An Elegy for Michael Crichton
As I read this NY Times article about Michael Crichton yesterday, I found myself mentally checking off the titles of the books I'd read. I wouldn't call myself an avid reader or adoring fan of Crichton, but weighing in at seven titles, he's a strong contender - at least in terms of quantity.
As for quality, looking back now I can see how nearly each of these novels astounded me with their tightrope plots, encompassing worlds, and playful reflection. I was shocked and appalled when a junior high school teacher pointed out the "Fiction" label on the spine of The Great Train Robbery and refused to admit its facticity. At a wide-eyed fourteen, I stumbled upon my first lesson in the mechanics of female genitalia, a third of the way through Disclosure. Congo capsized my vague trust in our human evolutionary superiority.
I never went to much effort to seek out his novels, but every couple of years one would come my way anyway. Each time I expected to have outgrown him, but each time found my enjoyment of the book far greater with the expansion of my sophisticated literary palette. Timeline resonated with a passing taste for the Arthurian; Eaters of the Dead, most recently, recalled Borges with its presentation as a systematically studied translation and mythological bearing.
Few books have absorbed my attention as fully as each of these has. They always seem to end suddenly, after more things had happened than could possibly take place in the two or three days it took to read about them, making my return to reality - school the next day - seem a colorless indignity.
Although totally escapist, these books never take us to comfortable places, but ones where barely knowable phenomena threaten our deeply held, even subconscious, convictions of safety and consistency. For all his intellect, Crichton found an accessible, popular mode of expression in detailed, action-packed novels that happen to lend themselves to film adaptation. As an editor, I can take a lesson in focus and subtlety from his oeuvre, on top of all the hours of entertainment.
As for quality, looking back now I can see how nearly each of these novels astounded me with their tightrope plots, encompassing worlds, and playful reflection. I was shocked and appalled when a junior high school teacher pointed out the "Fiction" label on the spine of The Great Train Robbery and refused to admit its facticity. At a wide-eyed fourteen, I stumbled upon my first lesson in the mechanics of female genitalia, a third of the way through Disclosure. Congo capsized my vague trust in our human evolutionary superiority.
I never went to much effort to seek out his novels, but every couple of years one would come my way anyway. Each time I expected to have outgrown him, but each time found my enjoyment of the book far greater with the expansion of my sophisticated literary palette. Timeline resonated with a passing taste for the Arthurian; Eaters of the Dead, most recently, recalled Borges with its presentation as a systematically studied translation and mythological bearing.
Few books have absorbed my attention as fully as each of these has. They always seem to end suddenly, after more things had happened than could possibly take place in the two or three days it took to read about them, making my return to reality - school the next day - seem a colorless indignity.
Although totally escapist, these books never take us to comfortable places, but ones where barely knowable phenomena threaten our deeply held, even subconscious, convictions of safety and consistency. For all his intellect, Crichton found an accessible, popular mode of expression in detailed, action-packed novels that happen to lend themselves to film adaptation. As an editor, I can take a lesson in focus and subtlety from his oeuvre, on top of all the hours of entertainment.
posted by Kevin at
9:35 PM
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