Welcome to Page 12 of I Read That Book! On each Page, I’ll tell you a little about a book I read, often in a fun and informal manner, with the hope that you also may become interested enough to read it – or perhaps read it again if you’ve already enjoyed it once. The books I’ll be featuring come from a variety of genres at differing stages of my life, so whether you prefer history, literature, science fiction, or horror, there’s a good chance you’ll get some interesting ideas for your personal “To Be Read” list. Thank you for joining me on this journey as we flip through the pages of some of my favorite books. But before you start reading below, I invite you to grab a cup of your favorite beverage (coffee for me!) and find a comfortable place to sit, then turn to Page 12.
PLANET OF THE APES by Pierre Boulle
Publication Date: 1963
One evening, sometime in the early Seventies, I watched the movie Planet of the Apes (the 1968 version starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall), and it changed everything!
Perhaps I’m injecting a little too much hyperbole, but the film showed me things of which I’d never before dreamt. I’d seen Star Trek and other science fiction shows, but a future Earth ruled by Apes staggered my young mind and had me wanting to know more, eventually leading me to reading the source material.
Pierre Boulle’s novel La Planète des singes (PLANET OF THE APES) was published in 1963, and just five years later, Hollywood produced a movie that bears scant resemblance to the book. As a kid, I was excited to read this, but as I turned page after page, I felt disappointment. I suppose what I expected from the novel would be more accurately described as a media tie-in version. Yet I knew that the novel came first…so why all the changes? The apes had modern technology in Boulle’s book, yet in the movie, they seemed to live more like Fred Flintstone.
I don’t know if 20th Century Fox envisioned the property as a franchise when the screenplay (by Michael Wilson, Rod Serling, and John T. Kelley) was written, but by the time I’d seen the next movie, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, I understood, to the extent I could at my young age, that the changes made it easier for the studio to make more money.
It seems that every few decades we get a reboot of these intelligent, talking apes, aimed towards a new, more sophisticated audience, I guess. But regardless of the advances in special effects, the original (along with the four movie sequels, the short-lived TV series from 1974, and the brief Saturday morning cartoon) still holds my heart captive.
As a kid, I had Mego Planet of the Apes action figures and accessories; I carefully watched the newsstands each month for the next issue of Planet of the Apes magazine, which was packed full of behind-the-scenes articles and great comic book stories; and my friends and I would talk about the movies and reenact our favorite moments. This thin volume (my paperback is 128 pages) by Boulle (who also wrote THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI…the movie version is The Bridge on the River Kwai) is the catalyst that…well…made me go APE over Science Fiction. And while I no longer have the Mego action figures, I do have some Funko POP! boxed items, as seen below.
Have you read THE PLANET OF THE APES? If not, and you’re a fan of the franchise, you may want to give it a try. While it doesn’t pack the same emotional punch that the movie does when Taylor makes his startling discovery on the beach, the book still gives us a bit of a surprise at the conclusion. To give you a taste of the writing (which is translated by Xan Fielding), here is a paragraph that comes early in the novel, when a captured astronaut discovers the startling truth.
It was a gorilla, I tell you! From his shirt collar emerged a hideous head, its top shaped like a sugar loaf and covered with black hair, with a flattened nose and jutting jaws. There he stood, leaning slightly forward, in the posture of a hunter on the lookout, grasping a rifle in his long hands. He was facing me, on the other side of a large gap cut out of the jungle at right angles to the direction of the drive.
Despite all the differences, readers will recognize several of the characters and scenarios from the movie…and if you consider yourself a fan of everything POTA, isn’t it about time you read that book?
And don’t forget to join us here again when I flip to the next Page!
Note: The first 32 pages of I Read This Book! originally appeared on Substack.
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