From the Vault: "Congo" by Michael Crichton

M Congo.

It's not Jurassic Park because gorillas aren't dinosaurs.

What okay, so far, I'm going to need a minute to unpack that.

I think Michael Creighton might just have a problem with cohesion.

Libry sucks. Thanks for nothing.

Do you know what deceased author? I would absolutely have sex with?

What is this hot garbage?

Oh?

Guys, is Michael Crichton canceled?

It would have been really cool if at the end she said Amy bad gorilla cigarette.

Yeah?

Well, everyone, welcome, bad guy.

So excited to be back.

We've got a great book and we got some great guests. So great, we have great Okay, fine, well the book is Congo by Michael Crichton.

Woooo.

I was pushing for this book.

For Yes, I was too. That's Clara, you're hearing. I'm Sarah.

This is Clara.

We also have Johnna.

Hi.

Here's my voice, yes Rina, what you guys? Yes, also my voice. And if this is your.

First time listening, we are Mean book club and we read New York Times bestsellers that we don't think should be Clara.

We've got other people here. Do you want to we have.

We are very lucky today because we have not one great guest, but two great guests, Colin O'Brien and Michael.

Whoa Hello, thank you for having us excited to be.

Colin is a writer and performer and producer. In twenty sixteen, he was selected as one of the New Phases of Comedy at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal.

I don't stop there. Michael is a comedian, are and director. His work can be seen on Comedy Central MTV. And you guessed it, i FC.

I didn't guess that.

Together, they host Literati, a podcast about the greatest American novels never written.

Wow, so literature lovers over here.

Yes, it's a lot like your podcast, except we do less actual reading or kind of throwing our own back.

To be clear, some of us don't do that. The reading.

I pretty much relish before, rely on what I've heard about books for our podcast. No actual reading.

What have you heard about them?

You know?

The stuff like the the you know is the best of time's worst of times. I've heard that around, never actually read a lot of jokes based off of that of the Big Whale and Moby Dick.

Somebody's got to get that dressed up?

Is in for Halloween? Once at school, you had you dressed up as a.

Literary character for extra credit for Halloween. The Big Whale chows a big whale?

How did you though? I like that.

I had a box and I painted it white and cut a hole in the center. And then my friend at school was Captain Aheb and he did tackle me inside the box.

And my very first Halloween costume, my mom put me like cut a hole in the bottom of a paper grocery bag and then two armholes and then they've just filled it with like milk carton, empty egg carton. I essentially went as Trashween. Bring the costume back at the end of the night.

Wow, amazing, amazing. So you guys made us read this book?

Why?

Yeah, well we only had two options go to the library of whatever you want. You made us read a book and we were like shots fired. Longo it is?

And then what made you pick Kongo out of your selections?

I'm very excited to hear Collin's answer. I don't know if Colin knows my answer. I grew up loving Michael Crichton. He was one of the first authors that I read. That's very interesting. We're friends. One of the first authors that I would read a lot of when I got out of like strictly children's books because they were in

How did you guys?

Oh wait, I mean, I know I speak for Colin Colin, why do you so? I mean, we have a running bit about how much we love Michael Crichton, So that was sort of like, this is a good reason to read Michael Krechton.

Yeah.

But then also similarly, I like as a kid, like Jurassic Park was I was not allowed to see as a kid, and I saw it and really liked it. And then I found out that Congo was also like based on like a book by Michael before.

It's the same book really very close, like first draft of Jurassic he wrote this first, right, yes he did. He definitely felt like, Okay, I got to go on a big adventure with some kind of crazy animal or whatever.

We need a bookish scientist.

Yeah yeah, but at least with Jurassic Park, people can't claim you're racist, right.

Yeah the book.

Maybe they could the book, Yeah, so go ahead.

One.

One other thing is that we do sometimes joke when when we've done the live show about Congo as a book and having read it, and we always would make a joke about like, oh, it's such a big monkey, thinking that it was about one big monkey, and Jill about halfway through the book that I was like, there's lots of the god.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, not at all. It's about a gorillas actually, like we don't a new breed of gorilla totally. I'm actually curious because the real person pushing Congo was Clara for.

Yes, a year.

Yeah, and I really want to know why animals.

Yeah.

I thought i'd also say that when you sent us the email giving us the option to choose the book, Congo was in bold and Dianetics was in like eight font where yeah.

Yeah, subliminal gotcha, gotcha.

So it's dianetics.

We like to do a little up top just let people know how we read the book, because we usually read it a million different ways.

So how had you guys read the audiobook? Did you steal it? You know, et cetera.

I found an ebook from a less than reputable source, Claire option, but it was definitely from a site that had a lot of bandrads for things I did not click. But the font was so bad, you know in movies, the type of font that's on computers when they're hacking, and it's like yeah, robotic, very yeah. And so I ended up saying I can't read this anymore, and I just got it from Amazon as an e book. Okay, okay, Yeah.

I did an audio book that I found a link for it on YouTube, So I guess you could say I stole it.

Uh yeah, we also stole it all nice work.

Yeah, so it was an audio book.

I think Claire would appreciate that. You still usually steals PDFs. Oh yeah, how did you read it?

However, this time I have.

Another bone to pick with the library.

I got abody's.

Taking them down.

Those pricks have been can I say pricks?

Yeah? Briggs.

I've been rubbing it in our faces for two Yeah, you.

Can say way more than pricks on.

The podloaded a book, an ebook from the library. Great, I'm reading the book, I'm highlighting, I'm taking notes. Then they say, okay, it's due, No problem, I'll renew it. Can't renew it. Somebody's waiting for somebody desperately needs this book from nineteen eighty who else?

Who else might have won in the book.

Well, I thought it might have been one of you creeps.

