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title = "The Island of Doctor Moreau (Unabridged) - H.G. Wells"
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date = 2014-12-09
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[taxonomies]
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tags = ["books", "h.g. wells", "fantasy", "scifi", "reviews", "4 stars"]
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[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29981.The_Island_of_Doctor_Moreau):
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While this riveting tale was intended to be a commentary on evolution, divine
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creation, and the tension between human nature and culture, modern readers
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familiar with genetic engineering will marvel at Wells’s prediction of the
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ethical issues raised by producing “smarter” human beings or bringing back
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extinct species. These levels of interpretation add a richness to Prendick’s
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adventures on Dr. Moreau’s island of lost souls without distracting from what
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is still a rip-roaring good read.
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{{ stars(stars=4) }}
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What brought me to "The Island of Doctor Moreau" was the movie with Marlon
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Brando. Yup, you read that right: It was the catastrophic (by IMDB comments)
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movie that made me read the book.
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For all that I can remember, the movie goes to explore the fact that some
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people want to be Gods of others. It explores much of our egocentrism, how we
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find outselves better than anyone else and such (but my memory could be fading
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after all this time).
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The book, on the other hand, goes in a way more simpler and way more
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interesting concept: our intellect vs our instincts.
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Moreau turns animals into anthropomorphic beings, including changes in the
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brain to allow them talk and understand most basic stuff. But something keeps
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bringing their instincts back, to the point that they lose their "humanity"
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and revert to... animals. From that point, from that basic premise, Wells
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explores what it is to be a human and what it is to be a beast.
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The best way to surmise the whole thing is this little gem in the very end of
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the book:
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> I, Moreau (by his passion for research), Montgomery (by his passion for
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> drink), the Beast People with their instincts and mental restrictions, were
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> torn and crushed, ruthlessly, inevitably, amid the infinite complexity of
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> its incessant wheels.
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