Today we have run away.
We have deposited our children with one of their favourite people in the world, the dogs with my mother, and the cat with a year’s supply of cat biscuits and a handy cat flap. We have gone AWIL: Absent With Leave. Although the cat never rubber stamped anything.
We will be gone for less than 24 hours but we have time compression instrumentation to shoehorn as much into our time as is humanly possible.
The railways are their usual selves, scheduling works on the line as we made out way into the great and good city of London, so we opted to set out from a station we would not customarily choose.
It is twenty five short minutes ride into London from that comfortable bastion of the Surrey set, Woking.
As we drove through the little villages towards our destination it occurred to me that we had been reading about one of them -Chobham – very recently indeed.
Phil and I listen to audiobooks all night long. Thus, when we wake up with a nightmare or a persistent worry, our minds immediately jump into the equivalent of the groove on a gramophone record, following the story slavishly and drifting off to sleep after just minutes.
It has revolutionised Phil’s sleeping patterns. I always slept like a log, but I found the stories an excellent alternative to cyclical worry patterns. And I read much, much more.
Arthur C Clarke occupies us just now, but The War Of The Worlds was our last obsession. It tickles us because it uses mundane locations close at hand to stage a near Armageddon for the human race. Thus, one chapter is entitled The Heat Ray on the Chobham Road. And the Martians choose Horshall Common for their landing site.
We drove past a sign. It was a makeshift arrow and it read: “Horshall Common.”
In the brilliant sunlight we drove on along the Chobham Road to Woking. It didn’t even happen, what we were recalling as if it were yesterday, the hoards of people trekking out to see the great pit where the aliens had lain, waiting and gathering strength under the impertinent gaze of their prey.
Wells does this well: he paints us, everyday English people, with searing insight. He paints a portrait of a people so complacent, so entrenched, that their business, in and around the market town of Woking, carries on in a fashion, right up until the moment the Martians begin to hunt.
Someone has scrambled up to take a look into the pit and he falls in. Needless to say, he never comes out. The creatures from Mars are efficient: they strip their food of it’s bones with no waste.
Once the creatures are ready to leave their pit they simply round up their food. Hunting is not really the word. That entails a chase. The people of Woking, and the south of England, are simply not prepared for what is essentially a horror tale. They are herded to their doom.
The central character is forced to resort to unimaginable means to escape the monsters and their questing tendrils. He muses that humans are like so many ants to the newcomers. Events render him powerless, fit only to wait for the moment the Martians have decimated the human race for good.
But in a twist which has become legendary, a common cold rescues the race of men. And here is Wells’s genius : everything begins to go back to normal the moment the creatures are no longer a threat. Shops begin to open, and the streets of the capital hum once more.
Wells notes that someone has even begun to publish the Daily Mail once more: if a little haphazardly.
The trains begin to run again. And our storyteller takes a train back home to Woking.
I will be taking the train back to Woking tomorrow, looking out of the window and recalling vividly events which never happened, except in the mind of one of the greatest storytellers of all time.
Thank you, Mr Wells.
Kate Shrewsday 
I hope you enjoyed your break, Kate. It is nice to get away, even for a little while. Do you know, I haven’t read War of the Worlds. It is one of those books that I have always meant to read ‘one day’… I think the day has come!
It makes quite grim reading, Adeyoyo, but it’s totally compelling. Wells was such a clever bloke…
That’s too funny. Using H.G.Wells’ War of the Worlds as a bedtime story to lull you to sleep! š
Do you listen to the same chapters over and over?
How are you able to follow the story line if you’re sleeping soundly?
Hope you had a lovely getaway.
We spend about a month listening to the same book, Nancy, filling in the gaps.it’s a bit like a jigsaw puzzle….although I will privately argue that my subconscious takes the lot in, even as I sleep:-) My husband guffaws at that one…
You read while you’re asleep? Do you both listen to the same book or have you got earplug thingies?
That’s a bone of contention, Cindy. The iPhone has a speaker,so we listen to the same one together. But Occasionally he makes a choice I’m not into- Arthur C Clarke would not have been my first choice. Very nicely written, though. Generally we have the same tastes though. Although Phil does NOT like Jane Eyre….
I reckon complacency is often a defence mechanism that keeps out the monsters and keep us from going stark-raving mad (and, not to mention, from stockpiling food, water and weaponry in the basement š )
Blue bee, you have an excellent point there:-) I’ll tell Surrey not to worry, shall I?
my knowledge of War of the Worlds is limited, but have heard this time and time again!
A blast from the past! Classic drama, Jeff Wayne- style…
I hope you had a lovely break š
Now I must go and find a copy of The War of the Worlds…
oh, do….are you a kindle person yet? Think it might be free…
No I haven’t converted….should I?
