The author who made me want to write
Monday Motion: An unsolicited walk down memory into how H.G. Wells' imagination inspired a younger me
I grew up reading the Great Illustrated Classics.
At times, I told extended family that was reading “Moby Dick,” “Treasure Island,” and “The Count of Monte Cristo.”
Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration.
This book series is all paraphrases, along with a 1-to-1 ratio of pages and illustrations.
These books were all on the wall furthest to the right in the elementary library.
I remember these book covers, where the books were located —- it’s all pretty distinct.
It was a big part of my growth as a reader.
Through them, I got to explore those pieces of sci-fi I loved most.
“Frankenstein” came to life.
We took a “Journey to the Center of the Earth.”
And, most essentially, we went whirling away on “The Time Machine.”
First and foremost among the authors was, of course, H.G. Wells.
I grew up on Wells and the seminal conventions he made into cultural emblems, fighting in a “War of the Worlds” and going to the “Island of Doctor Moreau.”
Wells solidified and codified the massive story points of sci-fi.
That’s really what the characters do in Wells’ stories: they explore ideas.
But one idea — time travel — fascinated me most as a kid.
I didn’t want to go to the world of Morlocks and Eloi.
I wanted to go back in time and see the dinosaurs, of course.
These days, I’m still fascinated by time travel.
Conceptually, it’s all about bridging moments, days, years, and centuries to worlds that no longer or don’t yet exist.
These days, though, I want to go back in time and see the world that my great grandparents grew up in.
And I want to go back in time and watch Frank Sinatra or Bobby Darin perform.
I want to go back in time and interview Ben Franklin.
And, hey, I still want to go back and see the dinosaurs.
Now, time travel didn’t exactly start with H.G. Wells.
Edward Page Mitchell had his short story “The Clock That Went Backward.”
Charles Dickens had Scrooge time traveling around in A Christmas Carol.
In the Vishnu Parana, when King Raivata Kakudmi returns to earth from visiting heaven, ages have passed.
Time travel (or in some cases, time dilation) has been with us for a long, long time.
But this scientist-explorer, the Time Traveler, inhabits our imaginations as the representation of this fantastical idea.
And yet, we do understand, despite how memories carry us backwards or dreams propel us forward, “life must be lived forward,” as Kierkegaard would put it.
H.G. Wells’ birthday is September 21.
As it should happen, that day has more personal meanings — an anniversary and a birthday among my family.
How strange that it all should fall together, those dates along with the birthdate of the author I wanted most to be like as a kid.
From time machines to invisible men to alien invaders, Wells planted wild and fantastic possibilities in our minds.
And if any of us who he inspired can snatch a little bit of the fantastic out of the stardusted night sky, well I’d say we did the work of an author.
Which author inspired you to write? Let me know in the comments!
P.S. Here’s a conversation between the author who inspired the kid in me to write and the filmmaker who persistently inspires me in these latter days to make movies.