I’ve just finished Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes and in hindsight I think I’m relieved I’ve done so without having seen any of the movie adaptations – although I doubt anyone comes to adulthood without discovering the iconic final moments in the Charlton Heston version and what it signifies about what had happened to humanity. The book is different, however, to that, but not without a nice little twist of its own at the end.
This paragraph is lingering in my mind:
What is it that characterises a civilisation? Is it the exceptional genius? No, it is everyday life… Hmm! Let us give intelligence its due. Let us concede that it is principally the arts, and first and foremost literature. Is the latter really beyond the reach of our higher apes, if it is admitted they are capable of stringing words together? Of what is our literature made? Masterpieces? Again, no. But once an original book has been written – and no more than one or two appear in a century – men of letters imitate it, that’s to say they copy it so that hundreds of thousands of books are published on exactly the same theme, with slightly different titles and modified psychology. This should be able to be achieved by monkeys, who are essentially imitators, provided of course they are able to make use of language.
There’s a lot there that can be addressed: the notion that no more than a few original (however you may choose to define that) books come out in a century, or extending that in a postmodern direction of questioning if anything – fullstop, the end – could be deemed original at all. Or in a digital sense, with blogging, the endless obsession with content creation, the notion of perpetuating a piece, a meme, a link or a picture on Pinterest; the battle to extend the finite life (or ‘reach’) of something we’ve written or done. And for what? What purpose? This changes depending on the individual, obviously, and comes back to intent, every single time.
I suppose, above all, as far as this space goes, I hope I’m not aping (sorry, had to say it!) anyone else’s style; that what I have to say is of value and not a tail-chasing exercise in futility. I’m pretty satisfied I can say that.
Can you?
Image source: Jjackowski
Image source: Tidewater Muse. Picture also used in this post, but it’s so good I had to do it again.
