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> Take Jurassic Park: it's a very well constructed book with a theme of man's hubris in trying to control nature. Hmm, that sounds more like the movie than the

> Take Jurassic Park: it's a very well constructed book with a theme of man's hubris in trying to control nature. Hmm, that sounds more like the movie than the book. The book isn't really about "nature... finds a way". The book is more about the dangerous synthesis of startup capitalism and cutting edge scientific research. Almost everything that goes wrong on the island happens because Hammond cuts every corner he can, explicitly to save money. And this is allowed to happen because when a startup is developing cutting edge technology, government regulators are clueless about what's even going on. Scientists in the field can't self-regulate their own field because all of them have a stake in various commercial enterprises, making them behave more secretively and protective than scientists should be. The introduction at the beginning of the book lays this theme out clearly; it's basically an essay/rant against bioscience startups with the corrupting influence of capital as the central thesis. Incidentally the book has some character development from the lawyer Gennaro, coming to recognize and take responsibility for his own role in the disaster. It's minor though, almost like Crichton was conscious of how little character development was in the story and felt he needed to add a little. The movie strips this out entirely, and has Gennaro get eaten by the T-Rex instead of Ed Regis (who was removed from the story.)

lolinder 4y ago
I'm listening to the book right now and only saw the movie once, over a decade ago. My synthesis was very much my own based on my current reading, not on the movie interpretation. There's definitely a critique of science-for-profit, but I think that that is in the context of the wider critique of man's hubris in general. I read Malcolm's comments throughout the book as embodying the primary theme. It's not just "life finds a way" (although that quote is in there), it's that we think we can control things but in the end our attempts fall apart because there will always be some variables that remain outside of our control. The chaotic and unpredictable nature of the world is why it all falls apart, starting with the misidentification of the dinosaur as a lizard because the guy who could have known better was on vacation. This is best evidenced to me in Nedry's death: in the moments leading up to his death he's monologuing in his head about how he had everything planned out and everything was going perfectly except for this stupid storm! The storm itself is a reference to earlier in the book when Malcolm talks about how it's impossible to predict the weather over more than a few days. The point is that no matter how hard we work, we will never be able to understand nature well enough to control it completely. Not just life, but the whole universe. Nedry was killed by a dinosaur, but only because he couldn't control the weather.
- tomcam 4y ago
  The character of Malcolm is infinitely more interesting in the book than in the movie.
- MichaelCollins 4y ago
  Individual storms are hard to predict, but the general possibility of a storm is easy to predict. In fact the possibility of a storm rendering the island's docks unusable was predicted, but Hammond didn't act on it because it would have cost money. > "I want that equipment," Hammond said. "That's equipment for the labs. We need it." > "Yes," Arnold said. "But you didn't want to put money into a storm barrier to protect the pier. So we don't have a good harbor. If the storm gets worse, the ship will be pounded against the dock. I've seen ships lost that way. Then you've got all the other expenses, replacement of the vessel plus salvage to clear your dock ... and you can't use your dock until you do..." A reoccurring theme is the whole island being designed as a fragile system which cannot tolerate more than one or two failures at once. Malcolm's chaos theory argument says they can't predict when and how multiple failures will stack up to create a disaster, but could have designed their systems to be more robust to failure. For instance, they could have built a sheltered harbor for the island so that the very predictable eventuality of a tropical storm wouldn't isolate the island. They didn't, specifically to save money. Another example since you bring up Nedry: why was Nedry hired to automate everything on the island, and why was he essentially working alone on it? Because Hammond was obsessed with not just making money, but making lots of money: > Gennaro had to smile. It was almost the same speech, word for word, that he had used on the investors, so many years ago. "And we can never forget the ultimate object of the project in Costa Rica-to make money," Hammond said, staring out the windows of the jet. "Lots and lots of money." > "I remember," Gennaro said. > "And the secret to making money in a park," Hammond said, "is to limit your Personnel costs. The food handlers, ticket takers, cleanup crews, repair teams. To make a park that runs with minimal staff. That was why we invested in all the computer technology-we automated wherever we could."
  - lolinder 4y ago
    I agree with you that you've hit on a major theme! One of Hammond's major flaws is cutting corners and spending too little, and the corrupting effect of money is a big deal in the book. I just don't agree that it's the primary theme. The problem is that much of the book doesn't revolve around Hammond's cost-saving measures. The first big chunk of the book is a description of a series of random actions by many different people that combine to cause the dinosaur threat to go unidentified. Midwives across Costa Rica mark reptile deaths as SIDS to avoid getting in trouble. A key reptile researcher is on vacation. The infectious disease specialists use the tentative identification of the reptile as a lizard, which the Costa Rican officials mistakenly interpret as a positive identification. All of these random events combine to cause the threat to go overlooked, and none of them are directly related to money at all. If he were trying to make a point about money, this part of the book would make no sense. The point is to illustrate how unpredictable the real world is in comparison to the idealized version that exists on paper. And again, the primary antagonist's downfall and death is not driven by cost-saving measures, it's driven by an unexpected weather event. You don't kill off your antagonist in such an arbitrary way unless that arbitrariness is the main point of the story.

