The Time Machine, Chapters Eight and Nine

In which our hero explores a museum and find some useful tools, attempts to return to the Sphinx, is waylaid by some Morlocks, and ends up just watching the world burn; and in which our narrator once again wonders at how smart our genius inventor is, but supposes allowances can be made for panic and lack of sleep, I GUESS.



Oh, poor Weena. She was a good little pet humanoid.

Covers! Two more covers tonight:

Haha, oh, this one. It's from 1968, in case you couldn't guess, printed by Berkeley. The blurb at the top reads "The famous novel of one man's defiant gamble with the unknown. The science-fiction masterpiece that heralded the coming of the flower children!" The Eloi on the cover are, of course, wearing mini-skirt-length dresses and are bedecking each other with flowers, while the Time Traveler bursts in on what could very well be a motorcycle through a psychedelic portal between them and the Morlocks below (bearing one of them off). It's, like, a trip, man. I'm not sure if the blurb-writer was trying to make a point of comparing hippies to the childlike, barely sapient Eloi, or if they didn't really look into it that deeply and just wanted to cash in on the latest trend.

Another cover and notes after the jump!

This one, by Tor from 1992, is pure mad science. While I suppose, yes, technically the Time Traveler could be considered a mad scientist, he's definitely a mechanically-inclined one, not chemical or biological. This picture (while awesome) doesn't say "gentleman adventurer time-traveling," it says "Arise, my creation! We'll show those fools, FOOLS at the Academy! We'll show them ALL!"

And now for some notes, mostly definitions:

1:47 - a "turfy down." Downlands are a primarily British thing, especially in Southern England. They're flat-topped chalk hills, and what the "down" in the title of Watership Down refers to, for instance.

Around the 3:00 mark, exploring the museum, TT sees bones of a Megatherium (an extinct giant sloth the size of an elephant) and a Brontosaurus, a dinosaur name people are still familiar with, despite the type specimen being correctly identified as actually belonging to an Apatosaurus back in 1903. And, wow, as I write this I see that some people are STILL so confused about it that Firefox's spell-check doesn't recognize "Apatosaurus," and recommends "Brontosaurus" instead. That's... pretty terrible.

Shortly after, about 3:33 he refers to the museum as a "latter day South Kensington," which is of course where London's Natural History Museum was, and still is.

At 7:18 he refers to "the 'area' of a London house," which is a garden around a basement window.

In the library at 9:57 he reflects on his now long-gone articles published in the Philosophical Transactions, the journal of the Royal Society ("of London for Improving Natural Knowledge"). It was the first scientific journal, first published in 1665, and refers to the time when science was called "natural philosophy."

At 10:50, TT is so happy about the matches that he dances while whistling "The Land of the Lea," which appears to be referring to an old Scottish Folk song called "Land O' the Leal." The title is  Scottish term that literally means "land of the loyal," and of course refers to heaven.

After 11:00, we get a succession of things found in the museum:
11:16 - camphor is a waxy, flammable substance largely used for its smell, in various ways.
11:46 - the "fossil Belamnite" is a belemnite, an extinct cephalopod similar to a squid, but with an internal skeleton.
13:07 - the statue TT defaces here is made of steatite, or soapstone.
13:20 - much of what is left in the museum is ash or lignite, a soft coal made of compressed peat.

Once out in the dark, he sees the Morlocks eyes reflecting "like carbuncles," which, um, could refer to an abscess larger than a boil, but due to context I think is instead the archaic term for red gemstones, especially garnets.

The mound that he finds in the forest during the fire is possibly a "tumulus," which is a barrow or burial mound.

Phew! A lot of notes in this one. And in this book in general. What would y'all think about me putting some sort of notification in the recording when there's going to be a note? Like, a little chime or something? Would that be useful, or distracting?

Anyway, one more installment to go! Will our hero get back to his own time?

...yes, we saw it earlier, remember? And now he's telling us the story? Geez, it's like you weren't even paying attention.


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg. No reading ahead, though!