It wasn't.

But then so anyway, I had to give it up. Okay, fine, I hope all my notes saved then I could get it out again. So I put it on hold as soon as I could not in the you download it and then once it's downloaded, you can do notes on your.

Phone, Nancy.

So I put it on hold. A few days later, I got it back. All my notes are gone.

Well yeah, obviously no, can't the app remember that?

And just like keep my note I.

Had a digital copy another person, clear, Yeah I wouldn't.

I don't think I would have assumed they would have.

Saved an e book for like a certain.

Yeah, yeah, you do give it.

It's a life needs it.

Yeah, library, so I've already done it.

I got overdrive, which is the app when.

I use Libby, which is the same.

Thing I use.

Every time I do it, and never I want to read a book, They're like, no, there are no copies. Maybe if you lived in Westchester, but so I can never.

Really.

Yeah, libraries or library suck. Thanks for nothing, I can't name one.

I vote in a free vote at my library, a free book twice, but they.

Yeah, my notes.

I voted a my local public school, which is great because I'm there anyway, and they.

Probably also have a library. You can probably.

Yeah, yeah, that's where I go for the bead bag cheers.

How did you read?

How did I read?

Well, you guys, I got an audio book and I did. I was listening to it, of course on triple speed. Of course that's the only way to listen.

You're an author. Breathe.

I found a child's book report on it that I.

Read what what was the title?

Basically it was basically a summary of the book with like child input in it about how they felt about certain things. They're feelings that I found a weird review on YouTube.

Yeah, I just did the audio book. JOHNA. Would you do well.

I know I came down a little hard on Sabriathe, but no, no, I got it. This was a hard one to find. I don't know if Michael Crichton is trying to take it out of circulation.

It would make Michael Crichton is dead.

So I have sorry to hear that. People. They did not have it at the Strand. Everybody knows I'm kind of a Strand queen.

Yeah, you know, they've got over a mile of books.

I do know it, Michael, I know it. I am thirty pages away from the end, dying to know how. Tell me what happens.

You're gonna be ashamed of me once you see that I had to write down this as a summary.

I'm already ashamed of you. Yeah.

It's a book about researchers and a smart gorilla traveling to the Congo where another group of explorers disappeared and where.

They're sorry, this is so embarrassing. Lots of blue diamonds.

So it has like a lot of the stuff that, as we alluded to, the Jurassic Park has like explorer fantasy type thing, but also without the cool good parts of Jurassic Park. And it has a very like technical specific type of language, kind of like boring Tom Clancy books. And it is boring like a Tom Clancy book.

Wow, I think if people, if you hadn't read the book, you're with us now caught up.

You can also just summarize it. Fun with monkeys, yeah.

Fun with monkeys, fun and drama fun with yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Johanna, you have a wine for us.

So I knew that we were a big crowd tonight. So I got two wines, two different wines. So okay. The first one I got is called Teddies and it is a classique Passel Roblez California, and it has I got because it has a picture of a gorilla.

On the front.

Really good.

I was like, a teddy bear.

Yeah, that is not a gorilla.

I think it's a gorilla.

Called Teddies, Yeah, Paddington, it's a sick teddy bear.

Did teddy bears ever branch out to like other animals, like a teddy gorilla or a teddy no bear? Interesting?

So luckily this one has a gorilla. And then the other one I got was Tehrone Temporie. Oh, and I got it because Tehran is like terror and tear and the gorillas did a lot of shredding test or.

Terror offended by John's accents?

What tehran temper oneo, temporaneo? That's right, really so hard that I can't.

Speaking of accents. So one thing, I had never actually listened to an audio book before, and I didn't really It makes sense listening to it now, but I didn't expect it before. I'm like, oh, they do all the accents, yeah, and.

All the voices.

Impressed Sometimes I'm just impressed by how like, oh that's a different voice.

Oh, you're just listen to.

An audiobook that James Franco read and I don't recommend it. Not as much range as you'd think. Okay, it sucked the whole time.

Might he might have as much range as I expect? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.

That's how much range we think he has.

So which, So this one that Tehran wine is because the girl has a lot of terr hair.

And then also you can see there's a little river on it, like the Congo River. I think you could just on.

That finish the book because the river parts. In the beginning, the river's like a big deal, but as you read it becomes less and less in my world.

All right, So who wants the gorilla one?

I would love some girla yeah, the gorilla one.

I think.

Just while we're pouring, why don't we take a quick commercial break. Yeah, I get the stuff, Pard, listen to products services, and we'll be right back bye, and we're back all right.

I hope you bought those things.

Sarah was like talking to us and during the commercial break, and without pausing that conversation at all, seamlessly went from a sentence, a private sentence, not meant for the audience to welcome back.

Well, maybe it was meant for the audience, and it will be included.

Audience know that during the commercials, you make us all sit perfectly quiet and look at each other, and everybody make eye contact.

They know because they know Sarah's carrictro Is.

Wine's supposed to have a strongly rubbing alcohol smell to the nose of it. Because that's what I'm getting. That's what I'm getting when I put this is the Teddy's Guerrilla Gorilla. Yeah, really, I'm sorry. It's not that cheap of a wine.

That's a shame.

Yeah, this one's far cheaper. So I'm I'm definitely worried about how this one's gonna go. That's where Teddy started?

What is the Teddies? What kind of Yeah, maybe it's the type we don't like. No, that's it.

That's that is That actually makes sense because I think in Congo he has some issues with like environmentalists and animal rights activists.

So I feel like, yeah, he want us to have Karen Ross.

Didn't she like didn't didn't she like she was she thought it was like all hype, like yeah, yeah, change and stuff. Yeah, yeah, very topical.

Very topical. Wow, he really saw the future. Karen.