Well my first iPad has just arrived: and I find I can locate many of the classics scott free and read them within minutes of thinking about them. Comes in very useful for the blog actually…
I don’t think I’ll do Kindle yet. If I come into some money I’m going to get a replacement camera. I hate being without it.
About audio books: I find I’m not a terribly good long term listener. I find your night time listening fascinating.
I once had a book to read that I loved, but had little time to get through before the next book group, so I invested in an audio version to listen to in the car and while ironing for example. http://www.amazon.co.uk/God-Small-Things-Arundhati-Roy/dp/0006550681/ref=cm_lmf_tit_20
I found that when driving I tuned in and out of the book depending on how much concentration a certain junction had required, and as the book is quite densely written I had then lost the thread and had to rewind. I find this strange as I have always considered myself to be an auditory learner to some extent, but have now refined this to a learner through discussion… the speaking and listening combined is what helps it ‘go in’.
(I once had to prepare for a ‘seen question’ in an exam. So I wrote the essay and learned it by recording myself reading it and then listened a number of times until it was familiar to me.)
We tend to go with the flow, Pseu. There is no way on God’s own earth that we could listen end to end because after five minutes we’re often asleep. We listen to the same text night after night and piece it together. There are still some bits I haven’t heard. But War of The Worlds was unusual because I woke up one night at the point where the central character was in hiding in a derelict house, and a mad vicar attracts the Martians to investigate. It was edge-of-your-seat stuff and I just had to listen all the way to the end then, to when he got on the train and came home. Took me a good few hours and cost me sleep, but I was captivated.
Hope the break was good for your soul – an often over looked part of one’s make-up and 10 rounds of applause for “Antlers” , a most fabulous piece of prose! On a practical note, do you buy your audio books or get from the library? I am trying to persuade DH to test the waters as an alternative during long road trips but he is proving a less than enthusiastic š¦
Thanks for those kind words, Bandsmoke!
We are ipod people. We download them from iTunes, and when we feel like a new one acquisition is fairly instant. All our friends know that for present days, like birthdays, we need iTunes vouchers. It’s a most satisfactory setup- I recommend them because they behave beautifully, are easily navigable and never break like CDs do.
How fun to drive through the sites of The War of the Worlds! tee hee Did you find any pits of annihilation?
Oh, Kate, you always make me grin, and then you force me to think. Indeed, we do this; we are struck by disaster of some sort or other, with anguish and hysteria and such, and then, we go back to doing whatever it was we were doing before.
I love audio books, though I haven’t tried them at bedtime. I “read” them in the car, especially the long road trips we take up to see our daughter and her family. Sad to say, I’ve not read War of the Worlds in either form and must remedy that soon. I have heard bits and pieces of the Orson Welle’s famous broadcast and seen the movies, which are silly but fun.
Loved this post – and the cover is fun.
Isn’t it? Now there’s a first edition I would love to have, Penny. Must go and find some promising house sales š
I rather liked Bluebee’s comment: what might look like complacency, she says, is so often an attempt to patch together a reality which keeps us sane. It is a defence mechanism.
Clever old Wells.
I put on radio 4 to lull me asleep. Has to be after 1130 though, because the comedy is generally so painful at eleven that I’m tossing in rage at the waste of taxpayers’ money.
Did you like the Spielberg version? I did. But I can never hear the title without hearing Richard Burton’s velvet tones.
I enjoyed the film immensely, Tilly, but it had very little to do with Wells’s book apart from the distinctive tripods. Edge of your seat stuff, though! I used to listen to Radio Four all night but what was that world affairs feature programme that came on about 2am- was it Outlook? The real life horror tales from around the world kept me awake. I need some fairy tale or other to get me to sleep š
Oh, I so love Wells. Thanks so much for the recap, Kate. This made me want to read War of the Worlds again.
Sounds like you and Phil took a nice trip for yourselves! Hooray for going AWIL. Good for you!
It was fun, Maura š We had a lovely 22 hours…
I enjoyed the post, as always. Writers like H G Wells and Heinlein recognise that people react and adapt to the extraordinary in very ordinary ways. This was illustrated in real life by the Blitz.
That’s so true, Colonialist: after all, what are we to do but keep on living?
I confess: I’ve never read War of the Worlds. I think the book has been eclipsed in the U. S. by the chaos (or whatever) surrounding Orson Welle’s radio production. Interesting that Wells used a biological “weapon” to defeat the invaders. If Martians ever land here, I hope they do it when the ashe juniper is pollinating. It isn’t contagious, but it’s definitely disabling.
Mental note: disseminate misinformation to Mars to ensure Ashe Juniper and landings coincide…