Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club book Club book Club. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 2: cool Z Owned Media book Club, the only book club
Speaker 2: where I do the reading for you. Maybe there's other
Speaker 2: book clubs where other people do the reading for you,
Speaker 2: but this is the only one where I'm going to
Speaker 2: do it. The I in the aforementioned I is me
Speaker 2: Marta Kiljoy. I am a fiction writer, and I also
Speaker 2: read you fiction stories every Sunday. So we talk sometimes
Speaker 2: on this show about how certain stories are of interest,
Speaker 2: in particular because of how they shine a light on
Speaker 2: the past by showing how at least one author perceived
Speaker 2: the world around them and various social issues all while
Speaker 2: telling a good tale. Plot is the engine that drives
Speaker 2: the story forward and keeps the reader engaged. Another thing
Speaker 2: we talk about even more often on both It Could
Speaker 2: Happen Here and Cool People Did Cool Stuff is the
Speaker 2: history of the labor movement, and in particular the history
Speaker 2: of the anarchist labor movement. We do that because we're
Speaker 2: drawn to do so, but also because well, anarchism is
Speaker 2: one of the most maligned political ideologies in history, which
Speaker 2: is impressive because pretty much all the other major political
Speaker 2: ideologies around in the twentieth century managed some rather impressive
Speaker 2: feats of mass death, oppression, and general fuckery. Usually though
Speaker 2: those ideologies killed mostly but not exclusively, poor people on
Speaker 2: colonized subjects. The anarchists they killed a few kings and
Speaker 2: politicians and cops, and suddenly everyone was freaked out. I
Speaker 2: am fascinated by the Anarchists Scare. The first Red scare
Speaker 2: in the US around the end of World War One
Speaker 2: targeted anarchists, primarily because anarchism, before the Bolshevik victory in
Speaker 2: the Russian Civil War was pretty much the biggest name
Speaker 2: in town for the revolutionary left in a lot of countries,
Speaker 2: not everywhere, but a lot of places. I make it
Speaker 2: a hobby of reading anti anarchist fiction because there's an
Speaker 2: awful lot of it from around the turn of the century,
Speaker 2: and I think it's fun, honestly. Sometimes it was written
Speaker 2: by some of the best writers of the era. G. K. Chesterton,
Speaker 2: Joseph Conrad, and H. G. Wells have all made boogeymen
Speaker 2: of anarchists. We were pulp novel villains, wild eyed, crazy zealots,
Speaker 2: and terrorists who sometimes had class politics and sometimes didn't.
Speaker 2: Probably the best modern comparison is how the Western media
Speaker 2: often presents Muslims today, or especially did during the height
Speaker 2: of the global War on Terror. Today's story is one
Speaker 2: of these stories about anarchist boogeyman. It's by an author
Speaker 2: I generally think rather highly of. HG. Wells. He's got
Speaker 2: a ton of famous books. You might have heard of
Speaker 2: The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The War
Speaker 2: of the Worlds. He's known as the father of science fiction.
Speaker 2: He was a scientist trained in biology. He was also
Speaker 2: quite openly a socialist. He was part of the Fabian Society,
Speaker 2: which one day I'll cover in more detail. Actually a
Speaker 2: lot of the old science fiction writers were part of
Speaker 2: the Fabian Society. It's kind of interesting to me.
Speaker 1: H G.
Speaker 2: Wells's book The Time Machine is a simple parable about
Speaker 2: how have class divisions continue to deep and humanity will
Speaker 2: become two separate species. It's also where the word time
Speaker 2: machine comes from. Plus I think he coined the word
Speaker 2: atomic bomb by prophesizing them in nineteen fourteen. He was
Speaker 2: raised middle class in England and was apprenticed out as
Speaker 2: a draper, which is a cloth merchant basically, and then
Speaker 2: soon just became a wildly prolific writer. The story We're
Speaker 2: going to Read is the title story of his first
Speaker 2: book of short stories, and frankly it doesn't represent his
Speaker 2: mature opinion on just about anything. This is very like
Speaker 2: his first book, kind of energy, not just in terms
Speaker 2: of fiction, but especially in terms of his political thought.
