Review: Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

Review: Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle

I read the original Planet of the Apes by Pierre Boulle on the heels of seeing the new movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. (Loved it, by the way, thanks to Andy Serkis.) 

It's tough to write about a book that has been made into a movie that is iconic in popular culture. Certainly nobody expects the book and the movie to be the same, and of course in this case, there were lots of differences. But honestly, it's really hard to get the images of Charleton Heston and Kim Hunter out of your head when you're reading Planet of the Apes.

Having said that, this book was a good solid piece of science or speculative fiction with major thematic issues. The most significant issue is probably experimental testing on animals or people. You probably already know the premise of the book, but in a nutshell: Space travelers have crashed onto a planet where apes are in charge and humans are treated like animals. The apes have set up experimental centers, testing the brain patterns of humans by medically altering them. It reminded me of the Nazi experimentation on Jews during World War II, and it was probably meant to trigger that connection, given that the author was French and wrote it in the early 60's.  A really good piece of science fiction will explore a moral or ethical issue, and Planet of the Apes is no exception.

Also, the ape world was very well developed. I especially liked the ape-world stock exchange--utter chaos, like the NYSE, but also in three dimensions. Apes swing through the air from place to place to expedite transactions. Now that would be great to see in a film! 

What I didn't like about the book was its almost complete lack of dialogue in the first half, and limited dialogue in the second half. It was really hard to read so much exposition and description; my eyes would glaze over and I'd have to poke myself to keep reading. I know this was partially intentional because the space traveler did not understand ape language, but even after he became fluent, there was still limited dialogue. Also it's really difficult to develop characters when everything presented about them is done by the point-of-view description of another character (this is told in the first person by one of our travelers). The writing is so-so.

If you really love the movie franchise, then go ahead and read this book--it's a quick read. But if you're looking for a well-written piece of science fiction, maybe you should swing to another tree.