Planet of the Apes

This is the second time I have read Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes, but the first time since 1968.  It is so much different than I remembered it.  My memories of that first reading were tainted over the years by the awful movies that followed the original Planet of the Apes movie.  The first movie was not completely true to the novel, but it was at least an above-average movie that deserved its popularity and box office success.  The subsequent movies were just terrible in every sense of the word and, unfortunately for me, they tainted Boulle’s book beyond my recognition of its positive aspects.

For starters, author Pierre Boulle is as French as his name sounds, and the astronauts who embark on a special mission in the year 2500 are French, not the Americans of the movies.  Unfortunately for our French friends, however, they find themselves in much the same position as their American movie counterparts.  Their world has been flipped on its head in more ways than they can count.  They are fortunate to have landed on a planet hospitable to human life, but they find that it is a simian-dominated world, not one dominated the human tribe they soon encounter.

Men are hunted for sport and for scientific purposes by gorillas sent to gather more research specimens for the chimpanzee scientists who need them for study purposes.  Men, after all, are the nearest animal to the apes who dominate this world and that makes them very valuable to the chimpanzee scientists and doctors searching for the medical breakthroughs that will save simian lives in the future.  In a matter of hours, Ulysse Merou is running for his life, part of a group of humans being systematically slaughtered by a hunting group of gorillas and their wives.  Ulysse is one of the lucky ones; he escapes the hunters shotguns long enough to get himself entangled in one of their nets, meaning that he will become a lab specimen rather than a trophy.

Pierre Boulle

This sounds like sensational science fiction, and it is.  But Pierre Boulle manages to create memorable characters (some of them men, some of them apes) along the way, characters with personality, depth, and the motivation and reactions that make them real.  Planet of the Apes is a satirical novel, one that uses the simian society of this strange new world to reflect on the strangeness of our own 1970s world.  Within this amazing story, Boulle explores politics, social mores, authority figures, human vanity and, of course, scientific research.  This slim novel of just 128 pages manages to make the reader reflect a bit on his own world while entertaining him within the fantastic situation into which Ulysse Merou and his two comrades have been plunked. 

There is even a “Statue of Liberty” type ending for the book, perhaps the only aspect of the novel surpassed by its movie version (the ending of the first movie is still, by far, the highlight of that whole series of films).  But, I am pleased to say that, as is almost always the case, the book is much better than the movie  - and, in this case, deserves to be read as the standalone story it was meant to be.  I had fun revisiting the Planet of the Apes.

(Free trivia fact: Pierre Boulle is also author of the respected novel Bridge Over the River Kwai, which became another very successful movie.)

Rated at: 4.0

Happy Birthday, John Kennedy Toole

John Kennedy Toole, if he were alive, would be 73 years old today.  Sadly, Toole chose to take his own life on March 26, 1969, at age 31.

John Kennedy Toole is, of course, best known for the wonderful novel he was unable to get published during his lifetime, A Confederacy of Dunces.  I defy anyone to read Confederacy and then tell me that they will ever forget the book's main character, Ignatius J. Reilly.  That is not to say that Ignatius is a lovable, or even a likable, character; it is simply to say that he is unforgettable because of his unique approach to life.

Several years after his death, Toole's mother was able to get novelist Walker Percy to look at A Confederacy of Dunces, and Percy eventually saw that the novel was published.  In 1981, twelve years after his death, John Kennedy Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Note: Readers familiar with Confederacy might also want to find a copy of The Neon Bible, written by Toole at age 16.  This one is no Confederacy, of course, but it is a rather remarkable effort for a 16-year-old high school student.  Toole did not believe that the novel held up very well over the years and considered it to be an "adolescent" effort.  I wish I were capable of something so "adolescent" today.

Pat Conroy Speaks About Growing Up with Santini

     
Video courtesy of Open Road Media

In Memory of Junior

For many readers, there is something particularly appealing about comic novels set in the South.  Perhaps it goes back to their exposure as young readers to the classic novels of Mark Twain.  It might even be that they see a little of themselves and their families in the plots of these novels.  Are comic Southern novels, after all, as popular elsewhere as they are in the very part of the country in which they are set?  I have to doubt it.

Clyde Edgerton’s nine novels are filled with quirky characters so busy living life according to their own rules and traditions that they seldom stop to consider what the rest of the world might think of them and their efforts.  His books are, at times, laugh-out-loud funny, but his humor is more often of the type that makes one smile at the antics of his characters as they navigate their way through Edgerton’s rather eccentric plotlines. 

In Memory of Junior is no exception.  Although I had read six other Edgerton novels, I was unfamiliar with this seventeen-year-old novel (1993) prior to discovering a pristine first edition copy of it in a local used-book bookstore.  I figured I would enjoy the story and, despite an overabundance of characters (15-20 main and secondary characters) in such a small book, I was correct. 

