Jurassic Park - A Review
Written by Hannah Willoughby
CONTAINS SPOILERS
The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven’t got the power to destroy the planet — or to save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.
— Ian Malcolm
Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park was a wonderful read for sifi/fantasy week. When I started reading it, I didn’t know how different the novel was going to be from the movie. In fact, I haven’t seen the movie in years, which made me excited to have more of a clean-slate for reading it. I was pleasantly pleased at the amount of scientific background given and the build-up of everyone getting to the island. The descriptions of how the dinosaurs look and behave caused my imagination to bloom and really has put “dinosaurs on my brain.”
The theme that I pulled from reading Jurassic Park is encapsulated in the quote from Ian Malcom at the beginning of this article: The earth will continue on, no matter if we kill ourselves off or not. I think this is especially relevent now, when humanity is burdened by the imminent disaster that will come from climate change. The novel raises the question of whether more technology will solve our problems or just cause more. Based on the outcome of Hammond’s experiment, I will say that the theme is that more technology won’t improve our outcome, only make it worse. Hammond had the best-of-the-best technology and even developed some on his own through his team, however, he still ended up causing complete disaster.
The only element I was really disappointed in was the lack of contribution by the women in the novel. There were only TWO women in the whole book. First, there is Lex: an annoying pre-teen with daddy issues; a simple recipe for a pre-teen girl and nothing more. I was more pleased that Ellie is a strong, smart, and capable woman. However, her role in the novel is miniscuile, and she does not have much room to showcase herself. She solves one minor problem in the beginning, and makes a brave contribution towards the end, but otherwise she is only a tool towards which Malcom can spew his nonsense. Early in the novel, when she and Grant first meet Hammond and Gennaro, Gennaro is surprised that “Dr. Sattler” is a woman. At the time, I supposed this was to give the reader the impression that Gennaro was someone who should not be liked as a character, causing me to expect Ellie to have a larger role and prove herself, but this never really happened.
All in all, Jurassic Park is a wonderful blend of science fiction and thriller, and I am looking forward to reading the second book in the series, The Lost World.
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