This was so good female protagonist in this book. She is a child genius, was a child.

Yeah, I don't now twenty four.

Right Before we start jumping into the characters, though, I just want to give you some background.

You get everyone apologize, maybe you'll be apologizing.

Bealf of Colin for both the literati boys.

This book, published in nineteen eighty, spent twelve weeks on the bestseller list, and then again when it came out paperback in ninety three, which is a long time.

I thought to go, it was just hardcover. It was hardcover for thirteen years. My god, did the.

Ninety three did it? Did? It was that around Jurassic Park, was it, like.

No, it was a little before Jurassic Park. So I don't know.

I think Jurassic Park the movie was ninety five. Maybe I don't remember.

I want to say ninety three.

Actually maybe then that would make sense. Then maybe that is what it was. That would also make sense.

But also like why were you paperback before? Kind of rude.

The genesis of this book is unusual for other books compared to other books that we've read. Obviously, Michael Crichton he wrote The Andromatas Stray in nineteen sixty nine. He was in his twenties, first big hit, first book, best you don't like, I'm.

Glad he's dead. Honestly, I was going to say.

That I felt uncomfortable. Yeah, me glad.

It was said, you know what, they love him so much, let's make it a movie hit movie.

All right.

You know what, Crichton, do you want to write and direct movies? Yes, okay, you're gonna do that. He gets to do West World, he does The Great Train Robbery, which stars Sean Connery. He's like, I love Sean Connery, like the Yes, it is the same basis.

There was a movie earlier which I that was his movie.

He directed the movie.

Oh yeah, but I think the movie's pretty good. It's very fun and silly.

And the one from seventy three.

Yeah, we like him and we don't wish he was dead.

Wow.

Interesting, I'm still.

Anyway.

So he then he adapted one of his own novels, The Great Rain Robbery, was starring Sean Connery.

He was like, I love Sean Connery. I'm going to write a book for her. Okay.

He just wrote a book for Okay, the book.

A book with the So so this didn't start out as a book pitch.

It was a movie pitch, like he wanted him to play that.

He was like, there is going to be a movie, So he wrote this kind of He already had money for the movie when he wrote this, so he was writing screenplay and book at the same time.

Does that make sense.

It's already optioned.

Yeah, it was already it was and so can do you guys know the role that was written for Sean Connery?

Was it the oh, the Sam Neil roll in Jurassic Park.

I don't know, it was the I mean it was for Congo. For Congo, it didn't get me.

Characters was written for Sean Connery pretty much.

It was like he wanted it.

Yes, yes, yes, and it was it was option to be a movie like before the.

Oh my god?

Was it?

Was it Monroe?

Was that it was Monroe? Yeah?

Yeah? And Monroe is a sort of Safari guide slash weapons dealer Scottish broke.

Yeah. Yeah.

Someone was like, we don't need young women helping us out until we do.

Yeah.

Maybe that's the till part of the book. I didn't get to.

I honestly don't know why the movie fell apart, like why because it didn't get made till like ninety five?

Is that what we happened made after?

Yeah?

So, but I couldn't really pig out.

Yeah, there wasn't really any goss or even about like why it fell apart, But it just did.

Maybe the maybe because they read the book and they said, I don't know.

I do not think it was like a little racist anthropomorphic, uh like fake ape, you know, I think that was really.

Really did you want here?

Watched the movie?

I have not seen a movie.

I would love to make a night of it.

So was it? I would love to do it?

Was it dad did in ninety five? Let's yeah? So you saw the movie. What do you think of the movie? Oh, I saw that.

I saw the trailer as a kid. I was like, this is too scary for me.

It's hard to distinguish it too much from like King Kong. It is just like a scary gorilla sure takes over. Also similar to Planet of the Apes.

I will say a YouTuber did a review of the movie versus the book, and I considered watching that in my research.

Yeah, thank you close think you would have an outful well, Laura, Lenny Tim Currier in the movie version, and apparently Sean Sean Connery is not in it.

He just did it. I waged out of the role. I'm assumed.

Do you imagine an old man skydiving?

Yeah, Sean Conry, he just really boxedes audition.

Yeah, I'm the casting but anything.

Just to go back a little bit about Crichton though, uh, you guys probably know that he was in medical school. He started writing on the side to help pay for his tuition.

So this was just a side game that he made million.

It's rich quick right stories.

One of the most lasting and phenomenal stories ever told. Jurassic Park.

I think you I just wanted to tell the audience listening at home, and if the person who reviewed us and said that sometimes we eat on the cast and it's gross is still listening. John, I took good Ship out of the bowl, walked out of the room, ate it while making eye contact with me, and it's smirking, and then came back.

And you don't have to do that next time. He also was to the creator and executive producer of Er.

He is so prolific.

He really is. It's impressive. He was married five times. Okay, that's all I wanted.

I remember as a kid, I was like, I can't be good at everything Michael Crichton stuff. I want to read everything. So I read his book Travels, which was just like stories of his life, and I was maybe twelve, and he has a whole chapter about cheating on his wife with his busty secretary. I believed. I was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't. I know, they say don't meet your heroes, but maybe don't read your heroes autobiographical short story.

Of course, I.

Am really delighted to know that that was your takeaway from it and not like, yeah, I'm gonna cheat on my wife with my busty secretary.

Well what musty like a basement. Was like gross, his wife must have been as.

A child, I knew. I was like, something's not right here.

You know what deceased author? I would absolutely have sex with What is this?

Oh?

I just assumed it was one of your segments.

Okay, I'm gonna guess.

The way she's looking at you was like, you definitely know. I know.

I'm pretty sure.

I know.

Should I guess genre or no, I'm just gonna go for it, say William Shakespeare.

