can be argued that Eloi represent the rich in today’s society.

On the other hand, if we return too far back to our most primitive impulses, and care only our most primitive desires, dire future awaits us indeed, future deprived of any higher form of existence, in other words - back to the caves we go.

The book is arguing that the undoing of the human species will not come through any external factors but through us, through our ways. The divides that we create between ourselves and taking ideas to their absolute extremes will be our undoing. And theoretically one can see it happen. Luckily, we still have time to make it better.

It is ok to care about our own lives and try to be care free and less stressful, but when we see an injustice being done, we should try and do something about it. Balance in all things, my friends. These are the musings I got from reading this wonderful book and if you read it, I am pretty sure your brain will get a kick out of it as well.