The original from which the done-to-death "Planet of the Apes" series originated. An enjoyable book about mankind on the wrong side of the bars in the zoo, with apes on the other side.

Those damn dirty apes!



A group of scientists from Earth take a journalist named Ulysse with them to document their journey to a distant planet. They have lots of deep conversations and eventually land on the planet Betelgeuse, which if said exactly THREE times in a row will invoke Michael Keaton to appear.
Seriously.
n  n.

Upon the initial landing, Ulysse and the group of redshirts he's traveling with run into a woman in the jungle that they name Nova, who seems slightly more intelligent than the other humans.
I'm just kidding. She's just as animalistic as the others but she's hot as fuck, so our guy gives her a pass on the whole speech thing.



Unfortunately, Nova is the one who initially alerts her gibbering cronies that a spaceship has landed, and they menace the science team while tearing the shit out of the ship's navigation system.
This is the first clue that a return ticket may not be in the cards.



Because as with most space adventures, things do not go as planned.
{insert theme song to Gilligan's Island here}
And the crew of The Minnow find themselves on a planet where everything is topsy-turvy - humans act like animals and the world is ruled by simians!
gasp!



They haven't been in the jungle long when a surly group of apes starts shooting, killing off several members of the team along with the other humans as they herd them into nets. Ulysse ends up captured and put into a laboratory where he meets the lovely and compassionate chimpanzee, Zira.



The rest of the story entails sexy times in a cage with Nova, showing off his intelligence to his captors, endearing himself to Zira and her fiancee, and uncovering the secret origin of this Planet of the Apes.
Honestly, I think it holds up pretty darn well as a sci-fi story.
Short, action-packed, crammed with social commentary, and full of fun little twists and turns that I'm sure would have been amazing back in the day.
You know, before we had hundreds of movie sequels.



Recommended for humans.

O livro começa com um casal encontrando uma mensagem dentro de um garrafa. Essa mensagem foi escrita pelo nosso protagonista, Ulysse Merou, que acreditava ser o último homem do universo, mas que escreveu sua história na esperança de que ele estivesse errado. Apartir daí acompanhamos a história de Ulysses pelo planeta dos macacos.

Éi uma distopia com muita crítica social. O autor usou da ficção científica pra falar sobre assuntos bem sensíveis e com esse ele conseguiu criar uma história incrível e envolvente.

É interessante perceber como o autor vai inserindo críticas em todos os aspectos da sua narrativa. A sociedade é dividida em várias classes, em que os Gorilas que são responsáveis pela segurança, os chimpanzes que sao os inteligentes. e essas "classes" são bem definidas e rígidas, a sociedade se organiza em torno delas. E aí ja temos a crítica a como as posições sociais são definidas entre nós também.

Uma crítica que com certeza está bem presente no livro é à forma como tratamos os animais. Enquanto o protagonista está na jaula ele é submetido a vários testes, pesquisas, é tratado de uma forma cruel por vezes. e aí a gente para e pensa que é exatamente assim que nos tratamos os animais. A gente prende eles pra pesquisa, testes, faz trabalhos de condicionamentos absirdos. eu ficava extremamente incomodada com as cenas desse tipo.

Essa inversão de papéis foi uma sacada genial do autor. Quando ele coloca o homem no lugar do animal ele consegue desenvolver uma empatia muito maior no leitor. Da mesma forma, quando ele cria uma sociedade regida por animais, ele consegue fazer uma crítica muito mais aberta e severa a várias instituições e estruturas da nossa própria sociedade. É como se ele tivesse se escondendo atrás de uma máscara ("eu estou falando de uma sociedade de animais, não de humanos"). Mas quem lê, é claro que percebe as similaridades com a nossa e também transporta as críticas pra nossa sociedade.

Mais resenhas em: https://instagram.com/_casadacoruja

Leído en la sala Libro de Cine del Club Literario Atreyu.

El conocer la historia me ha condicionado porque en vez de sorprenderme con la inversión de papeles entre simios y humanos he estado buscando diferencias entre la novela, la película de 1968 y la de Tim Burton.

