The War of the Worlds (2005)

The War of the Worlds
By HG Wells

I grew up listening to the 1975 rock opera of “The War of the Worlds”, co-written by someone from The Moody Blues and featuring the voice of Richard Burton as hero-voiceover man. It was one of my favourite pieces of music in the whole world, along with “Carmina Burana” by Karl Orff. (Yes, my mother was worried). So, which is better – the book, or the 1970s rock opera?? The rock opera. No wait a minute, of course I didn’t mean that…the book, the book is better, of course, it’s the book. But the rock opera will always hold a special place in my heart…

Still it was peculiar reading the book knowing the words to the rock opera nearly off by heart – bits of sentences would lapse into Richard Burton voiceover and synthesisers in my head and then lapse back into my imaginary 1890s voiceover, which made it a bit of a disjointed reading experience. The rock opera was quite clever at pulling out Wells’ really striking sentences though. I will have to go and see the film now and find out if they used any of the original text – I hope not, because I really don’t want to have Tom Cruise voiceover in my head as well.

Interesting to compare the differences between 1895 and 1975 though – in the book the main character is married (i.e. does not have a girlfriend called Carrie living in London with her Dad), there is no “Beth” who is the pastor’s female companion (I think they must have decided they needed at least one chick in the rock opera so they made her up), the whole section with the Parson is much more “Lord of the Flies” than I expected, and the aliens do not run around going “Ooohhhlaaaaaa!” (spelt “Ulla”) like they do in the rock opera. (There are a few Ullas at the end of the book when the Martians are feeling a bit poorly). The aliens still get killed by “minute, invisible bacteria” though – oh dang, I just gave away the ending!

It was also interesting reading this book in today’s climate of terrorist attacks and live media coverage. Back in 1895, when the book was written, Martians could attack Woking and it would take a few days for the news to reach London, all communication was by telegram, and even then no one really believed it. (MARTIANS LANDED STOP SEND REINFORCEMENTS STOP). The hero and his wife escape on a horse and cart. People learn all their news from the papers. (Golly the hero reads a lot of papers – including the St James’ Gazette!). Not being from 1895 and therefore unable to check matters of accuracy, the book seemed a surprisingly realistic account of how an alien invasion may have progressed at the time, and I’m not surprised it fooled some people when it was broadcast as a radio show a few decades later.

Still, I’m very glad to find out that Wells was not responsible for the line (on discovering one of the Martian attack machines has headed off to London) “London! I hadn’t dreamed there could be danger to Carrie and her father so many miles away!” which struck me as a stupid thing to say even when I was 10 because after all they’ve already made it from Mars.

The 1890s make themselves felt in other ways, as demonstrated by the following excerpt: And before we judge them [the Martians] too harshly, we must remember what ruthless and utter destruction our own species has wrought…upon its own inferior races. The Tasmanians, in spite of their human likeness, were entirely swept out of existence in a war of extermination waged by European immigrants, in the space of fifty years. I’m not sure which was the more startling assertion – that the Tasmanian Aboriginal people were “like” humans, or that a war of extermination was waged – it’s not often you hear of that part of our history actually called a war, or even that there was a conscious effort to kill the Aboriginals, and it is particularly unexpected in a nineteenth-century text.

Rating: 8 out of 10
A book to read because it is interesting, rather than because it is emotionally involving.