The Island of Dr Moreau

So, as I mentioned last time, this is attempt number two to read The Island of Dr Moreau.  It’s very rare that I abandon a book part way through but I just couldn’t get into it last time around.  I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg a couple of years ago and, while I think Project Gutenberg is a wonderful thing, I have a real issue with reading books from a computer screen.  I know I’m fighting what will ultimately be a losing battle on this one but I feel the need to stand my ground.  Books will never be obsolete.  Or not in my lifetime.  Anyway, back on point, I wasn’t that into it, so I put the text aside until I eventually decided to start again afresh.  I’m glad I did.  It’s a right good book and despite its length there’s a hell of a lot going on.

The story, I think, is a fairly well known one.  Edward Prendick is rescued from a shipwreck by the heavy-drinking, failed doctor Montgomery and taken to his mysterious island home to recover.  While there he discovers that Montgomery is a disciple of the banished scientist Dr Moreau.  Driven out of England for his extreme experiments, Dr Moreau secludes himself on the island vivisecting animals and creating humanoid half-breeds.  As I said, it’s a great book and I can objectively tell where H.G. Wells is going for the jugular horror-wise.  My problem isn’t the book, it’s me.  I started watching South Park when I was about ten and the early series are full of Dr Mephisto.  Everytime Dr Moreau introduced a new animal creation all I could think of was the grand reveal of a baboon with four arses.  I couldn’t take Dr Moreau seriously as a figure of terror as I knew him first as one of comedy.  I know that what South Park is really riffing off is the much mocked Marlon Brando film version of the book and now I really want to watch that.  It looks ridiculous and fun and I don’t care that that’s really not what they were going for.  If they wanted people to take it seriously someone should have stopped Marlon Brando when he thought a midget companion would be a good idea.

I do have a couple of issues with the book itself, though.  My first is one that I have with pretty much all books written by Brits in the 1800s- or at least the ones that involve other cultures.  It’s the treatment of these other cultures and races.  I think historically we British folk had a pathological need to feel superior; it’s odd considering how famously self-depreciating we now are.  Okay, so The Island of Dr Moreau doesn’t contain that many other races.  It’s essentially a book about three white men on an island.  I’ve read a lot of fiction contemporary to this book and the language that is used in those about other races reflects exactly the adjectives Wells uses to describe the creations.  Take, for example Arthur Conan-Doyle’s The Sign of the Four; the words he uses to describe the pygmy race are the same as Wells’ when he calls the creatures Dr Moreau creates as “twisted” and “amazingly ugly.”  I don’t think this is something that I’m pushing onto the book, I’m sure it’s there and I think it’s an implication that readers of the time would have picked up on and understood.  At least I hope it is; if it’s not really there then I might just be being a bit of a racist.  This is one of those points that makes me sad I don’t get to study books anymore.  I’d love to do proper research into this and write an essay about it.

There’s another train of thoughts I went off on too, reading The Island of Dr Moreau.  In many obvious ways it reminds me of Frankenstein.  And, like Frankenstein, the protagonist is a bit of a dick to what are essentially victims of a mad man,  Prendick wanders around the island being alternatively terrified of and disgusted by by Dr Moreau’s creations.  He insists on referring to them as brutes or “the Beast People.”  He shows contempt and hatred even towards the loyal Dog-Man who attaches himself to Prendick as everything goes south on the island.  Throughout the book Prendick asks for our sympathy as the victim of circumstance and crazy men but displays none himself for others in the same position.  We are supposed to rejoice when he is saved from the creatures.  I was left feeling sorry for them.  They are abused and then abandoned and no-one cares enough to save their humanity, manufactured as it is.  I feel the same way about Frankenstein.  All my empathy has always lain with Adam, the creature, rather than Victor.

It’s been really interesting reading The Island of Dr Moreau and it’s one of those books I’ve loved writing about probably more than I enjoyed reading it.  I feel like most of what I’ve written is not about the novel itself, but actually my responses to it and how my experiences have shaped my reactions to the book.  I don’t know if I’ve written about this before, but it’s really what I’m going for here in this blog.  The experience of readership, I mean, over the intentions of authorship.  It’s been a really good book to flex my readership muscles on, the best ones always creep up on me and they’re a pleasure to find.

I’m currently on Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho.  It’s slightly longer than The Island of Dr Moreau so it may be some time.