Speaker 2: Which isn't to say that he becomes an anarchist, but
Speaker 2: he later actually comes kind of close. While still working
Speaker 2: with some of the major power players of the world.
Speaker 2: He would go on to correspond with and influence both
Speaker 2: Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin. At one point he went
Speaker 2: to the USSR to interview Stalin to try and convince him,
Speaker 2: basically to stop being such a dick, which obviously didn't work. H. G.
Speaker 2: Wells's nineteen forty The Rights of Man was the inspiration
Speaker 2: for the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was
Speaker 2: adopted in nineteen forty eight after Welles's death. Like all
Speaker 2: actual socialists, H. G. Wells agreed with the anarchist vision
Speaker 2: for the future, stateless and cooperative. He just disagreed with
Speaker 2: the methods by which to reach it. In his book
Speaker 2: New Worlds for Old, he wrote, the anarchist world, I
Speaker 2: admit is our dream. Socialism is the preparation for that
Speaker 2: higher anarchism. Painfully, laboriously, we mean to destroy false ideas
Speaker 2: of property and self, eliminate unjust laws and poisonous and
Speaker 2: hateful suggestions and prejudices, create a system of social right
Speaker 2: dealing and a tradition of right feeling and action. Socialism
Speaker 2: is the school room of true and noble anarchism, wherein
Speaker 2: by training and restraint, we shall make free men. That was,
Speaker 2: of course, fifteen or so years after he wrote this
Speaker 2: anarchist terrorist boogeyman's story, which i'll read to you now,
Speaker 2: The Stolen Bacillus by H. G. Wells. This again, said
Speaker 2: the bacteriologist, slipping a glass slide under the microscope is
Speaker 2: a preparation of the celebrated bacillis of cholera, the cholera germ.
Speaker 2: The pale faced man peered down the microscope. He was
Speaker 2: evidently not accustomed to that kind of thing, and held
Speaker 2: a limp white hand over his disengaged eye. I see
Speaker 2: very little, he said, Touch this screw, said the bacteriologist.
Speaker 2: Perhaps the microscope is out of focus for you eyes
Speaker 2: very so much. Just a fraction of a turn this
Speaker 2: way or that. Ah, Now I see, said the visitor,
Speaker 2: not so very much to see, after all, little streaks
Speaker 2: and shreds of pink. Yet those little particles, those mere autonomies,
Speaker 2: might multiply and devastate a city. Wonderful. He stood up, and,
Speaker 2: releasing the glass slip from the microscope, held it in
Speaker 2: his hands towards the window. Scarcely visible, he said, Scrutinizing
Speaker 2: the preparation, he hesitated, are these alive? Are they dangerous? Now?
Speaker 2: Those have been stained and killed, said the bacteriologist. I wish,
Speaker 2: for my own part, we could kill and stain every
Speaker 2: one of them in the universe. I suppose. The pale
Speaker 2: man said, with a slight smile, that you scarcely care
Speaker 2: to have such things about you in the living, in
Speaker 2: the active state. On the contrary, we are obliged to,
Speaker 2: said the bacteriologist. Here, for instance, he walked across the
Speaker 2: room and took up one of several sealed tubes. Here
Speaker 2: is the living thing. This is the cultivation of the
Speaker 2: actual living disease bacteria, he hesitated, bottled cholera, so to speak.
Speaker 2: Also obliged is me? I am obliged to cut to
Speaker 2: ads and we're back. A slight gleam of satisfaction appeared
Speaker 2: momentarily in the face of the pale man. It's a
Speaker 2: deadly thing to have in your possession, he said, devouring
Speaker 2: the little tube with his eyes. The bacteriologist watched the
Speaker 2: morbid pleasure in his visitor's expression. This man, who had
Speaker 2: visited him that afternoon with a note of introduction from
Speaker 2: an old friend, interested him from the very contrast of
Speaker 2: their dispositions. The lank black hair and deep gray eyes,
Speaker 2: the haggard expression and nervous manner, the fitful yet keen
Speaker 2: interest of his visitor. Where a novel change from the
Speaker 2: phlegmatic deliberations of the ordinary scientific worker with whom the
Speaker 2: bacteriologists chiefly associated. It was perhaps natural with a hearer
Speaker 2: evidently so impressionable to the lethal nature of his topic,
Speaker 2: to take the most effective aspect of the matter. He
Speaker 2: held the tube in his hand thoughtfully, Yes, here is
Speaker 2: the pestilence imprisoned. Only break such a little tube as
Speaker 2: this into a supply of drinking water. Say to these
Speaker 2: minute particles of life that one must needs stain and
Speaker 2: examine with the highest powers of the microscope even to see,
Speaker 2: and that one can neither smell nor taste, Say to them.
