Customer Reviews

Planet of the Apes (Signet)

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A whimsical, fun and quick read, made amusing because, unlike in the 1967 movie, the apes live in modern cities, have present-day technology and wear 20th century human clothing. You can see in the book where screenwriter Rod Serling found many of the elements for the movie, but the book is different from the film in many ways, including in its assessment of man. The story begins in the year 2500, and the Heston character is a French journalist who really does travel to another planet. As in the film, he finds a world where apes are the ruling species with language, science and culture, and humans are dumb, inarticulate brutes who communicate by screeches and are exhibited in zoos. Don't expect Serling's crackling scenes and dialogue, or his blunt and searing indictment of humanity, and there is no Statue of Liberty at the end to wrap it all up. The book is much more in the spirit of Gulliver's Travels; our protagonist is at first considered an odd stranger but is later accepted into the society as almost an equal. But you will learn here the reasons behind some of the unexplained features of the movie: why the humans are mute, and how the planet of the apes came to be. The reasons are part and parcel, though, of the statement Boulle wishes to make about humanity: that truly innovative and revolutionary ideas and the people who bring them forth are very few and far between, and that most people really do not think, and simply follow and imitate the practices of those around them and those who came before them. Boulle wants to take our pride in our superiority above other animals, based on our higher intellectual abilities, down a notch or two, and that he has done so becomes clear after you read the last words and set the book down. I first read this book as a boy enthralled by the movie series, when the "Apes" movies were in the theaters, and I still occasionally thumb through my 25-year-old Signet paperback edition of the novel.

Given the impending release of the movie "THE PLANET OF THE APES" I rented the original movie, which I thought was great. But I just had to read the original book too. (I'm a reader, what can I say?)

I was greatly and pleasantly surprised, quite honestly, about the quality of the book. It was originally written in French trnaslated by Xan Fielding. The prose read extremely well for a translation and the acerbic wit, humor and biting satire comes through loud and clear in the book.

The novel is absolutely wonderful satire. Especially poignant were the scenes where the intelligent human has to witness his fellow human beings subjected to sometimes deadly but always degrading biological and mental experiments. Here, MAN is the object of big game hunts where apes go out and shoot down their human prey for sport. The novel also takes shots at academia and the scientific "establishment", the stock market, and most clearly of all "species-centrism" (or ethnocentrism if you will).

There are a few differences between the book and the original movie. Here, the "Planet of the Apes" is on the other side of the galaxy and is reached through intergalactic flight. Apes are much more technologically advanced than they are in the movie and even have space flight (even if it is described in a somewhat cheesy manner). The apes take over more through the technologcial (and read between the lines, moral) stagnation of mankind than a nuclear holocaust (as in the movie). But for the most part, the movie did an excellent job of telling a similar, yet different story, using the book as it's basis.

In short, I highly recommend the book and the /original/ movie if you haven't seen it. The novel is rewarding in its own right. Hopefully the new movie will be too.

Having been a fan of the movie for years, I was excited to find out that it was actually based on a book. However, the book, while being similar to the movie in theme and idea, was completely different from what I had expected. Starting with two space travelers finding a ship which has been abandoned for some time, floating in space, the book catapults you into the story of Heston, a space travelling journalist who finds his way to and escapes from a planet entirely ruled by apes. The ending of the book is classical science fiction and will be an awesome surprise to anyone who has seen the movie. Although almost entirely different from the movie, I enjoyed the book immensely. While I've found myslef distracted watching the movie at times due to the underlining political themes, the book was duly unadulterated science fiction and I was able to detach wholly into the world of imagination and be enthralled in this incredible story. I would give this book to anyone.

When I finally got a chance to read this book I took my sweet time. Too many others knock the book because it's not the movie. This book is one of the greatest narratives I have ever read. It's very refreshing! Too much SF gets heavy-handed and pounds a message into you. Planet Of The Apes let's you decide as to what depth you wish to explore the story.

Despite the fact that I really liked the film, I enjoyed the book even more. You can tell where a lot of the ideas for the follow-up films came from and that alone says how much story is really in this short piece. Which, by the way, has been seriously lacking in today's SF.

Too many books are written with the intent of selling them as movies, long trivial side stories and multiple characters used just to fill in pages.

And to all of those who miss the surprise ending (in the movie)...did you read the same book...

Read It! (Slow). Nuff Said!! :)

Arguably author Pierre Boulle's best-known work, PLANET OF THE APES receives a new paperback edition with a movie tie-in cover to coordinate with the release of Tim Burton's "reimagining" of the 1968 classic. Though the image of a gorilla warrior on the front is striking and fresh, the contents inside are, luckily, exactly the same as they have always been.

An SF-powered satire of modern living, PLANET OF THE APES is not an action-packed spectacular, as both film versions have been, though there is action to be found. Instead, Boulle skewers the construction of contemporary society, values, and the unshakable belief of modern men in their own position at the apex of creation. And though this seems like an invitation for boredom, or preachiness, quite the opposite is the case: Boulle's book is fascinating and entertaining from beginning to end.

While those who expect another take on the films will doubtless be confused and perhaps disappointed, readers that are open to an entirely new experience with the "world of apes" concept will find Boulle's novel a great read.

This Planet, the original, is a fable about what separates humans from animals. The answer may please artists more than scientists. Other themes are also present in the book: how people treat each other, how people treat animals, brutality in general. This would make a good book discussion group choice. Boulle paces his story of future history expertly. Each chapter ends with a relevation or mystery that propells the reader onward, making this a quick read. Unlike many contemporary works, the novel is not clotted with detail. Fans of the movies may be surprised to find that here, the details of ape society match many details of contemporary society. No strange architecture or caveman attire for the humans who, like current apes, wear nothing at all. (Shame the movies didn't stick closer to the novel!) All is done with a light French touch that will surprise many hardcore sci-fi readers, not to mention fans of the decidedly Anglo movies. The most sophisticated equipment here is a solar powered space ship with blinds for controlling speed! But, that is one of the points of this very entertaining work.

