OPINION (AN COLÚN): Shining a critical light on class division and negative human 'progress'

The excellent writer HG Wells remains very much worth reading because he's still relevant to our 21st Century world. His prose is direct, succinct and accessible. His novels and short stories are more than just entertaining stories excellently told. “The Time Machine”, for example, is a poetic and incisive critique of class division and future human “progress”. The War of the Worlds is a critique of the brutality and greed of colonialism. The Invisible Man is a examination of the themes of isolation, power and morality. His books are a mixture of vivid imagination and sharp social commentary, the latter of which remains very relevant in our own time. While our fashions change, there are many constants in human nature throughout the centuries.
Herbert George Wells lived from 1866 to 1946.
In his short story “Under the Knife”the narrator finds himself confronted with a life threatening operation.
There is a strong possibility that this will be a situation which many of us will find ourselves in at some stage in our lives; where a malignancy of some sort is eating away at our bodies and we are relying on the skill of the surgeon to find and extirpate the problem. For our narrator things go drastically wrong: “I perceived that the vein was cut. He (the surgeon) started back with a hoarse exclamation, and I saw the brown-purple blood gather in a swift beat, and run trickling. He was horrified...instantly both doctors flung themselves upon me, making hasty and ill-conceived efforts to remedy the disaster.” The narrator is able to perceive this because he is having an out of body experience where his soul is looking down upon his corpse undergoing the operation.
Now that he is dead his soul takes flight, leaves Earth and travels through the solar system. Eventually he reaches the end of the universe and discovers that our universe is just a glittering point of light on a ring. This ring is on the finger of a gigantic clenched hand! This idea, which is also called the nested universe theory, is a common theme in science fiction. The notion is that we are just a minute imprint on another even larger universe. This continues through a progression of universes. I have loved this concept since I was a child when it engendered in me a sense of awe. Of course, it beggars the question, what is at the end of the final universe in the progression?
Our cosmos, as we all know, is an impossibly vast place. To reach just the nearest solar system Alpha Centauri, would take four years, if you were travelling at the speed of light (a mere 186,000 miles per second!) But it has to end somewhere and what is beyond that somewhere? Is it a giant clenched fist? Or just black space? Or red space? Or blue space? Is the universe infinite? The concept of infinity is something which boggles our brains, for surely things must have a beginning and an end?
And how did all of this creation come into existence? Many of us place a higher premium on rationality, science and materialism and we dismiss religious answers to this question as being wishful thinking and lacking in intellectual rigour. Of course those with such opinions are perfectly entitled to their point of view and I do not hold it against them. For me the only satisfactory answer to the question is to be found in the realm of Mysticism, where the person moves beyond logic and materialism into the experiential and transcendent, merging with something higher than himself. This merging with the Progenitor creates a feeling of goodness and love. It also offers us an avenue away from the darkness of life, an answer to our questions.
At the beginning of “Under the Knife” the narrator wonders if anyone at his funeral will truly grieve for him. Will anyone feel his loss acutely? He thinks there may be one or two, who “could possibly exceed the conventional requirement.” It's a sad thought. We might have been fortunate to enjoy a happy marriage, but now our spouse is dead. We might have got on very well with certain members of our family or with certain friends, but now they are also all dead. It is a bleak prospect. Thankfully for some of us there is the consolation of believing in a higher being of love with which we can connect.
At the end of “Under the Knife”, the narrator wakes from his dream to discover that the operation was a success and he is still very much alive.
Wells liked to prophesy the future. Sometimes his prophecies were remarkably on the button. In his novel “The World Set Free”, published in 1914, he prophesied that scientists would discover how to unleash atomic energy and that what he called “atomic bombs” would be used in a second world war triggered by Germany's invasion of France. He also foretold the widespread use of colour in newspapers, and the collapse of the Soviet empire. Like all who try to predict the future he also made incorrect predictions. In 1901 he wrote that he did not think it probable that aeroplanes would “ ever come into play as a serious modification of transport and communication.” He predicted a future dominated by dirigibles (airships).

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