Speaker 2: Go forth, increase and multiply and replenish the cisterns, and death, mysterious,
Speaker 2: untraceable death, death, swift and terrible death, full of pain
Speaker 2: and indignity, would be released upon this city, and go
Speaker 2: hither and thither seeking his victims. Here he would take
Speaker 2: the husband from his wife, hear the child from its mother,
Speaker 2: hear the statesman from his duty, and hear the toiler
Speaker 2: from his trouble. He would follow the water mains, creeping
Speaker 2: along streets, picking out and punishing a house here and
Speaker 2: a house there where they did not boil their drinking water,
Speaker 2: Creeping into the wells of the mineral water makers, getting
Speaker 2: washed into salad and line dormant in ices. He would wait,
Speaker 2: ready to be drunk in horse troughs and by unwary
Speaker 2: children in the public fountains. He would soak into the
Speaker 2: soil to reappear in springs and wells at a thousand
Speaker 2: unexpected places. Once start him at the water supply, and
Speaker 2: before we could ring him in and catch him again,
Speaker 2: he would have decimated the metropolis. He stopped abruptly. He
Speaker 2: had been told rhetoric was his weakness. But he is
Speaker 2: quite safe here, you know. Quite safe. The pale faced
Speaker 2: man nodded, his eyes shone. He cleared his throat. These
Speaker 2: anarchist rascals, said, he are fools, blind, fools to use
Speaker 2: bombs when this kind of thing is attainable. I think
Speaker 2: a gentle rap. A mere light of the touch of
Speaker 2: fingernails was heard at the door. The bacteriologist opened it
Speaker 2: just a minute, dear, whispered his wife. When he re
Speaker 2: entered the laboratory, his visitor was looking at his watch.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. I wasted an hour of your time,
Speaker 2: he said, twelve minutes to four. I ought to have
Speaker 2: left here at half past three, but your things were
Speaker 2: really too interesting. No, positively, I cannot stop a moment longer.
Speaker 2: I have an engagement. At four. He passed out of
Speaker 2: the room, reiterating his thanks, and the bacteriologist accompanied him
Speaker 2: to the door. Then returned thoughtfully along the passage to
Speaker 2: his laboratory. He was musing on the ethnology of his visitor.
Speaker 2: Certainly the man was not a Teutonic type, nor a
Speaker 2: common Latin one. A morbid product. Anyhow, I'm afraid, said
Speaker 2: the bacteriologist to himself. How he gloated on those cultivations
Speaker 2: of diseased germs. A disturbing thought struck him. He turned
Speaker 2: to the bench by the vapor bath, and then very
Speaker 2: quickly to his writing table. Then he felt hastily in
Speaker 2: his pockets. Then he rushed to the door. I may
Speaker 2: have put it down on the hall table, he said, Minnie.
Speaker 2: He shouted hoarsely in the hall. Yes, dear, came a
Speaker 2: remote voice. Had I anything in my hand when I
Speaker 2: spoke to you, dear? Just now pause? Nothing, dear, because
Speaker 2: I remember blue ruin, cried the bacteriologist, and incontinently ran
Speaker 2: to the front door and down the steps of his
Speaker 2: house to the street. Minnie, hearing the door slam, violently,
Speaker 2: ran in alarm to the window. Down the street, a
Speaker 2: slender man was getting into a cab. The bacteriologist, hatless
Speaker 2: and in his carpet slippers, was running and gesticulating wildly
Speaker 2: towards this group. One slipper came off, but he did
Speaker 2: not wait for it. He has gone mad, said Minnie.
Speaker 2: It's that horrid science of his, and opening the window
Speaker 2: would have called after him. The slender man, suddenly glancing around,
Speaker 2: seemed struck with the same idea of mental disorder. He
Speaker 2: pointed to the bacteriologist said something to the case cabman.
