Bilimkurgu kitapları çoğunlukla distopik bir evrende geçen ve okuyucunun gelecek hakkında korku dolu düşünceler içinde kaybolmasını hedefleyen eserlerdir. Fakat Boulle’nin bundan yarım asır önce 1963 yılında kaleme aldığı kitap okuyucuyu ürkütmeyi amaçlamıyor. Yazarın derdi bu gezegende akıl sahibi tek varlığın insan olamayacağı ihtimalinin ne kadar yüksek olduğunu okuyucuya hissettirmek. Hatta Maymunlar Gezegeni’nin daha büyük bir amacı var: bir şekilde okuyucunun insanın kibri ve hakimiyet duygusu üzerine düşünmesine yol açarak içsel bir yolculuk yaşatmak. İşte bu yönüyle kitap, bilim kurgu tarihinin en ürkütücü ve gerçekçi eseri haline geliyor.

Bir Fransız (Pierre Boulle) tarafından yazılan eser, genellikle Amerika ve Rusya’dan çıkan bilim kurgu eserlerine bir şekilde kafa tutuyor ve başarılı da oluyor. Çıktığı günden itibaren Amerika’dan İngiltere’ye, Fransa’dan Japonya’ya birçok farklı ülkede; 9 film, 2 dizi ve sayısız çizgi romana uyarlanan eser bu şöhretine rağmen oldukça az kişi tarafından okunmuş durumda. Biz de hem okumamışlara kitabın özetini geçmek hem de okuyanlarla uzun uzun tartışmak için bir inceleme yazmaya karar verdik. Kitabın arka kapak yazısı ve özeti verildikten sonra başlayacak olan incelemede birçok sürpriz bozan olduğunu da söylemeye gerek yok sanıyoruz.

n  Oğuzhan Koçn

İncelemenin tamamı: https://kayiprihtim.com/inceleme/maym...

I read this one some time ago, but I reread it for a book discussion group. As much as I like the original PLANET OF THE APES movie, I think I actually like this book by French author Boulle even more. For one thing, it takes place on another planet, whereas, in the film,
S P O I L E R S ( for the film)--it takes place on the Earth of the future. In the book,
the astronaut has to learn the language of the apes to communicate with his captors ( as they don't speak English).

OGROMNY ZACHWYT!

I read this years ago....about the time of the Heston film. I liked the opening and the little twist he (tried to) give it but all in all the book wasn't all that great I thought.

By the way there are differences in the book and the movie, a surprise, right?

I don't know what it is/was that left me cold on this one. I'd rate it 1.5 if could, but I can't and to rate it actually a 1 would rank it with some books I've found really detestable, so 2 even though I really am not that found of the book. In fact I suppose you could say overall, I disliked it. The idea was pretty good, an interesting concept. The set up wasn't bad, but the overall feel of the book and its predictability were just sad. (Actually, in more ways than one.)

So, not as bad as some 1 stars I've read, but not so great either. Maybe you'll like more, to each their own as they say, but not for me.

As to predictability, I mentioned the "twist" he tried for, but (if you've read it yet) were you really surprised?

n  “Machines will always be machines; the most perfected robot, always a robot. But what of living creatures possessing a certain degree of intelligence, like apes? And apes, precisely, are endowed with a keen sense of imitation.…”n

Astronauts from Earth travel to the Betelgeuse solar system and land on a planet with civilized apes and bestial humans. This short and very readable novel, written by French novelist Pierre Boulle, was intended as social satire (like much of the best Science-Fiction of the time) and may have been best summarized by Wikipedia as "a wry parable on science, evolution, and the relationship between man and animal." Like Boulle's earlier novel The Bridge Over the River Kwai, this novel is said to have been adapted into a successful film.

n  “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!”
- Charlton Hestonn

Bayılıyorum bu klasik seriye. O kadar kıymetli ki. Günümüze, toplumumuza geçmişten çok farklı bakış açıları mevcut. Bu kitap da öyleydi ve her sayfası ayrı keyifliydi.

The whole time I was reading the book, I was thinking to myself: "Oh, I know how this is going to end." I was on the very last page, having a smug "yeah-I-knew-it-you-cannot-surprise-me" smirk on my face...
Up until I read the last paragraph.
Mind. BLOWN!
Smooth move, Mr Boulle.

What can I say about this book. Maybe that it was quite a bit different from what I had expected.

Yes, I've seen the old movie with Mr. Heston as well as the new one with Mark Wahlberg (the latter stayed in my memory more clearly). No, books and the movies or TV shows they get adapted into don't always match in what they are trying to convey. Nevertheless, the book very unsubtly showed the thin line between civilization and a wild state that is very animal-like.

Here are my main problems with that:

1) The human telling the story comes from the year 2500 where such technological advances like space travel are relatively normal. And while humans can still be idiots in the future, it would take a lot more to make them behave the way this guy behaved when confronted with "an alien species". Sure, it was a pretty big concept and an important message at the time, but it didn't fully work in the story's very own context.

2) One can see the book's age in the almost insulting way the author must have thought about animals. Wild, unintelligent, trainable at best but only in a dull sense, only interested in food and sex, no emotions, no real value. Again, probably entirely accurate for the time this was written in (accurate as in this was how people thought and felt), but it rubs me the wrong way. Just like it rubs me the wrong way when people claim that animals are "less" nowadays. And that is if we take the writing at face value and really ARE talking only about animals and not about other humans that were considered animals back then by lesser people.

Anyway, the story of the "lost" space traveler finding this Earth-like world inhabited and ruled by apes is pretty iconic by now so I don't need to recap the events despite the differences to the screen adaptations.

It was not bad at all but one of those books that, in my opinion at least, didn't age too well. Nevertheless, it was and to some degree still is iconic, having influenced humans in general (right down to the Civil Rights Movement) as well as other creators (or there wouldn't be so many movies). And any story that can do that, isn't too bad at all.

4.5

Sonu beni çok üzdü yoksa 5 verirdim.

Czuję, że to książka typu góra lodowa. Dla mnie jasna i widoczna jest tylko ta część nad wodą, tymczasem to, co kryje się w głębinach, mnie umyka.

Bardzo ciekawy pomysł, a zakończenie śmieszno-straszne.

5/5
Kadınlar Ülkesi, Fahrenheit 451, Çocukluğun Sonu ve şimdi de Maymunlar Gezegeni.
İthaki Bilimkurgu Klasikleri serisine olan aşkım her kitapta daha da artıyor, durduramıyorum.