Brothers Faison and Tate Bales were deserted by their mother when Tate was just a toddler.  Glenn, their father, eventually remarried and gave his boys a half-sister by the name of Faye.  Now, Glenn Bates and Laura, his second wife, seem to be in a contest to see which one of them will die first, a contest that will determine the immediate futures of Faison, Tate, and Faye.  If Glenn dies first, the family farm passes to Laura and, eventually, to Faye.  If Laura dies first, the farm and the valuable land on which it sits passes to Glenn and, finally, to his sons.  The Bales find themselves involved in one of the most bizarre death watches imaginable since it seems that both the elder Bales could die at any moment.

The real fun of In Memory of Junior comes from Edgerton’s use of several first-person narrators to tell the family’s story, both past and present.  These narrators range from the old black housekeeper who has made a career of caring for old white people before they die, to Uncle Grove, a Bales family outcast because he is the brother of Glenn’s runaway, first wife.  Along the way, readers will watch as Uncle Grove tries to wrangle a spot for himself in the family cemetery, Faison and his ex-wife fight about what name should appear on her young son’s tombstone, and as Tate’s teenaged son surprisingly bonds with Grove.

If you are not offended by graveyard humor, this one is great fun.  I will warn you, too, that if you want to keep up with the story, you need to pay particular attention to the family tree Edgerton provides at the front of the book for your reference.  It is difficult enough to keep up with twenty or so characters even with the tree, impossible to do so without it.

Rated at: 3.5

Tulsa Time

I'm in a Tulsa Holiday Inn Express tonight watching The Houston Texans stink it up again this week - this time against the team that ran out on Cleveland fans a few years ago (Baltimore Ravens). It's a good bit colder here than I'm used to but I couldn't resist walking a quarter of a mile earlier this evening to a really nice Barnes & Noble I spotted as I was arriving at the hotel.

That turned out to be a good decision as it turns out, because I found two overstock books I had to have. Some of you know that I've been collecting Joyce Carol Oates books since the '80s. Ms. Oates is so prolific that I lose track of what she is publishing sometimes. As soon as I turn my back for a month or two, she slips in another new title. And then there are titles like the one I found tonight, My Sister, My Love, a book I failed to pick up in 2008 when it was released, and then forgot all about. With the exception of the remainders mark across the bottom of the book's pages, this is a pristine first edition copy.

The other book I found is book five in Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, The Brutal Telling. I just raved here about book six in this series last week and mentioned that I wanted to read the first five, so finding this one for five bucks was a nice surprise.

I'm typing this entry on my iPad so, if it looks a little strange, that's my excuse. This thing is great for web browsing, games, book reading, etc., but writing a blog entry on it is definitely not a treat. Editing is particularly difficult inside the Blogger software, so I'm going to call it a night.

My Lost Weekend

I'm having one of those weekends where I just cannot focus in long enough on any one activity to get it done.  That has been particularly frustrating since this was a rare three-day weekend for me because I have to use my last three vacation days before December 31 or lose them.  I really thought I would be able to do some catching up with that extra day - instead, I've accomplished less than I do in a normal weekend.

 I see now that my intentions were unrealistic from the start, but I didn't expect to be so overwhelmed by what seems to be an unlimited list of little tasks that have to be done by the end of today.  Throw in all of life's little unexpected bonuses and, well, you know what happens.  My wife has been away since October 1 and she is returning for the day on Tuesday.  Of course, I will be in Tulsa on Tuesday.  And, you guys can only imagine the amount of housecleaning I need to do today in order to get anywhere near a passing grade on my housekeeping efforts since she's been away helping out at her mother's. 

I've done some editing for a family member, flitted around between three or four books, spent some real quality time with two of my grandchildren, made a run to the cleaners, the bank, the rent-a-car location, the library, etc., but still have to get to the grocery store so that I don't have to do that when I get home on Wednesday night.

But I do want to share a couple of bookish things with everyone before I start on the dreaded housecleaning routine:

Sean Scapellato sends word that Pat Conroy signed extra copies of My Reading Life when he was at Charleston's Blue Bicycle Books -  and that signed copies are still available if anyone wants to order one by mail.  Here's the link Sean provided for those interested (I certainly am).  Sean also mentioned that there's a new Pat Conroy book in the mix for the fall of 2011.  As Sean said, three Pat Conroy books in three years is a new world's record for Mr. Conroy.  I can't wait, as this one sounds like another very personal memoir about the fascinating Conroy family.

...

I know that some of you are really into short stories and I've been meaning to mention that Library of America sends a classic short story each week (via direct email) to those who sign up for the service.The current "Story of the Week," number 50 in the series, is All Parrots Speak, by Paul Bowles.  Last week it was I'll Be Waiting, by Raymond Chandler.  I think you can sign up for the free emails here. 

 That's it for the moment.  I'm hoping that my relatively quick toilet-scrubbing skills (and general lack of attention to the details of housecleaning) will allow me to get back here before I have to leave tomorrow morning for my drive to Tulsa.  Read on, guys.

Pat Conroy and Sean Scapellato