Teaser

Crash landing on an unidentified planet, an astronaut finds a world where the natural order has been turned on its head. A world where humans are little more than beasts, and it is the apes who rule . . .

Review

With the Planet of the Apes franchise having recently released it’s ninth live-action film version, it’s easy to forget that it all started with a French novel. A novel published in English under the inauspicious title of ‘Monkey Planet.’ Translation is a finnicky thing. Only two of those films (the two called ‘Planet of the Apes, funnily enough) are direct adaptations of the novel. Nevertheless, it’s always interesting to go back to where it all started.

The broad strokes of the book are likely familiar to most readers. Planet of the Apes is such an iconic story that its burned onto our collective consciousness. Knowing so much going in does rather undercut the impact of the final twist, but aside from that the story holds up. This is a classic that really is timeless. And for those who must insist on something new, there is a framing narrative that, to the best of my knowledge, doesn’t appear in any adaptation. Largely because it is impossible to pull of better than the written form allows. Indeed, the novel is in many ways better for not having to see men and women in chimp suits, or motion-capture nightmares. However impressive makeup and technology have become, they are still no match for the human imagination.

The thing that strikes me the most while reading Boulle’s work is how similar it is to that of H. G. Wells. For all the intellectual intensity, it’s quite a gentle novel. Some of that is down to the memoirist style Boulle employs, allowing the narrator to skip over uninteresting periods of time, to fill in the gaps with knowledge gained later in life, and to go on philosophical tangents. If ever there was a love child of The Time Machine and The Island of Doctor Moreau, it is to be found right here. The fact that this is a translated work is betrayed only by the occasional reference to French being the protagonist’s native language. Xan Fielding’s translation is flawlessly readable, and if it does feel a little older than sixty years, that is to its credit, not its detriment.

The issues raised within are equally timeless. Of course there is the lone sane man in a world gone mad, the perennial outsider forced to defend his very existence. There is the question of that dividing line between man and beast, and just how thin it might be. Are humans and apes truly so different? Is it nature or nurture that defines us? Just how much humiliation can a man be subjected to before he reverts to his baser instincts? Boulle’s answers come with disturbing implications. The idea that it might not take all that much for humanity to stoop low. The idea that we might one day be the animals who are caged and experimented upon. The idea that forces beyond our control have the potential to strip away our very humanity. There are so many ideas here it’s hard to keep track of them all. Yet Boulle gives everything space to breathe. This is a book you can’t help but walk away from with your mind buzzing with new ideas.

Planet of the Apes is an absolutely phenomenal novel. Whether you’re a fan of the films or a total newcomer to science fiction, it’s a book I cannot recommend highly enough.

Audio Stats

• Narrated by Greg Wise
• First Published in French in 1963
• Translated by Xan Fielding
• Runtime 5 hrs 55 mins