Before I started reading "Monkey Planet", I thought this book is cool. Cool in the same way that Martin Caidin's book "Cyborg" (on which the Lee Major's show "The Six Million Dollar Man" was based) is cool. Cool because - hey, here is this French guy who also wrote "The Bridge Over The River Kwai", writing a tiny sci-fi novel that becomes a Charlton Heston-shaped phenomena. Cool because, in the rush to elevate the likes of Mr Heston and Roddy McDowell and the rest of them, the novel has been all-but forgotten. (Which, having read the book, is a little like Mary Shelley's little gothic number being forgotten in the wake of that monstrousity by Kenneth Branagh.)

A couple of space travellers chance across a message in a bottle. The story they find is the story you read. Basically, three astronauts travel three hundred light years (from Earth to Betelgeuse) and discover a planet similar to Earth, where the monkey reigns supreme. The narrator, Ulysse Merou, is separated from his fellow astronauts and imprisoned in a research laboratory with other humans. His attempts to communicate set him apart. He becomes something of a celebrity in the monkey world. But all is not well. Not all of the monkeys are keen on the idea of an intelligent human.

Part "Brave New World" and part "The Time Machine", "Monkey Planet" is only sci-fi in the same way that "1984" or "Gulliver's Travels" is sci-fi. In point of fact, the resemblance between Pierre Merou and Lemuel Gulliver (particularly after Gulliver returns from the land of the Houyhnhnms) is startling. The book, first published in France as "La Planete des Singes" in 1963, has aged terrifically, avoiding most if not all of the potholes that sometimes beset semi-prophetic pseudo-sci-fi novels.

Know this. "Monkey Planet" is a gem. Unfortunately, it's a gem that has been lost underground, buried beneath the film, the sequels and the ropey TV show. "Monkey Planet" is a lost classic, floating through space in a bottle waiting to be found. So go find.

I read this book back in the mid-60's, before it was made into a movie. Boulle was a well-known French writer, but this is the only thing I've ever read by him in translation. It might have been written in the late 50's even, but I can't find a publication date to find out for sure.

Anyway, although Boulle isn't really a sci-fi author, the original book was excellent, and although I did enjoy the movies that came out of it, the original book was still better. The movie altered much of the original story, for example, the main character is a French journalist, and Dr. Zaius isn't the head honcho in the book. And as another reviewer here mentioned, in the book, the gorillas are much more organized and powerful, and tend to be the ones that just go out and get things done, while the more cerebral chimps and orangs are just sitting around debating and contemplating their navels.

Another nice touch that didn't make it into the movie was the solar energy powered spaceship that used adjustable blinds to control it, which another reviewer mentioned too. However, he didn't mention that the really interesting thing is that the scientist Cavour used something similar in HG Wells' "The Men in the Moon," where adjustable shutters or flaps much like blinds are used to control the anti-gravity or bouyancy effect of the sun's rays on the anti-gravity paint. I assume Boulle got his very similar idea from Wells.

But back to the original story. Boulle uses the society of apes to poke fun at various aspects of human society. Since the different ape groups, the orangs, chimps, and gorillas symbolize different things--the intellect, the emotions, and the physical body--the outward conflicts and power struggles between the different apes becomes a metaphor for our own internal struggles--between the mind and the emotions, and the mind and the body.

Boulle's book remains a classic and still rewards reading today. If you enjoyed the movies, you'll probably like the original novel even more. Boulle was a talented French novelist and the original book still deserves to be better known, as most people are unaware a foreign writer came up with the original idea.

To be completely honest, I didn't even know there was an original PLANET OF THE APES book until I bought this book. Everyone knows about the famous movie with Charlton Heston and there is a lot of buzz surrounding the upcoming film by Tim Burton. It was this latest film that caused me to discover the book; I've heard the new movie is supposed to be closer to the book than the original film. When I first heard that I thought to myself, "There's a book? How come I've never heard about a book before?" I still don't know the answer to that question.

Anyway, the novel PLANET OF THE APES (or in some translations MONKEY PLANET) is a gem that's a joy to have discovered. An interesting tale of science fiction about a group of three space travelers who fly three hundred light years across the universe to a planet that they find to be similar to Earth. The major difference being that apes control the planet and humans are wild animal savages. One of the travelers, Ulysse Merou (look a classical allusion), is captured by the apes and placed within a research laboratory. There his attempts at communication distinguish him from the other men. He becomes a celebrity and life looks good. But things aren't always as they seem on the Planet of the Apes.

Though the story contains some sci-fi elements, the book is actually a social fable. As I was reading, I couldn't help but think of Swift's GULLIVER'S TRAVELS and how similar the two pieces of literature are. In fact, the best way to describe PLANET OF THE APES is that it is an updated version of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS with a twist ending (Gulliver's journey didn't end so bleakly). Want a banana?

I agree with the other reviewer that this would be a great book to use in school. It is a clever little parable about dogmatism, anthropocentrism, racism and classism, the nature of "humanity," and the difference between stagnation and creativity. The book is also different enough from the movies that reading it will come as a fresh and surprising journey to an unknown land. The twists and double twists and the many ironies in the book also make it an enjoyable read. For those who have seen the movies, they might find it intriguing to see how three of the five movies had their basis in this small book - namely Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.