We are now on the third week of The Time Machine by HG Wells. I figure that we will have 7 readings to go. The Time Traveller is relating his eight days of time travel with his dinner guests.  He has told us of the strange experience of travelling through time and of meeting a small delicate peoples called the Eloi some 800 000 years into the future.  For the time being, he is stuck in this age, as he believes his time machine has been dragged to the bronze base of the Great Sphinx Statue. 

It is with a shock, that the time traveller calculates that mankind has divided into two groups, the Eloi, and the Morlocks.  The Morlocks are a people that live below ground, in the dark.  The time traveller descends into one of the wells and reaches a huge dark cavern.  He can’t see much except a meal laying on a table in the large room, and his last four matches quickly burn down, as he only just manages to escape back up the well, to the overworld, and to the doting Weena.

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We now have the explanation of the splitting of the human race into the Eloi and the Morlocks, or the have’s and the have not’s.

While the Eloi frolic above ground, the Morlocks are left to toil underground, in what HG Wells has paralleled to our upper-class structure and our poor.

As Chapter Nine is called The Morlocks, I’m hoping that we are going to find out more about this lower strata of human being.

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Today we are going to be reading the second half of chapter 8 – the Explanation. The time traveller has just woken up in the early hours of the morning, in those grey hours just before dawn. Since he can’t get himself back to sleep, he decides to get up and go and see the sunrise.

He leaves the relative safety of the palace to take in the beauty of the morning light. Let’s listen to what happened once he stepped out onto the pavestones in front of the palace.

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The Time Machine is gone, and the Time Traveller has, literally, sent himself mad looking for it.  It was a very well-written piece of manic behaviour as well as the thought process that accompanied the mania.

He now thinks that the Time Machine has been put in the bronze base of the White Sphinx.  He did try to bash the base open, but made little headway, only flattening out a coil in the decoration.

Once all of the shock had worked its way out of him, the Time Traveller has put this experience in a corner of his mind, until greater knowledge could be attained.

We are going to read only half of the next chapter “Chapter 8 – The explanation”

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We’ve met these little people living 800,000 years into the future and the Time Traveller is wondering how they became as they are.  They seem to have lost their fighting edge, and live powerless lives, where the earth has been conquered and there is seemingly nothing left to strive for.  The Time Traveller sees this as the final decay of mankind, for his desire to strive is what rose him above the animals in the first place. 

However, all is not what it seems, because we received a few hints from The Time Traveller that this was his initial impression only, and was only one facet of a much larger picture.

With this in mind, let’s read Chapter 7 – a Sudden Shock.

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We are one week into reading The Time Machine by HG Wells.  I am in love with the imagery in this book.  It portrays more wonder than any movie ever could.  We are now with the Time Traveller over 800,000 years into the future.  It is not the technologically and intellectually superior future that the Time Traveller had imagined for mankind.  The people are delicate, lazy, and childlike.

I’m now going to read you Chapter Six – The Sunset of Mankind

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The Time Traveller is in The Time Machine and has travelled to some unknown time in the future. We are excited to see what he sees and how a man ‘out of time’ views what is now his present.

He has seen a graceful and beautiful man running towards him, and even though he is afraid of the unknown environment, he stays where he is and is prepared for whatever may happen.

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The Time Traveller has declared to his guests that he has lived 8 days since 4pm that afternoon.  We are smart enough to know it’s because his Time Machine worked.  It seems the guests in 1895 are a little bit more incredulous, and less likely to believe the tale told by those who saw the small machine disappear, the week before.

So, he has had a few glasses of champagne, a good feed, cleaned himself up and has now sat down in the smoking room, determined to tell the story of his last 8 days.

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In front of his esteemed visitors, the Time Traveller has presented a small apparatus, with two levers and a saddle.  Upon the pressing of one of the levers, the machine disappears, and it is stated that the machine is now travelling into either the past or the future.

In his laboratory, the Time Traveller has a full size machine in which he fully intends to explore time.  His visitors are amazed by his declarations, and await the common sense of the morning to bring further clarity.

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We have met the time traveller, as he proposes his concept of four dimensions to his friends.  The four dimensions are length, breadth, width, and time.  Since we are restricted, as human beings, to travel along the time dimension, the Time Traveller has proposed that we may move indiscriminately along these dimensions with the help of a machine.

His visitors are not so convinced, and proclaim that it must be some sleight-of-hand trick. 

Let’s have a look at what the time traveller walks into the room holding.

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The Podcast Reader (with Lynda Margaret) is a modern-day take on the age old art of storytelling. In just fifteen minutes or so, each week day, The Podcast Reader takes their listeners on an audible journey through some of the greatest books of all time. 

Lynda Margaret is an Australian Storyteller. She doesn’t just read the story, she brings you into discussion about the underlying theme, character development, and questions how each book shapes our wider culture.

In our Weekday podcasts, Lynda begins by providing a brief recap of previous episodes, then reads a chapter or so of the book, finishing with a recap at the end, to ensure that you are never left behind.

There are times in our day that are wasted as we travel, we wait, or are just bored.  The Podcast Reader changes times of tedium into times of wonder.