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Planet of the Apes Question Planet
Brian Aldiss likens Planet of the Apes to a fairy tale, telling us that “a characteristic of the fairy tale is that it is unbelievable”. How soon did it become unbelievable? How do you feel about an unbelievable science fictional fairy tale? Is that the best kind?
Comments
All the descriptions of space travel were implausible, but I skipped past that as being someone from the 60s not paying too much attention to the hard SF tradition.
For me, where it went from "believable" to "unbelievable" to "satire and making a point" was the first appearance of the gorilla at the human hunt. Boulle was clearly making a point that the apes were a direct parallel to contemporary Europeans. That's when I mentally changed gears when reading the story.
Haven't read the Aldiss, but in brief, I don't find this genre mash-up analysis contributes much to understanding. Planet of the Apes is pulp. It needs to stand on its own there. I suppose part of my response is because I didn't find its ideas or writing very sophisticated, so they didn't make the pulp. However it is in translation, so who knows how it might read in the hands of another caretaker.
I kind of liked the space flight bits
especially that space flight took so long. It split the book into several disjoint parts where the stories (and the parallels between the stories) were the only things bridging the gap.
So I guess I never found it unbelievable (I mean, no more than any speculative fiction is unbelievable) in that it set out what the rules were and then obeyed them, and the rules made sense within themselves. So it always felt for me like a possible world.
The satirical side became increasingly obvious once (in the internal story) we arrived at the planet and witnessed the inverted hunt.
I thought the space 'message in a bottle' was pretty unbelievable. Also, that Ulysse pointed out he had a chicken run on the ship. I wasn't expecting hard SF, so it's not like any of this bothered me - I found it amusing. It contributed to the fairy-tale like atmosphere. Maybe all SF is fairy tales! I think I like it better that way, than when it's taken so seriously. On the other hand, I do quite enjoy a Clarke near space yarn, and those don't seem anything like fairy tales.
I don't think it is. It's not meant to be an easy, disposable read. I think Boulle was going for something with more impact; the satirical fairy tale idea. Whether he succeeded at that is another question.
But it means I'm not judging this book on "pulp" criteria, of whether it's a fun adventure romp.
I agree - it's not pulp in the usual sense. But maybe Barner here means 'disposable' or 'lightweight'.