The Island of Dr. Moreau

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A very interesting novel and not what I was expecting. I thought it was going to be about Other-ness and the dangers of going to far in science (much like Lovecraft) and it is, but it is also a pretty transparent allegory about life, God, religion, and fallen man. It's not a very optimistic view of things but draws out some good questions and makes you think of things in a new light.

View all my reviews

It is when suffering finds a voice and sets our nerves quivering that this pity comes troubling us.

The study of Nature makes a man at last as remorseless as Nature.

Before they had been beast, their instincts fitly adapted to their surroundings, and happy as living things may be.  Now they stumbled in the shackles of humanity, lived in a fear that never died, fretted by a law they could not understand; their mock-human existence began in agony, was long struggle, one long dread of Moreau--and for what?

An animal may be ferocious and cunning enough, but it takes a real man to tell a lie.