Yeah, I would sleep with all twenty of them. No, I would sleep with Ernest was going to Oh my god, I would.

He would sleep with her.

I would be honored if he would.

Or do you get the confidence?

I don't know, you're right? Oh my gosh, just kind of his general shitty demeanor.

Wow, I don't want to know who i'd sleep with.

The have to be dead, they have to be a corpse.

Okay, his body just disappeared.

Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and dibbs doctor sus and.

You know what he's doing.

So yeah, yeah, he would be freaky. I bet Oh yeah, yeah, Well I think we should all say.

I'm going to circle back because I didn't need time to think. Okay, okay, yeah, let's just circle back. We now clear. I think you wanted to dig into the characters. Yeah.

First, I did have something to say about the movie. The amusement park near my home, King's Dominion, had a huge congo section before the movie came out. They built a huge congo section to try.

To keep up the owned.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a paramount Paramount Kings Dominion.

Where'd you grow up?

DC area?

Specifically Maryland? Could you get more like street street number the high school? Okay?

Okay, So they were really banking on it, and nobody ever went in there, just even the attraction, the rides and stuff you go.

Was it like a jungle ride sort of?

I don't know. I never went.

Just like a gorillas that like would pretend like they would crush your head.

I can imagine. I love it, describe it like that.

The only part I went in was a cool down zone where they have like missed you.

Know, that's in every week. That's common.

Yeah, they had one congo randed.

Okay, that makes sense.

Also, Colin brought up an important point the way that the gorillas kill people in the book. I think we should touch on they touch on it.

Now they.

Take to canoe paddles. They take made a stone, big stone canoe paddles, and then they canoe paddle both sides of the head.

They do call them stone paddles.

I was igine, why would you say canoe paddles.

I pictured them as canoosd I just don't all right, just making clear WAPs you on both sides of the head.

That seems efficient.

I imagined it was kind of like those beach paddles you know that broke.

Yes, there's so many different types of pattles.

Youah, that's how they came up with that description.

Talk about it really like is like squeezing an orange.

They these apes or hum apes as we might call them later before we get to them, and they do show up a little the end, because all the genesis of the story is like, there's a extra expedition.

That was the word I.

Want to thank you everyone embarrassing.

Well, you just said there and said like exactly.

Just like switched it to extra extra cool extra.

It was crazy. It was going darm me crazy.

They went on an expedition and they died and these you know, hum apes killed them.

That's not what they're called them. That hpe why it's weird.

I can't say human z because they're not chimps. So yeah, humrilla is pretty good.

Bok the Elliott tensus.

Yeah Gorilla Elliott tensis after Elliott, the man bookish scientist who discovers them.

Good transition into talking about the characters, just call.

Them big bad killer gorillas.

Big brilla. I like killer gorilla. Peter Elliott. Uh so, Peter Elliott is a doctor and he has an ape I mean, not a metical believer, but you know.

Adjunct professor at Berkeley who is also working on a research project which is teaching apes to talk through sign language.

Yep, just based off of like Coco, I.

Love Cocoa, Clary does love doctor Penny Patterson and Coco.

You guys seen Okay, Coco is so cool. You guys seen the videos of her.

She loves Williams. Yes, I will say that this world, it's so hard to find joy and hope, but watching videos of Coco truly truly makes me happy to be totally sincere. It's like, it's amazing and beautiful.

She has a.

Baby doll that she carries around and stuff.

Okay, I've never really watched Cocoa.

It's fine, people, we'll have to get into the kittens.

She gets sad when one of our kittens passes away and they get her news.

And again with Robin Williams, who really is the A star A star in the situation, he sort of has a lot more chrisma you can see. Yeah, yeah, why he's in a lot of movies and Cocoa. It's just in these his best video it is. He just like they play together and he hides and she like they do jokes and stuff and it's very cute and funny. I don't know why he was chosen.

But do you think Peter Elliott would have been better if he was more his characters maybe more based.

Definitely like a Patch Adam Start, Yeah exactly film.

Yeah really, or maybe if Michael Crichton had seen some of these Cocoa videos, maybe the.

Character would be better.

That's really based off them, So I'm sure you do.

I don't know, Robin Williams, that's.

I don't know when.

Accurate.

So Amy is is Gorilla and the reason why they end up in the Congo is because Amy is having nightmares where she's seeing this essentially lost village of zinge, and he thinks that like going, I don't.

I didn't. I'm actually saying this like this because I didn't quite understand why they were bringing Amy the age.

She's starting to like shut down because she's having these nightmares and then she's drawing right right, right lost, So he thinks that her nightmares are about that, and he like wants to take her there.

Yeah, and he thinks this is something like memories can or can be genetically our dreams.

Can you do him?

Yes? To invite him on the like happened, so it'll seem.

Is that what happened.

Us about why they can And then he was like she was like we're actually doing this expedition into the congo and he's like, I want to go, and she's like, I.

Was actually calling for a different reason reason. It's not calling for to take him. It just I.

Know she just got a wrong number.

And then he was like, yeah, actually I really want to go, and I've got a gorilla.

We had to go now though.

The reason he had to go now though, was because the animal rights activists were trying to shut down his research. So he's trying to get out of there before those damn animal rights activists took.

His thought he was going to like release Amy back into the wild.

Yeh, jungle, that would make so much more sense.

But I was like, that might be nice if it was like, oh, they're they're they're trying to take her for this some you know, industrialization job, or to study her in other ways. And I thought it was going to be this big, beautiful thing. But this kind of brings me to the first point that I realized looking back on Michael Crichton is I don't think, at least for this book. He was a great writer.

A lot going on, a lot of people talking in technical terms, oh my god, yeah, just saying exactly what they feel like.