lolinder 4y ago

I'm listening to the book right now and only saw the movie once, over a decade ago. My synthesis was very much my own based on my current reading, not on the movie interpretation. There's definitely a critique of science-for-profit, but I think that that is in the context of the wider critique of man's hubris in general. I read Malcolm's comments throughout the book as embodying the primary theme. It's not just "life finds a way" (although that quote is in there), it's that we think we can control things but in the end our attempts fall apart because there will always be some variables that remain outside of our control. The chaotic and unpredictable nature of the world is why it all falls apart, starting with the misidentification of the dinosaur as a lizard because the guy who could have known better was on vacation. This is best evidenced to me in Nedry's death: in the moments leading up to his death he's monologuing in his head about how he had everything planned out and everything was going perfectly except for this stupid storm! The storm itself is a reference to earlier in the book when Malcolm talks about how it's impossible to predict the weather over more than a few days. The point is that no matter how hard we work, we will never be able to understand nature well enough to control it completely. Not just life, but the whole universe. Nedry was killed by a dinosaur, but only because he couldn't control the weather.

tomcam 4y ago
The character of Malcolm is infinitely more interesting in the book than in the movie.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Individual storms are hard to predict, but the general possibility of a storm is easy to predict. In fact the possibility of a storm rendering the island's docks unusable was predicted, but Hammond didn't act on it because it would have cost money. > "I want that equipment," Hammond said. "That's equipment for the labs. We need it." > "Yes," Arnold said. "But you didn't want to put money into a storm barrier to protect the pier. So we don't have a good harbor. If the storm gets worse, the ship will be pounded against the dock. I've seen ships lost that way. Then you've got all the other expenses, replacement of the vessel plus salvage to clear your dock ... and you can't use your dock until you do..." A reoccurring theme is the whole island being designed as a fragile system which cannot tolerate more than one or two failures at once. Malcolm's chaos theory argument says they can't predict when and how multiple failures will stack up to create a disaster, but could have designed their systems to be more robust to failure. For instance, they could have built a sheltered harbor for the island so that the very predictable eventuality of a tropical storm wouldn't isolate the island. They didn't, specifically to save money. Another example since you bring up Nedry: why was Nedry hired to automate everything on the island, and why was he essentially working alone on it? Because Hammond was obsessed with not just making money, but making lots of money: > Gennaro had to smile. It was almost the same speech, word for word, that he had used on the investors, so many years ago. "And we can never forget the ultimate object of the project in Costa Rica-to make money," Hammond said, staring out the windows of the jet. "Lots and lots of money." > "I remember," Gennaro said. > "And the secret to making money in a park," Hammond said, "is to limit your Personnel costs. The food handlers, ticket takers, cleanup crews, repair teams. To make a park that runs with minimal staff. That was why we invested in all the computer technology-we automated wherever we could."
- lolinder 4y ago
  I agree with you that you've hit on a major theme! One of Hammond's major flaws is cutting corners and spending too little, and the corrupting effect of money is a big deal in the book. I just don't agree that it's the primary theme. The problem is that much of the book doesn't revolve around Hammond's cost-saving measures. The first big chunk of the book is a description of a series of random actions by many different people that combine to cause the dinosaur threat to go unidentified. Midwives across Costa Rica mark reptile deaths as SIDS to avoid getting in trouble. A key reptile researcher is on vacation. The infectious disease specialists use the tentative identification of the reptile as a lizard, which the Costa Rican officials mistakenly interpret as a positive identification. All of these random events combine to cause the threat to go overlooked, and none of them are directly related to money at all. If he were trying to make a point about money, this part of the book would make no sense. The point is to illustrate how unpredictable the real world is in comparison to the idealized version that exists on paper. And again, the primary antagonist's downfall and death is not driven by cost-saving measures, it's driven by an unexpected weather event. You don't kill off your antagonist in such an arbitrary way unless that arbitrariness is the main point of the story.