Laugh While You Can, Monkey-Boy!

The power was out here for several hours today due to a thunderstorm. (No actual rain, mind you, just thunder. Ah, life in the desert!) And, you know, it's amazing how completely my entire life grinds to a halt when I'm deprived of electricity. The good news, I suppose, is that being forcibly deprived of computer access does give me more time for reading honest-to-gosh paper books.

So, I've just finished The Island of Dr. Moreau. Finished re-reading it, actually, as I did read it, along with most of Wells' other books, back in my teenage years. I remember being quite creeped out by it back then, though my reaction wasn't nearly as strong this time (possibly, I admit, because for much of the book I was in a rather distracted state of mind, what with being busy obsessing over computer games and all). Dr. Moreau is an interesting read for a number of reasons, not least of which is the way it deals with the issues of what defines humanity and what (if anything) it is that separates men from beasts. Mostly Wells is pretty subtle about it, I think, and is content to raise the questions rather than delivering preachy lectures about the answers. Which I like. But there's this one particularly biting passage that, for some reason, tickled me immensely, so I thought I'd pass it along. Gotta have some Literature in here in among all the TV stuff, don't we?

The Monkey-man bored me, however; he assumed, on the strength of his five digits, that he was my equal, and was for ever jabbering at me,—jabbering the most arrant nonsense. One thing about him entertained me a little: he had a fantastic trick of coining new words. He had an idea, I believe, that to gabble about names that meant nothing was the proper use of speech. He called it “Big Thinks” to distinguish it from “Little Thinks,” the sane every-day interests of life. If ever I made a remark he did not understand, he would praise it very much, ask me to say it again, learn it by heart, and go off repeating it, with a word wrong here or there, to all the milder of the Beast People. He thought nothing of what was plain and comprehensible. I invented some very curious “Big Thinks” for his especial use. I think now that he was the silliest creature I ever met; he had developed in the most wonderful way the distinctive silliness of man without losing one jot of the natural folly of a monkey.

Heh. I don't know why, but I love that last sentence...

(By the way, you can find the whole book online here. Let's hear it for Public Domain!)