I recently was reading a Stephen King, which, you know, just to say, like Steen, I love Stephen King, and it's very pulpy, and it's easy to be like, oh, it's Stephen King. He comes out with five new books a year. But in that the characters have these like rich in our lives and his dreams.

And haunted by dimensions.

That's the thing.

Yeah, And it was very much character had exactly one.

Yes. Actually, in contrast, I would love to tell you how he describes Karen Ross the female leader of the expedition. So there's some fun quotes in the book I want to get to. But the main thing that he does is a he runs someone on Karen's team runs a computer assessment about your personality. So instead of the author, Michael Crichton, having to do the work of developing a character, he literally runs a computer assessment to tell the reader

Does all sound like positives to me?

And then at the the end it's a desire for success may provoke dangerously illogical responses, which.

I guess is the most foreshadowing where it'ss like, hey, you're going to want to know this. For about two.

Programs that the author sees her through, which I just want to she's described at various times as tall and gangly, could be beautiful, but too cold.

I underline that beautiful but too cold.

Too cold beauty.

There is I know a lot of cold models.

Is this based on someone who rejected Michael Brighton? She's actually not beautiful because she's cold.

Here's what happens whenever she exercises. There was already a dark stain of sweat on her shoulder and another running down the back of her shirt. Her dirt hurt. Her dark blonde hair was damp, clinging unattractively to the back of her head. She noticed that her trousers were wrinkled streaked with dirt.

There in the middle of the jungle. They had to jump out of an airplane, and now.

Let's focus on how unattractive she is.

Cud be nice And I can't believe she didn't fall out of the sky graceful.

It's I am a little surprised that she isn't like a busty redhead. Yeah, it threw me that she wasn't a busty redhead because I just don't know how to read women. Uh, if they're like basically got mouse brown hair, dark blonde is just another word for mouse brown.

Yeah, of course, is this a book about gorillas or mice?

Like what.

I guess the fact like you're saying that she wasn't a busty redhead, should have been our tip off that we weren't gonna like this character or care about her. Right well and right, So he's a good writer, a.

Writer, and I liked when she was going through the footage early on. You get a lot of these great lines pan scan, she said, downpan, reverse, sweep, zoom, and t lock. Ross said on the tape, her voice sounds cool, almost detached, just like all of these dumb things where he's like, this is cool, let's uh, let's pan scan

It seems like computers are definitely new at this time because everything is uh, computer can do it. It's like, how we are we going to survive this mission as computer?

Yeah, he definitely didn't understand how computers work.

Well, yeah, I.

Wrote a book. I'd probably have a similar thing with computers where.

Everything but yeah, I mean, but like they at the end, it's like he's just feeding them. They're figuring out a whole new language by like a satellite.

Like it was just ridiculous.

It was like right, it's like, uh, you ever try to get cell service anywhere, and I'm sure the CONGO isn't gonna work with he brought your own satellite.

And the whole premise with like why they're going on the expedition the Earth Resources Technology Services, I think that's what it's called. Is it is.

Because they're looking for these diamonds, blue diamonds with boron that are can conduct electricity because you know, in his uh, in his mind that soon like we won't have any need for like electricity, which kind of is said the thing he really failed at because we desperately we still use batteries. What he imagined for the future was just very wrong. And that's why I think it kind of.

Like, yeah, they needed these diamonds to be super conductors for computers and that will put them on top of the world.

So they use this rare resource that like is very difficult to find and an end nuclear war. Well, if the book said, well, I think that's a big claim.

It was definitely going to make one company very rich.

And the idea of how it would end nuclear wars, that all wars would be fought by computer from now on.

Okay, that was somewhat present.

Info Wars, for example.

Yeah, info Wars, anything that takes place in the future, because people are always going to criticize you forget. I have any any writing idea, if it has any sort of time travel, it's always people traveling to the future, but to now from way back. Yeah, it's sort of a futuristic. Yeah, it takes place now, and I can make any.

You'd love The Michael Crayton book Timeline, Yeah, it's a lot of well, they travel from now to back into night's times. Okay times night and so not the night time.

They don't travel far, they travel like six hours, let's travel all the way.

So the government has decided to award all the mineral exploration rights to the first like conglomerate or company that finds the minerals, which just sounds ridiculous.

The whole thing. I kept thinking that the whole group would get a big come up and they'd be taught an environmental lesson where it's like, no, don't just leave all this alone, and it kind of that doesn't kind of come the swift justice.

Yeah, anti imperialist lesson. I mean, the lens of this book is definitely troubling because it's like talks about the Congo and basically all of Africa is like it's uncharted, it's completely unexplored.

No one they're cannibals.

Yeah, they're cannibals. All we need to do is go in where no one's ever been in there. And then they casually mentioned the people that live yeah, and it's like very yeah.

It's a very is really the more racist books I think we've read is.

Michael Crichton canceled.

Is it too late?

Because I don't even want to say this, but one of the conglomerates trying to get these diamonds is a Japanese company, and I'm not going to repeat.

The descriptions are awful, and they're not the character who I mean, they have all these like slurs that they're using, and the character who's calling them these slurs, at least in the section that I highlighted, isn't like reprimanded. There isn't a there isn't a point of view from the author or from another character that's like, look at this racist assholes.

Just like this, here's a horrifying example. And this doesn't include any specific racist epithet epithets epithets. But this is describing This is describing the Japanese crew. They're in a plane that's being shot down. Elliott felt a sudden sympathy for the crew. He imagined them staring out the windows as the fireballs exploded, with brilliant light illuminating the interior of the plane. Were they chattering in Japanese? It's like

Hands shown up in like other Michael Crichton books, only The Great Train Robbery and.

Well where there's all white people.

