The Lost World by Michael Crichton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Michael Crichton never wrote a sequel to any of his novels until Steven Spielberg talked him into doing so following Jurassic Park. He never wrote another sequel after The Lost World, either. Make of that what you will…
That may sound like the buildup to a very negative review, but the truth is I mostly like The Lost World. The book, that is. The movie is crap, but we’ll get to that with the next review…
Sure, the biggest problem with the novel is that there is no pressing need for it to exist; it’s a blatant cash-in and marks probably the only opportunistic move of Crichton’s career. But The Lost World is not at all a bad tale for all of that. The main reason is that Crichton actually comes up with a creative and interesting premise.
Despite the ridiculous tagline of both the novel and the film, “Something has survived”, The Lost World is not simply a variation on a theme – a sequel being created out of the ashes of the first story that callously and simplistically tosses aside the logic of the original. Mostly…
It certainly starts that way, not only retconning Ian Malcolm back to life but rehashing the “strange animals appearing in South America” opening of the first book. Other than the obvious logical leap that Malcolm wasn’t actually killed in Jurassic Park, the structure is fairly tight.
Malcolm was an interesting character in the first book, but he has actually undergone obvious changes and growth as a result of his experience on Isla Nublar six years earlier. So Crichton introduces a new arrogant and irritating genius, Richard Levine, who possesses none of the likability or charm of Malcolm, making his parts of the novel joyless. That the character didn’t make the film adaptation is absolutely no surprise.
The conceit is simple but clever: Jurassic Park was a tourist attraction, not a serious manufacturing plant. No enterprise of this scale could possibly have presented as well as the park on Isla Nublar did (you know, before people started getting eaten). Levine and Malcolm postulate that the actual cloning and growing of the animals must have taken place at a different location. It’s certainly a better concept than I would have expected; that’s a solid, reasonable assumption, and so the existence of another South American island full of dinosaurs isn’t (totally) as ludicrous as it sounds when I repeat it. In the film, the raison d’être is mentioned in passing ten minutes into the picture in possibly the all-time worst and most rushed exposition scene of all time. But in the novel, the explanation doesn’t take place until a quarter of the way through the book, and it’s the best scene in the whole thing.
Other than that, it’s pretty straightforward. There are different wrinkles this time, newer characters and newer perils, but it’s more or less the same adventure from the first story. Malcolm even gets severely injured and delivers scholarly dissertations while doped up on morphine – again.
Other than Levine, the new characters are pretty good. Characterization isn’t Crichton’s long suit, but it’s nice to see a strong female character in Dr. Sarah Harding. Actually, the dynamic isn’t radically different from Jurassic Park – a male & female scientist as the leads, two precocious kids, a sacrificial outdoorsman and a few other characters to pad the body count.
The Lost World novel shares a somewhat unsatisfactory ending with the original Jurassic Park. There are some great set-pieces in the book, but the story doesn’t end much differently than it began, just with fewer people.
I suppose the only reason I can’t wholeheartedly recommend The Lost World is the futility of the thing. Crichton does a good job making you understand why Malcolm would willingly go back into the T-Rex’s Den, so to speak, but he’s the only person with a respectable reason. The only other character who seems to have plausible motivation is the “villain”. #WeGotDodgson
Despite the above criticisms, I rather enjoy The Lost World. It has dinosaurs, for goodness sake…
I probably sat down and read the novel once or twice, but I’ve listened to the abridged audiobook version read by Anthony Heald something on the order of 100 times. These stories are very revisitable…