Speaker 2: The apron of the cab slammed, the whip swished, the
Speaker 2: horse's feet clattered, and in a moment the cab bacteriologist,
Speaker 2: hotly in pursuit, had receded up the vista of the
Speaker 2: roadway and disappeared round the corner. Minnie remained straining out
Speaker 2: the window for a minute. Then she drew her head
Speaker 2: back into the room again. She was dumbfounded. Of course,
Speaker 2: he is eccentric, she meditated. But running about London in
Speaker 2: the height of the season too in his socks. A
Speaker 2: happy thought struck her. She hastily put her bonnet on,
Speaker 2: seized her shoes, went into the hall, took down his
Speaker 2: hat and light overcoat from the pegs, emerged upon the doorstep,
Speaker 2: and hailed a cab that opportunely crawled by. Drive me
Speaker 2: up the road and round Havelock Crescent, and see if
Speaker 2: we can find a gentleman running around in a velveteen
Speaker 2: coat and no hat. Velveteen coat, ma'am. And no, at
Speaker 2: very good, ma'am. And the cabman whipped up at once,
Speaker 2: in the most matter of fact way, as if he
Speaker 2: drove to this address every day of his life, much
Speaker 2: like you can every day of your life participate in
Speaker 2: buying stuff from ads. Here they are, and we're back.
Speaker 2: Some few minutes later, the little group of cabmen and
Speaker 2: loafers that collects around the cabman's shelter at Haverstock Hill
Speaker 2: were startled by the passing of a cab with a
Speaker 2: ginger colored screw of a horse driven furiously. They were
Speaker 2: silent as it went by, then as it receded, that's
Speaker 2: Airy X. What's he got? The writing is written out
Speaker 2: like that, said the stout gentleman known as Old Toodles.
Speaker 2: He's a using his whip. He is to rights, said
Speaker 2: the ostler boy. Hello, said poor old Tommy Biles. There's
Speaker 2: another blooming lunatic blowed. If there ain't it's Old George,
Speaker 2: said Old Toodles. And he's driving a lunatic as you say,
Speaker 2: Ain't he a clawing out the keb Wonder if he's
Speaker 2: after Airy IX. The group round the cabman's shelter became
Speaker 2: animated chorus, Go it, George, it's a race. You'll catch him.
Speaker 2: Whip up. She's a goer, she is, said the ostler boy.
Speaker 2: Strike me giddy, cry on Toodles. Sorry, I fucking can't.
Speaker 2: It's written this way, and I can't do a British accent,
Speaker 2: so I'm just trying to read it the way it's written. Here,
Speaker 2: I'm a going to begin in a minute. Here's another coming.
Speaker 2: If all the kebs in Hampston ain't gone mad this morning.
Speaker 2: It's a field male this time, said the ostler boy.
Speaker 2: She's a following him, said Old Toodles. Usually the other
Speaker 2: way around. What she got in her hand looks like
Speaker 2: I at fuck, what a bloomin lark. It is three
Speaker 2: to one on Old George, said the ostler boy. Next
Speaker 2: many went by in a perfect roar of applause. She
Speaker 2: did not like it, but she felt that she was
Speaker 2: doing her duty, and whirled on down Haverstock Hill and
Speaker 2: Camden Town High Street, with her eyes ever intent on
Speaker 2: the animated back of Old George, who was driving her
Speaker 2: vagrant husband so incomprehensively away from her. The man in
Speaker 2: the foremost cab sat crouched in the corner, his arms
Speaker 2: tightly folded and the little tube that contained such vast
Speaker 2: possibilities of destruction gripped in his hand. His mood was
Speaker 2: a singular mixture of fear and exultation. Chiefly he was
Speaker 2: afraid of being caught before he could accomplish his purpose.
Speaker 2: But behind this was a vaguer but larger fear of
Speaker 2: the awfulness of his crime. But his exultation far exceeded
Speaker 2: his fear. No anarchist before him had ever approached this
Speaker 2: conception of his ravat show valiant. All those distinguished persons
Speaker 2: whose fame he had envied dwindled into significance beside him.
