Jurassic Park

Jurassic Park

By Michael Crichton
Published (my version): Ballantine Books, 1993
Pages: 399
Genre: Sci Fi
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"Real life isn't a series of interconnected events occurring one after another like beads on a necklace. Life is actually a series of encounters in which one event may change those that follow in a wholly unpredictable, even devastating way." Malcolm sat back in his seat, looking toward the other Land Cruiser, a few years ahead. "That's a deep truth about the structure of our universe. But, for some reason, we insist on behaving as if it were not true."

Since this is Jurassic Park, a book that sparked a series of successful movies and that almost everybody in the first word knows the plot of, I'm not going to write a summary. I picked up a secondhand paperback edition of the novel while browsing through the book section of an antique shop, and wow, I'm glad I did. Jurassic Park says so much about how we as humans pretend like we are in control of our lives and the world around us. In reality, life is actually complete chaos. This book came out, what, like 25 years ago and it's still relevant, even though we are far more technically advanced in this day and age. We cannot imitate nature, and we will never be able take command of Mother Nature.

Jurassic Park is compelling. It's fast-paced, and the multiple viewpoints allow the readers to observe how everything comes together to create a big mess. Hammond and Arnold were sure the park was so secure, but couldn't foresee Nedry's betrayal - an example of how life is completely unpredictable. They believed that dinosaurs could be trained, similar to a dog. However, the creatures proved to be more intelligent than they could ever imagined. Arnold calmly asserted that even with the electrical fences down, the dinosaurs wouldn't even attempt to leave their designated areas because they had been shocked many times before... yet, the dinosaurs did leave. Additionally, Mother Nature found a way to make sure the dinosaurs could reproduce, even with Dr. Wu structuring the DNA so that all the creatures were born female. Again and again, Crichton shows us that nature will never be controlled.

As for the characters, I liked Grant quite a bit; he was written well as more of a down to earth and hands-on academia as compared to those who prefer to sit behind their desks and attend stuffy gala events. Grant is someone the reader can relate to, can be pictured as enjoying him in real life. It was amazing to me as how in the end, after multiple people have died from failures in his park, Hammond is still thinking about how it's not that big of a problem, how the disaster just shows him what needs to be improved so Jurassic Park can be made even better. Greed really takes control of him.

Jurassic Park is a very well-written, thought provoking novel. Even if you've seen all the movies a thousand times, like I have, I still recommend reading the book. I've also read Congo, also by Crichton, and I enjoyed that as well. I look forward to reading more of his novels.

RATING (out of five puppies):