El punto de partida de la novela es muy original y el triángulo simio-amoroso

jeden z moich nowych ulubieńców. uwielbiam takie klimaty. historia zaczyna się ogromnie interesująco, ponieważ w kosmosie. statek kosmiczny znajduje wiadomosc w butelce z pewna nietypowa historia. ksiazka jest napisana w ogromnie przystepny sposob ze swietnie poprowadzona narracja. zahacza o tematy egzystencjalizmu i roznego rodzaju refleksji np na temat czlowieczenstwa. a do tego to zakonczenie! trzeba bylo zbierac mnie z podlogi!

3,5/5⭐

Koncept oraz filozofia, która się pod tą książką kryje, są bardzo ciekawe i mogłyby prowadzić do wielu fajnych dyskusji.
Pod kątem samej przyjemności z czytania no nie zachwyciła.

I remember being seven or so and seeing the last scene of Planet of the Apes film (the old one with Charlton Heston) on my grandma’s TV. It blew my barely formed mind. Jaw dropping, speechless, all that. That was the only thing from the entire film I still remember.

Too bad that scene is not in this book. But I’ll get over that. (I think.)

Written in 1963, Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes does feel dated in science and attitudes — but to me it also had that older “classic” feel that reminded me of Jules Verne. It may be the way the language came through in English translation from French, or just the overall vintage feel — or maybe just me.

But in the end it was interesting.

n  n

Admittedly, the wonky “science” in this “science fiction” takes a bit to get past, with some parts more difficult to ignore than others (ancestral human voice memories being more ridiculous than identical convergent evolution around Betelgeuse, even if we embrace the theory of Panspermia — seriously, Heston film made more sense there).

But science is not the point here, it seems. It’s the social commentary — the disregard of and cruelty to those we perceive as “lesser”, the injustice of powerlessness, the perils of complacency and stagnation that lead to usurpation by a species with more drive and motivation, and how it’s easy to repeat the same mistakes over and over again, even on planets lightyears apart. And yes, it’s done in the way that’s very dated, even for 1963 — but that’s inevitable. Not everyone can be a Le Guin, after all.

n  “True, we also have known a period of semi-stagnation. We, too, have had our orangutans, our falsified education and ridiculous curricula, and this period lasted a long time.”n

Our protagonist was an obstacle for me enjoying this book, however. Ulysse Mérou is a self-important man who has no issues sleeping with a woman who possesses an equivalent of animal intelligence (she’s beautiful and has “golden breasts”, after all) and yet treating her cruelly and with physical violence. She’s “human” enough to sleep with, but “animal” enough to hit and taunt. He carries within him a conviction of human superiority over the “inferior” species — and is smugly satisfied coming to the conclusion that apes are nothing but imitators of humans despite evidence to the contrary.

n  “My self-respect notes with satisfaction that apes have invented nothing, that they are mere imitators. My humiliation derives from the fact that a human civilization could have been so easily assimilated by apes.”n

And therefore the end of the story brings a strange satisfaction even if it wasn’t meant to. Or was it? Hmmmm….

3.5 stars. I liked it, but didn’t quite love it. But it’s worth a read.

n  “He is a gorilla.”n

——————
Buddy read with Dennis and Cathy.

Nie spodziewałam się, że tak bardzo mi się spodoba ❤️

Özellikle bilimkurguya başlangıç için ideal bir eser olduğunu söyleyebilirim. Bol maceralı güzel bir eser. Gelgelelim kitabın 60 yıl önce yazılmış olduğunu unutmamak gerekiyor, kitaptaki hemen hemen tüm "Twist"leri defalarca film, dizi ve kitaplarda gördüğümü söyleyebilirim.

Kitabın kurgusu da bana oldukça basit geldi. Fikir elbette zamanına göre oldukça ilerici ve ilham verici ancak mükemmel olanın fikir olduğunu kurgunun bu fikirin gerisinde kaldığını söyleyebilirim.

Birçok kişinin Bilimkurgu Klasikleri Serisi'ndeki favorileri arasına girmiş ne yazıkki aynı şeyi söyleyemeyeceğim fakat kesinlikle okuduğuma pişman değilim ve zaman kaybı olarak görmüyorum. Sırf genel kültür amaçlı dahi okunmalı ve okumaya değer diye düşünüyorum.

3.5

3,75⭐️

To było dla mnie coś nowego, coś ciekawego, ale nie spełniło moich oczekiwań, by nagrodzić tę książkę 5 gwiazdkami.

Ciekawe spojrzenie na człowieczeństwo i wizja alternatywnego świata - bez wątpienia budzi wiele refleksji.