Speaker 2: He had only to make sure of the water supply
Speaker 2: and break the little tube into a reservoir. How brilliantly
Speaker 2: he had planned it, forged the letter of introduction, and
Speaker 2: gotten into the laboratory. How brilliantly he had seized his opportunity.
Speaker 2: The world should hear of him at last. All these
Speaker 2: people had sneered at him, neglected him, preferred other people
Speaker 2: to him, found his company undesirable, should consider him at
Speaker 2: last death, death, death. They had always treated him as
Speaker 2: a man of no importance. All the world had been
Speaker 2: in a conspiracy to keep him under. He would teach them. Yet,
Speaker 2: what it is to isolate a man? What was this
Speaker 2: familiar street, Great Saint Andrew's Street? Of course, how fared
Speaker 2: the chase, he craned out the cab. The bacteriologist was
Speaker 2: scarcely fifty yards behind. That was bad, he would be
Speaker 2: caught and stopped. Yet he felt in his pocket for
Speaker 2: money and found half a sovereign. This he thrust up
Speaker 2: through the trap and the top of the cab into
Speaker 2: the man's face. More, he shouted, if only we get away.
Speaker 2: The money was snatched out of his hand. Right you are,
Speaker 2: said the cabman, and the trap slammed, and the lash
Speaker 2: lay along the glistening side of the horse. The cab swayed,
Speaker 2: and the anarchist, half standing under the trap, with the
Speaker 2: hand containing the little glass tube upon the apron to
Speaker 2: preserve his balance. He felt the brittle thing crack, and
Speaker 2: the broken half of it rang upon the floor of
Speaker 2: the cab. He fell back into the seat with a curse,
Speaker 2: and stared dismally at the two or three drops of
Speaker 2: moisture on the apron. He shuddered, Well, I suppose I
Speaker 2: shall be the first phew. Anyhow, I shall be a martyr.
Speaker 2: That's something. But it is a filthy death. Nevertheless, I
Speaker 2: wonder if it hurts as much as they say. Presently,
Speaker 2: a thought occurred to him He groped between his feet.
Speaker 2: A little drop was still in the broken end the tube,
Speaker 2: and he drank that to make sure. It was better
Speaker 2: to make sure, at any rate he would not fail.
Speaker 2: Then it dawned upon him that there was no further
Speaker 2: need to escape the bacteriologist in Wellington Street. He told
Speaker 2: the cabman to stop and got out. He slipped on
Speaker 2: the step. His head felt queer. It was rapid stuff,
Speaker 2: this cholera poison. He waved his cabman out of existence,
Speaker 2: so to speak, and stood on the pavement with his
Speaker 2: arm folded upon his breast, awaiting the arrival of the bacteriologist.
Speaker 2: There was something tragic in his pose. The sense of
Speaker 2: imminent death gave him a certain dignity. He greeted his
Speaker 2: pursuer with a defiant laugh. Vive la anarchy. You are
Speaker 2: too late, my friend. I have drunk it. The cholera
Speaker 2: is abroad. The bacteriologist from his cab beamed curiously at
Speaker 2: him through his spectacles. You have drunk it, an anarchist,
Speaker 2: I see now. He was about to say something more,
Speaker 2: and then checked himself. A smile hung in the corner
Speaker 2: of his mouth. He opened the apron of his cab
Speaker 2: as if to descend, at which the anarchist waved him
Speaker 2: a dramatic farewell and strode off towards Waterloo Bridge, carefully
Speaker 2: jostling his infected body against as many people as possible.
Speaker 2: The bacteriologist was so preoccupied with the vision of him
Speaker 2: that he scarcely manifested the slightest surprise at the appearance
Speaker 2: of many upon the pavement with his hat and shoes
Speaker 2: and overcoat. Very good of you to bring my things,
Speaker 2: he said, and then remained lost in contemplation of the
Speaker 2: receding figure of the anarchist. You had better get in,
Speaker 2: he said, still staring. Minnie felt absolutely convinced now that
Speaker 2: he was mad, and directed the cabman home on her
Speaker 2: own responsibility. Put on my shoes, certainly, dear, said he,
Speaker 2: as the cab began to turn and hid the strutting
Speaker 2: black figure, now small in the distance, from his eyes.
