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Jun. 28th, 2012 07:49 amStarted reading Planet of the Apes the other day, a translation of the original French novel. Haven't gotten very far yet; the humans from Earth have only just encountered their first human on the strange new world. Not bad so far.
The overall tone is very much like my vague memories of Jules Verne's writing, except that the Professor (there is always a Professor) has not at any point so far shown himself to be a jerk or a misanthrope. I'm okay with the Verne tone. It makes it easier to deal with the fact that I have to stop every few pages and remind myself that I am not so much reading a daring and bold science fiction novel as a daring and bold social commentary novel that happens to be wearing science fiction clothes. Because OH GOD THE SCIENCE BUUUUUURNS. Seriously, guys? Seriously? You're undertaking a journey to Betelgeuse at relativistic speeds (I will deal with this, I will deal with this, you remembered to point out that you have to spend literally half your trip accelerating and half decelerating in order to get the time dilation you want), you're going to be away from Earth for 700-800 dirtside years, and your entire crew consists of the Professor, his protege, and a reporter? You get off the ship- admittedly on a visibly inhabited planet with air that the ship's sensors say is breathable and similar to Earth's- and when you approach a body of water your idea of testing it for safety is to let the Professor stick his hand in it and sniff it? You-
Well, you get the idea. I probably shouldn't be frothing at the mouth about this. Pierre Boulle was writing social commentary using scifi concepts to do it, just like H. G. Wells invented time travel to comment on the dangers of ongoing class division and just like Jonathan Swift used fantasy travelogue to comment on how disgusting human beings were on multiple levels. He was almost certainly doing the horrible science on purpose, either for tone purposes or as an early point-up of human stupidity (the reporter is all 'okay, so I'll be away from home for 800 years, but imagine what it'll be like when I publish my story!!' which has GOT to be commentary on priorities). And the book was written in 1962, when scifi science was even worse than Star Trek, so people were probably expecting horrible science anyway. So, yeah, I have to keep telling myself he was writing like that on purpose. It wasn't a case of him not knowing better. I just... I get the feeling the ape society's gonna be the easiest part to deal with.
The overall tone is very much like my vague memories of Jules Verne's writing, except that the Professor (there is always a Professor) has not at any point so far shown himself to be a jerk or a misanthrope. I'm okay with the Verne tone. It makes it easier to deal with the fact that I have to stop every few pages and remind myself that I am not so much reading a daring and bold science fiction novel as a daring and bold social commentary novel that happens to be wearing science fiction clothes. Because OH GOD THE SCIENCE BUUUUUURNS. Seriously, guys? Seriously? You're undertaking a journey to Betelgeuse at relativistic speeds (I will deal with this, I will deal with this, you remembered to point out that you have to spend literally half your trip accelerating and half decelerating in order to get the time dilation you want), you're going to be away from Earth for 700-800 dirtside years, and your entire crew consists of the Professor, his protege, and a reporter? You get off the ship- admittedly on a visibly inhabited planet with air that the ship's sensors say is breathable and similar to Earth's- and when you approach a body of water your idea of testing it for safety is to let the Professor stick his hand in it and sniff it? You-
Well, you get the idea. I probably shouldn't be frothing at the mouth about this. Pierre Boulle was writing social commentary using scifi concepts to do it, just like H. G. Wells invented time travel to comment on the dangers of ongoing class division and just like Jonathan Swift used fantasy travelogue to comment on how disgusting human beings were on multiple levels. He was almost certainly doing the horrible science on purpose, either for tone purposes or as an early point-up of human stupidity (the reporter is all 'okay, so I'll be away from home for 800 years, but imagine what it'll be like when I publish my story!!' which has GOT to be commentary on priorities). And the book was written in 1962, when scifi science was even worse than Star Trek, so people were probably expecting horrible science anyway. So, yeah, I have to keep telling myself he was writing like that on purpose. It wasn't a case of him not knowing better. I just... I get the feeling the ape society's gonna be the easiest part to deal with.
