Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

H.G. Wells never disappoints. His science fiction was so ahead of its time. I bought The Dream for a pittance on the Chirp app and was happy to see that it was narrated by Edoardo Ballerini whose voice I remember from Trust, War and Peace, and Stella Maris. He's fantastic.

The Dream is set around 4,000 AD. A biologist named Sarnac and his lady friend Sunray are on vacation in the mountains and with a group of other folks visit two-thousand year old ruins being excavated in the area.

After this visit Sarnac takes a nap and wakes up from a vivid dream which he recounts to Sunray and the others in the group they are with. What was this dream? It was experiencing the entire life of a young chap, Harry Mortimer Smith, born in the late 1800s in a small town in the south of England up until his death the 1920s. Pretty much the whole novel is Sarnac's telling of the dream with occasional interruptions from Sunray and the others, looking for an explanation of a particular life event or just wanting to discuss primitive life in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

I found this method of story telling fascinating - Harry's life wasn't anything out of the ordinary for the time but was never dull and really wonderfully told with a lot of emotion and feeling especially once Harry finds love and nears his end. What made this novel great to me were the reactions and commentary from the 41st Century folks - interesting points of view and really not that different than ones progressive modern 21st century have. Topics such as equality of the sexes, war (Harry fights in WWI), birth control, animal hunting/ abuse / extinction were all bantered about. And as an atheist, my favorite topic of discussion was regarding religion. As Harry's life goes on and the reader (and he) can see the end coming one is totally swallowed up in the drama.

In the interesting epilogue the 41st century people try to come to terms with the cause / reason for such a detailed dream to come out of Sarnac's head. Was this just something invented by his brain, or is reincarnation real? The end of Harry and the attempt of the 41st century people to make sense of what happened made for a poignant and fascinating end.

The snippets below are from my favorite part of the novel. Harry longed for information but education was considered unnecessary and even something to avoid to some, such as Mr. Moggeridge.

"Old Mr. Moggeridge waved his hand in front of himself with an expression of face as though it was I who emitted an evil odor. 'Geology!' he said. 'French—the language of Voltaire. Let me tell you one thing plainly, my boy, your mother is quite right in objecting to these classes. Geology—geology is—All Wrong. It has done more harm in the last fifty years than any other single influence whatever. It undermines faith. It sows doubt. I do not speak ignorantly, Mortimer. I have seen lives wrecked and destroyed and souls lost by this same geology. I am an old learned man, and I have examined the work of many of these so-called geologists—Huxley, Darwin and the like; I have examined it very, very carefully and very, very tolerantly, and I tell you they are all, all of them, hopelessly mistaken men.... And what good will such knowledge do you? Will it make you happier? Will it make you better? No, my lad. But I know of something that will. Something older than geology. Older and better. Sarah dear, give me that book there, please. Yes'—reverentially�'the Book.'

"His wife handed him a black-bound Bible, with its cover protected against rough usage by a metal edge. 'Now, my boy,' he said, 'let me give you this—this old familiar book, with an old man's blessing. In that is all the knowledge worth having, all the knowledge you will ever need. You will always find something fresh in it and always something beautiful.' He held it out to me.

"'Thank you, Mam,' I said, made shift to stow her gift in my pocket, and with the Bible in one hand and the empty coal-scuttle-lining in the other, escaped.

"I returned wrathfully to the basement and deposited my presents on the window-sill. Some impulse made me open the Bible, and inside the cover I found, imperfectly erased, the shadowy outlines of these words, printed in violet ink: 'Not to be Removed from the Waiting-Room.' I puzzled over the significance of this for some time."

Awesome!