Friday, May 20, 2016

The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

This is another one of my lucky vintage book finds from the local library's perpetual used book sale shelves. It was immediately obvious to me that it was a vintage book, but I didn't realize it was the 1960s edition with illustrations by Edward Gorey until I examined it more closely. I seriously almost did a happy dance right there in the library when I saw that, especially since the book cost me $1. It would be a bargain at 10 times that price, so I happily snapped this up and added it to my TBR pile... and now I've finally read it!

The story itself is sort of underwhelming, if I'm being 100% honest. Maybe I'm just a cynical modern reader, but the story lacked a real sense of horror and urgency for me. I think it was mainly hampered by the first-person narration; we're too constrained by the narrator's narrow point of view. The illustrations are very Gorey-like, but also more impressionistic and less detailed than one might like. However, lest I give you the wrong impression, I didn't dislike this book, it was just a little too low key for me.

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