Once upon a time in a book...

Can a book change the life of its reader? 
Absolutely not! Actions change a life’s direction, not reading books…
But (there is always a BUT somewhere, isn’t it?) a book can affect a person’s life greatly…

Allow me to tell you about a book, through my eyes, how it affected me, and yes, how it helped me to navigate my life into a more specific direction... 
Strangely enough, it was not a book with a mission to direct a person in any way, it was just a novel… But it gave me a “journey” I have never experienced before until then!

“The Time Machine”
This science fiction novel was written by H.G. Wells back in 1895.
It has been said that the phrase Time-Machine was non-existing until the author introduced it himself… and from there on we use it worldwide, for understanding such a device! 

Two wonderful movies, one in 1960 the other in 2002, came to supplement and improvise on the original story. They both were a nice edition, since they gave the opportunity to the viewer to understand the story, each in accord to their own times.
The first film included the agony of the early sixties, on a possible nuclear holocaust. While the second gave emphasis on ecological worries and the possible nightmares when misbehaving with nature…
I never could make clear which one I liked best, and why should I?
And though I am a great movie fun, what remained within me, what was unforgettable, was reading the book!
Of course, generally speaking, for most people “reading the book” has that effect…

I was in my early teen years when, attracted by the book’s title, I first held in my hands “The Time Machine”. I noticed it was not many pages, just a little above one hundred, so I thought I would read it quite fast. But at that moment, and while browsing through its pages, I had no idea of how deep that fast would be!

I remember well, it was midday and I had just a few hours left available. Between having come back from a hard day’s work and before going to night-school, there were only a few hours to begin reading it. So, at first I did not plan to go all the way through it, but that plan of mine did not last long, since as I started it, I simply could not stop, it was impossible for me to stop! 
And how could I?! All of a sudden, there was so much going on...
The visionary Traveler and his amazing Time Machine... The unbelievable task of propelling 800.000 years into the future and then going back and forth... The man-eating Morlocks and the peaceful Elois... The protagonist’s friends, who just couldn’t, and wouldn’t, understand any of this...  And on top of it, the exotic future girl named Weena!
The story drove me crazy, I had to know what will happen in the end, and I did... But when I did, somehow nothing was the same for me anymore...
 
How can I find the words in order to explain this, I probably can only try... It is like I never exited the same person that entered the book... I felt that, unlike the protagonist, I failed to return...
My perception of viewing the world was not the same any more, it was somehow altered. And I felt that I could not go back to my previews perception anymore!

At that time I never talked about it, in fact I never did, I just kept it to myself… It is probably here, in this text, that I speak of it in such detail. Back then I thought this was some kind of feeling from the intensity of reading the story… But the future, my future, would prove itself otherwise.

That midday was gone and I was late for school, but I rushed on anyway... I had to drag myself and persuade my feet to walk, my limbs were numb and my head was like a spinning ball...
Among all those things that went through my mind, that book did awaken in me the deepest and greatest doubt of them all... The doubt to think and question if we are on the right track as human beings... Of course this kind of reasoning had crossed my mind before, but never before with such certainty. Not with such a sense of loss...
Gradually, most, if not all of my choices, would contain that element of “are we doing the right thing?”
And though it is only fantasy, I never ceased to be haunted by the idea of that time machine and its potential…

                                                                              “Where would you go?”
                                                                             (from The Time Machine movie 2002)

October 19, 2015