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NeilNjae
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(Quote) The other work this reminds me of is Heart of Darkness (adapted to the film Apocalypse Now). Heart of Darkness was published in 1899, three years after Moreau, but the inspiring incident was in 1890. But I've banged on about colonialism enou…
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(Quote) Indeed. Should farm animals be treated humanely? Do wild animals have rights to life, habitat, etc? These are all live questions in society. You see the same thing playing out with considerations of whether artificial intelligences are peop…
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(Quote) I have no problems fully agreeing with this statement! I'm sure there's something about different methods of criticism, whether it's looking at what the author intended or how the reader interprets the work. Whether one or the other is bett…
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Sorry, a bit more time now. I don't think the breaking of stories is a problem: the problem was me not paying attention to the schedule. Let's not let one mistake derail what's been a successful slow read so far. As for the story... the 1980 public…
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Sorry! I did indeed read too much. I misread that the story was split over two weeks. My mistake.
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(Quote) Except that Wells has the beast-folk degenerate to their bestial form. They don't stay in their uplifted state, however sub-human that may be.
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So, Lenden's a woman. Nicely played, Priest. That played right into my assumptions of gender. As for the story? Again, it's an old story (this from 1980) and I think that real-world context plays a large part in this story too. This story is set i…
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Religion appears! Not only do we have religion, we have Catholicism! I think it's the first time religion has been mentioned in either this book or the previous one. Priest doesn't particularly do anything with it, but it exists. The other thing I …
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(Quote) No argument from me. That sound perfectly reasonable. (Quote) That's another aspect that comes through very clearly. Moreau is amoral and uncaring, too self-centred to look beyond himself. Montgomery I think understands the beast-folk have …
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(Quote) Thanks. I'm happy to stand corrected. But in this book, does Wells even admit the possibility of an alternative? The message seems to be that altering the status quo is dangerous, it's the role of the white man to rule over the less enlight…
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The notion that there's a "direction" of evolution and that organisms are progressing upwards towards a higher state is one that's rejected by modern biology. Instead, organisms evolve to become more suitable for their environment, which m…
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(Quote) There's the Stitched Zoo from the Second Age of Glorantha, which is remembered with revulsion. (Quote) Similarly, there's the eugenics angle. Rather than creating humans from animals, creating better humans to rule over us all. It also fits…
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The contrast is Brin's Uplift series, which is a positive take on making animals sentient. But for planetary SF, do we need uplift or does the contact with non-humans fill the same role? Not human, but intelligent.
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(Quote) That could be because I'm still unclear in my own mind about what I think Wells is saying about colonialism. I think Wells is saying that colonialism is the default way for people to interact, and it's the way he's used to seeing those inter…
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Oh look, Campbell's monomyth and the Hero's Journey. But I don't think that tells us anything other than "the story takes place somewhere remote." The idea of Moreau playing god is an apt one. Was that a deliberate comparison by Wells, or…
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I don't think Wells was trying to justify colonialism. I think that was the only lens he could use to understand the relationship between white European men and other types of people. The society on the island could have been presented as a family, …
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(Quote) If so, who or what is playing the part of Moreau for us? Who or what is lifting us (the readers, our society) above the mud?
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(Quote) So is there any hope? Do people produce art and beauty despite their nature, and we're all fundamentally selfish and uncaring? Is Wells saying something about how people could or should become their best selves? Something else I noticed: th…
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(Quote) So why is he in the book? Would the book be better or worse if that character wasn't there?
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(Quote) So what were they a metaphor for? Did you get something other than colonialism?
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One decent treatment of uplifted animals is the supplement Ancient Echoes for the Blue Planet game, that deals with uplifted cetaceans in detail. (I think it's a treatment that gives a somewhat idealistic view of cetes, but that's just me). There's …
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I mentioned Jurassic Park as perhaps drawing deeply on the contents of this book. The trope of intelligent animals is common in SF, fantasy and folklore: Moreau's vivisection is just the SF mechanism by which it happens. Where I think this book is d…
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I think it's his expression of hope that Cartesian dualism is true, and there is something inherently different about humans that separates human minds from animals. But most of the book seems to reject that idea, with the beast-folk able to think, …
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I think it's a nod to some people being similar to beasts, and the alcohol is something that robs people of their personhood. It's a way Montgomery is closer to the beasts than Pendrick. Did Moreau drink alcohol? I think he drank a little. And there…
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I think the community of Moreau's compound and the community of the beast folk are different. Three of those have people forced together in order to survive (the Lady Vain, the Ipecacuanha, Moreau's compound). The other two are more communities of l…
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Moreau hasn't given the beast people names because they're just objects to him. I don't think the beast people name each other, apart from the title Sayer of the Law. Is that saying something about people and anthropomorphising? Are the boats someho…
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I think the start is creepy, when Pendrick is trying to understand the island. The endless screams of the vivisected puma are horrific, I think, especially as Montgomery tries and fails to ignore them. I think Pendrick's sojourn in the beast's villa…
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I think Prendick is meant to be the ordinary, decent, respectable member of society. I think he's the voice of "decency". His attitude to the animals changes a lot through the book, from fear and disgust to camaraderie to pity. He also cha…