But yeah, that's time introducing other ethnicities in that way because like all the white and then the like the people who die are all like the black porters or like the guides or the guy, like they all doesn't seem like anybody cares after they die.

Do you know what the expedition does. They have champagne because some of the porters have died. They're attacked by gorillas and there they have they pop champagne.

To be fair to Michael Crichton, there are also in the very beginning of the book, there is a previous expedition from Ross's Karen Ross's group. That's how the book opens with them getting all smashed up, and no one mourns them either.

They're white, and they're a fair.

To Michael Crichton. All they had was champagne. It's not like they chose to d with the most bubbles. This is just what they had to drink.

Well, okay, then find I will rebut that by saying a little while after another porter dies, they describe Elliott as looking around. Elliott was bored. That's the emotion you're being. He's bored right now.

Correct.

The start of it, it was like, Okay, they're all smashed, our coworkers are all smashed. We have to send another expedition in. No one is afraid of dying, No one is. The closest we get to mourning them is like some boss is like, I'm gonna have to tell their families, but not yet.

I'll do a day, honestly, in thirty days. And also they all had fifteen thousand dollars worth of life insurance, so they'll be fine.

Yeah, it's the money went a lot further.

Back there nineteen eighty guys, let's take a quick commercial break.

I'm tired of this, okay, welcome back.

If there was any message from this book, it did seem like anti capitalist. That was like the only thing that I could take out because I was like, I guess they all everyone got great tried yah, which is a frightening thing interesting to.

Me that all these people know that they're risking their lives, they know it's dangerous, and it's just so that their company can be top company.

That's so weird.

It was It.

Didn't feel like a larger internal motivation, like yeah, no.

I don't know why Elliott and Amy stay on the trip at all. R right away and why would you.

The second Amy got kidnapped?

Maybe so I thought the description of Amy like when he's when Ross Karen Ross first meets her. Yeah, and it's really sexist.

Sexy, and I was waiting for a romance.

But no, Well does anybody think that Elliott is the father of the baby, and yeah, maybe baby? I was like, oh, is this are they furthering this new species? But the Amy the gorilla takes out the lipstick from Karen's bag and wait to start playing with it. And then he's like, oh, yeah, if you ignore her, she'll get distant, cold and bitchy.

And it's just like, yeah, there is quite a bit of sexism through descriptions of Amy. Yes, calling Amy bitchy. It comes out nowhere.

It's like sometimes she's a good gorilla, but sometimes she gets bitchy. But there's also a part where he's saying, Amy, I have a quote here. Amy shows very feminine traits. For example, she's coy, she responds to.

Flattery, she's preoccupied with her appearance, she loves makeup, and she can be very fussy about the color of her sweater.

Wow, that sounds like you, Claire. I was like.

Feminine it also it checks out for like most movies where there are two female coworkers where they can't be friends.

Honestly true and honestly, all that Karen and Amy talk about is Elliott.

Does not pass.

No, it doesn't.

Wow.

I just also, I mean, like, obviously it's a gorilla, so you can't have it. You can't have Amy on the like the same level as as the other cumans. But I really thought that he made her scene like this child like this. Yeah, yeah, at least I was like, oh you could, you could add in a I mean there were times that Amy helped and you know, and save them or.

Or or killed them all because at the end what or.

Spoilers please, I don't know. It was just it was just Yeah.

For example, I was confused about Amy's size because they talk about how big a gorilla is, but very often it's like she jumped into Elliott's arms.

Yeah, when they like Monroe is like, I'll hold her.

Yeah, is she a little baby.

Or she lived?

They say that she's one hundred and thirty pounds, which Claire, I know, to you is a disgusting way so big. That's just grotesquely obased gorilla.

So no one could hold hers, No.

One could possibly hold her.

Yeah, that's a lot less.

So all of the men on this edition expedition are extremely strong and can just carry around one hundred extremely extremely I'm the skinniest one of the bring up weep on pleasant Okay.

I do think I could lift Amy, though, I think I could lift her. I could like bicip curl, I could those are your choices, deadlift, deadlift, put her on my back.

Before they even get out, really like into the expedition, into the congo. Amy gets kidnapped, and it was like a really really scene where they're like following her collar tracker and then she's like and then she's like and that's the degree and then like there's like in a time crunch too, and then she fed her something and that was the real I just was like, like, why wouldn't you follow that tracker first run too?

That pill is going to get shipped out? What is that's a horrible idea for track?

Did she feed her the tracker pill early on or like just before she was kidnapped. If she knew, then why did she let her get kidnapped?

I didn't.

Yeah, she felt something that night. She was like, I could be the night.

WANs intuition.

Or they have a hundred of them and every single night.

We should make a parody of this where it leads her to a pile of gorilla ship.

All right, really will you do that for us?

I mean, if I recall that was another instance of racism, Yeah.

I think you could recall set I one that it kind of requires us to jump ahead quite a bit.

So let's wait.

So yeah, I think we'll wait, But there's more racism coming. Stay tuned if you're a fan.

Is that a common expression on this podcast when.

It's pretty bad? Yeah, I would say, and this one written in nineteen eighty. But there are some where you're reading and you're like, wow, this must be from like the sixties or the seventies and and nine two thousand and nine, and you're like, I cannot believe.

I was on a vacation recently and I there was a big church sale across the street from where I was staying, and I went in on a Saturday, and everything was all all out, all very exciting, and I went to buy stuff and they're like, oh, the sale isn't until tomorrow. That's all pretty emble to me be pissed and not liking these church folks that they wouldn't let us buy anything that was all set because the sale wasn't actually till the next day. So I went back the next day got some books and I got

Ten Little Indians, which is which.

Original title was the ten little en worst and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what comes from I guess.

It was like racist, change to something else racist.