Speaker 2: Then suddenly something grotesque struck him, and he laughed. Then
Speaker 2: he remarked, it is really very serious, though. You see
Speaker 2: that man came to my house to see me, and
Speaker 2: he is an anarchist. No, don't faint, or I cannot
Speaker 2: possibly tell you the rest. And I wanted to astonish him,
Speaker 2: not knowing he was an anarchist, and I took up
Speaker 2: a cultivation of that new species of bacterium. I was
Speaker 2: telling you of that infest and that I think cause
Speaker 2: the blue patches upon various monkeys, And like a fool,
Speaker 2: I said it was asiatic cholera. And he ran away
Speaker 2: with it to poison the water of London. And he
Speaker 2: certainly might have made things look blue for this civilized city.
Speaker 2: And now he has swallowed it. Of course I cannot
Speaker 2: say what will happen, but you know it turned that
Speaker 2: kitten blue, and the three puppies and patches and the
Speaker 2: sparrow bright blue. But the bother is I shall have
Speaker 2: all the trouble and expense of preparing some more. Put
Speaker 2: on my coat on this hot day? Why because we
Speaker 2: might meet Missus Jabber. My dear Missus Jabber is not
Speaker 2: a draft. But why should I wear a coat on
Speaker 2: a hot day because of missus? Oh? Very well? The end? Okay,
Speaker 2: I like this story because it's so trashy. It's like,
Speaker 2: ahhe Wells is the father of science fiction, and this
Speaker 2: is just like a vaguely racist, shitty, anti anarchist book.
Speaker 2: Like you know, He's like going on to try and
Speaker 2: be like that man who came in. He was like
Speaker 2: the wrong kind of white. You know, he wasn't too tonic,
Speaker 2: he wasn't you know, like he's like trying to play
Speaker 2: what ethnicity is this man, because he's like weird and
Speaker 2: can't be trusted, and he's like tall and lanky and evil,
Speaker 2: and he's also like a total insult right the anarchist
Speaker 2: in this story, he's like everyone treated me wrong and
Speaker 2: I'm going to show them all. And that is not
Speaker 2: that's not the anarchist vibe. I don't believe it was
Speaker 2: the anarchist vibe back then either at all. But you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, the story was written before HG. Wells's serious
Speaker 2: involvement in socialist politics. It was, like I've written, I think,
Speaker 2: right before he joined the Fabian Society, and certainly you know,
Speaker 2: fifteen years before he was talking about how anarchism is
Speaker 2: the goal of every socialist in very explicit terms. I
Speaker 2: wasn't able to find him like reflecting on this story.
Speaker 2: And I'd be really interested if anyone out there knows
Speaker 2: what he thought about this story later, because it's so
Speaker 2: bad it's entertaining. I hope you found it entertaining and
Speaker 2: the little like trick ending at the end like oh,
Speaker 2: just he's gonna turn blue. Well done, well done, HG Wells,
Speaker 2: You weird fucker. Men hate their wives. That is just
Speaker 2: like a thing throughout history. And that is why here
Speaker 2: on this podcast we stand wife guys. And this is
Speaker 2: not a wife guy story. This is all like I'm
Speaker 2: thinking about saving all of London or whatever, and my
Speaker 2: wife is only thinking about me looking weird in front
Speaker 2: of the neighbors, because that's all women think about, even
Speaker 2: though she's like on call for him at all times.
Speaker 2: Ith She Wells did not go on to treat women
Speaker 2: with a He was not known for his fidelity in
Speaker 2: his marriages. Marriage I don't remember. He was with a
Speaker 2: lot of people. I don't remember how many of them
Speaker 2: married him. I reached the point where I'm out of
Speaker 2: things to say. I'll see you next week on another
Speaker 2: episode of Cool Zone Media book Club. And if you
Speaker 2: want more from me about history, you can check out
Speaker 2: cool People who Did Cool stuff. And if you want
Speaker 2: more from not me about dot history, you can check
Speaker 2: out it could happen here. Talk to you all soon.
Speaker 1: It could happen here as a production of Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: cool zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts
Speaker 1: you can find for it could happen here, Updated monthly
Speaker 1: at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening.