"The Wonderful Visit" is a wonderful read (4/5)
I absolutely loved it! Oh, where do I begin? I chose to read this because I found the blurb interesting:
>An angel is accidentally shot and brought into an English village, where his presence unsettles ordinary assumptions about beauty, morality, and respectability.
The writing is so good. I haven't read H. G. Wells before but I found that his writing helps a lot with imagination. In a lot of scenes, your mind will so effortlessly imagine the setting with great detail, almost as if you are watching a movie. It's a lovely feeling.
In the beginning, it feels familiar to Aamir Khan's PK. Someone from outside our world lands on our planet and learns about the ways of human civilization. In fact, it goes much farther in that direction. For example, the Angel in the story has never felt hunger and describes it as such:
>“And do you know, I have also the most curious sensations in my mouth—almost as if—it’s so absurd!—as if I wanted to stuff things into it.”
Many more of such questions and answers in return, making it an enjoyable read throughout. I laughed out loud a lot of times. I did worry if much of the book will be about these conversations about how different the earth is from the Angel's world, because it can turn boring very quick. On the contrary, the book only gets better. Surprisingly better, in fact, because it goes into the lanes of morality, philosophy, education, politics and what not.
Here are some of my highlights from the book. This is the most highlighting I did in a book:
- H. G. Wells describing music played by the Angel:
>The Angel’s hand tightened on the instrument. The bow flew back and flickered, and an air the Vicar had never heard before danced in his ears.
- A random character's rant against school education:
>They take ’em young into that school, and they says to them, ‘come in ’ere and we’ll improve your minds,’ they says, and in the little kiddies go as good as gold. And they begins shovin’ it into them. Bit by bit and ’ard and dry, shovin’ out the nice juicy brains. Dates and lists and things. Out they comes, no brains in their ’eads, and wound up nice and tight, ready to touch their ’ats to anyone who looks at them.
- A reflection of gender roles in Victorian England:
>“He’s certainly very pretty. But the ultimate test of a man is his strength”
“It’s the effeminate man who makes the masculine woman. When the glory of a man is his hair, what’s a woman to do? And when men go running about with beautiful hectic dabs—”
- The gentleman behavior:
>The Vicar, you must understand, had done his best to inculcate the recognised differentiae of a gentleman. “Never allow a lady to carry anything,” said the Vicar. “Say, ‘permit me’ and relieve her.” “Always stand until every lady is seated.” “Always rise and open a door for a lady....” and so forth. (All men who have elder sisters know that code.)
I found myself appreciating fiction books while I was reading this one. I'm going to stick to fiction for a while now.