And then they're like, oh, well, just take a big step away from that. I guess there was like a nursery rhyme that had like the ten little nwards and then that was the title of her book. Because people are like picked off by one of them.

It's racist and it's plagiarism exactly, so strike too.

It's terrible. But again that's not even I think it was like nineteen forty one or something like that, which does you know that's a long time. It's you know, fifteen.

Years still shocking because there are.

Some books where you read them, you're like, I thought this was going to be way more racist and your cats.

Yeah, Christie, it's almost because she's so like popular still or beloved, you're like, oh, it's it hurts more. It's like more surprising.

I guess I just want to say, hashtag cancel egg, hashtag cancel Michael Crichton, Let's just get those going.

Let's get them going.

Please tweet those out. Also do at meat and book Club, and let's.

Just hashtag cancel jk Rowling too, because because I've had enough. I don't like the goblins run in the banks. I thought that that was anti I just don't like it when I haven't read and people are really into them.

So does this just canceled?

That's fair. Yeah, anything I haven't read is canceled.

Okay, Okay the book, what do you want to talk about? Going?

Can I talk a little bit about animal the way Amy is treated by Elliott, the scientist who supposedly loves animals.

Yeah.

To celebrate, he gives her cigarettes and a martini.

And it immediately makes her throw up, which you should know that.

This is a you and me both, Amy.

I thought that that was going to be like the setup to a joke. When she asked for she called it like she called it like green drop drink.

Green because of the olive.

Yeah, And I thought that was going to be a joke. And then no, he let her drink a martini and have a cigarette.

Yeah, even though he describes her she's seven in the book, which he says is like about thirteen in human years.

I had my first martine And you guys don't think they're fuck o god.

You know, if it was bad enough that they were popping champagne after everyone died. They're drinking Martini's on the way to this place where a dead expedition happen. Like, what's going on?

I think there might be a problem with alcohol within the group, or again with Clara.

Michael Creighton might just have a problem with cohesion and write a story that fits the plot.

Sure, but it's exciting because they're finding a lost city and that's fun.

Huh, Yeah, that's true.

They bring Yeah, it was actually I think all the characters thought it was boring as well, but.

Didn't they here?

Yeah, it was described.

As I want like an Atlantis where you are like, oh this, this entire sya is still going on and like you know, it's hidden by some sort of magic and basically I like fish people.

I would have liked fish people. Well, no, thank you.

If also, if your characters are bored of something in the book, why would your audience be like, well, they're pretty bored. But were there I'm still was just cold and bored.

Were there less books in the past like this.

New technology at the time?

But yeah, probably. We haven't even talked about Charles Monroe, who's Sean Connery. He was brought on because he's a obviously a great white explorer, just he knows Africa really well. It was just uncomfortable to mean it was also a white guy, just like okay, yeah, sure, there's just this one white guy who's really good.

Wait, you don't trust any I.

Mean they didn't say he was white, right, so he could have been out anything.

It was just that it was written for Sean Connery.

Yeah, I think he was. I think he will go ahead.

In the audio book, it sounded like a vaguely Scottish like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That does feel like a trope in like adventure novels, like you know, this this rugged character. But also it would have been cool to make it a person who lived in that area in their whole life and had this.

That would have been way more interesting because they do establish that the character knows a lot that's going on, but they don't really kind of say why, and it would have made it super easy if it's like, yeah, he lives here, he's from the Congo.

He just knows things. Yeah, for some reason he comes with them. Yeah.

There's like a bidding war where all the companies trying to get to the Lost City for the diamonds, are bidding for him, so.

Many people want to die there.

Yeah diamonds okay, which actually, I'll be honest, I think they look it's like the Hope diamond, like.

They're not going to use it for jewels.

Just when I start to look up blue diamonds, I was like, Oh, these are really cool.

Diamonds.

Yeah yeah, no to be You're right, you got it pretty dope. I was really annoyed.

I feel like the other expeditions like they were just all of a sudden like gone too, where it's like I like it was just sort of like, these are our competitors. Oh, I guess they're gone.

There's so many things that were like dios ex machina in the script, and the author even calls it out like there there's a moment in the script where it's like, oh man, we thought this was going to be easy, and here we are facing hippos and hale and as if on cue the hail stopped. It's like the Q is yours?

You get that right?

Yeah, he's one of the laziest writers I have ever experienced.

I also like that we're calling him the author and the writer because hashtag canceled Michael create we won't even say his name.

He's canceled.

I'm sorry, we won't say his name.

That said, I do really still love the movie Jurassic Park, one of my all time faves.

Yeah, I'm beginning to believe he has nothing to do.

With it, doubt it.

So our hero expedition gets to the Lost city. They sent up their camp, which is a high tech fucking camp, not even their tents or normal their tents or computer tents.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

They don't have polls because like they're NASA and they don't need polls.

Yeah.

Yeah, NASA like likes them and gave them pollless tents for some reason.

We have a description. Yeah. I think that this is why this book is so shitty to read now is because he's like, all these things he guessed were don't even send They don't sound cool to us, and he was wrong. There wasn't even anything. Yeah, it's not even like, oh, we just haven't gotten there yet. It's just like, no, I don't think they should.

Really with any any book that's like talking about stuff in the future. They should change like the year of the book, just keep pushing it back.

That's so you think this would be effective if they said the year of this was like two thousand and fifty. It's like a technology we haven't gotten to here.

So that's why this one doesn't work. Candy, it's not even.

You can't even make it during the year he wrote it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's like.

This author, you're citing awful lot with Michael Crichton.

We have apologize.

No, sounds like you agree with all his ideas.

An example of the Another good example of technology that he thinks is cool that we think is boring is like so much of this book is them trying to figure out how to get to the Congo fastest. It's like, let's ask the computer for a new route. Let's ask the computer.

For a new route.

It's baby, just gives you all the routes right then and there. We don't need to keep checking. This isn't a high stress.

And it automatically updates if something comes along your way that's going to slow you down.

You don't have to re chat. Yeah, well we got on the Google maps.

I tell you to check all the plane all the David Attleborough like documentary like a Blue Planet or a Blue Planet. It's like we've seen this isn't exciting.

Yeah, we've seen that is like, I don't know if there is any place on earth that people haven't been yet. And if there is, don't go there my apartment. You still won't come over, Sorry, Colin, I don't like tight spaces.

Okay, I just you're reminding me that if you were wondering. Crighton did not make it to Africa before writing this book.

I shot.

He did say that to experience volcanoes, I went to Stromboli off the coast of Sicily for an.

Experience in the rainforest. I went to the jungles of Malaysia. So he I guess, well, he didn't make it to the So he just he didn't make it where he.

Tiling the introduction, which I did listen to, he makes a big deal out of thanking the person who helped him, like schedule all his travel for his extensive research, and he makes it.

Sound like he did not want this.

Is from.

Might.

Eventually it was it was clear that it was in preparation for writing the book.

Oh yeah, well he didn't.

You could have just gone to the Congo, buddy.

Wow.

But I guess Italy is just the same.

I didn't know that there was a place called Stromboli and very much want to visit.

Yeah, yeah, the.

Land of Stromboli.

So, Sabrina, you have visited Africa. Oh yeah, So I want to know were you particularly offended by the descriptions in this book and the racism.

I don't think you have to have gone to Africa to be offended by racism.

Oh wow, thanks for educating me. Yeah, you're right.

Wow, I'm offended.

I'm offended to now.

Another apologist.

And me wearing iHeart Michael and all his ideas.

You're so right.

I won't pretend that my my two week trip to eastern Africa makes me more connected to the.

Issue or African.

Behalf of all Africa, and I will I will speak on behalf of all of them.

Know.

It made me excited because it was like, oh, we're in Nairobi, and I was like, I was in Nairobi.

That's fine.

Yeah, that just made you excited.

It's like when when you watch a commercial and it's like a co commercial and you just have me drinking a coke and you're like.

Yeah, exactly.

You would write a book called Western Massachusetts.

I know that valley.

Oh well, if yeah, if Michael Crichton, Well, never mind, do you know what what was that musician that was going to do? Like, I didn't know that was like not a well known reference to.

Come on Phil not Illinois.

We'll just we'll just cut out me a second, guessing my self.

No, absolutely, yeah him.

And then he did a whole big thing on the Q. Yeah right, He's like, I'm going to get real specific on this one highway.

I don't know what you're talking about, so I'm going to bring it back.

To its many times do we have to say that any music she's too skinny to listen to music?

Yeah, I think that is music.

Colin doesn't either what what he just made us?

I love.

One or the other.

I know it's more other people like but we don't.

Believe her some person who doesn't listen to me. No, but she was raised to sid and so she all she knows, Okay, there you go, your people. She listens to like not those uh songs that she was raised with.

And then I wouldn't like them either yet, Like.

We're listening to some song and she was like, what's that crazy thing? Bump and dump and dump? That's drums drums man, welcome to drums.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear Claire I say a question like that, I know what drums are.

Okay, wrong, already.

All right, while we show Claire what drums are, we're going to send you to another commercial break.

We'll be right back.

Oh that's what it is, all.

Right, Hello, welcome back from commercial for you. No, I mean it's been like a minute for them, so.

It's been a long break.

I just got walked in on in the showers.

Yeah, we were all mid bit. Sarah just went hello, we're back.

I guys, I was in the middle of telling Childhood.

I don't want to hear about your dead day.

We did everything pretty much could there be about this goddamn book.

I just want to say, because we haven't brought up any positive things about this book, because I liked the female narrator in my audio book actually meet too. She sounded like Laura Lenny.

That's not of the book.

I liked her and I trusted her implicitly too. I actually enjoyed some of the history.

I know this isn't everyone's bag, but like, oh, when they're going into Livingstone and Morton Stanley, I was like into that part of the history because I'm also very It's just that Congo's history is fascinating with Belgium, and I mean, it's crazy.

Michael and Colin.

What what we know and what the the faithful listeners know is Sarah's just doubling down on her character of being obsessed with history.

And I do love history.

She likes to brag about loving history that corner hat.

And also when you list your favorite books of all time, they're mostly like your middle school high school history books.

Like Civilizations Wantations to History.

Howard Zinn posters on her wall liked I do still like the science stuff, even though some of it. Now reading it again, I'm like, how much of this is real or like not much? Basically thinly researched and then connected the like an eriting of dreams thing was kind of dumb.

Did you google that at all?

Because I did, well, one thing I didn't, But I do know that, like crows can pass along memories, they have collective memories, and that's interesting. They need a study at a call I think it was Harvard and they I read about a study of college started and they where they would Basically, they had somebody put on a mask and harass crows, which I mean, how do I get that job? I don't know, Man, this doesn't sound

Michael, you were watching practical joke.

I don't know.

I mean you're gonna I mean maybe if you said Harvard, I'd be like, okay, but he did say Harvard.

Yeah, no, I mean, I just don't memory.

I read about like things being passed along, but not dreams. Dreams, that's stupid.

Yeah, in the I saw night Terrors where there there was like a genetic thing. But it's more that's not like the specific terror. It's just that getting night terrors is something.

But I am a sucker for the science fictiony aspects of this, and just so that I did, I did enjoy.

Yeah, even an ape is based on a real thing, though I wish more stuff was based on more real things.

Well, how much of that was real? Because they say that she Amy knows like four hundred and fifty unique vocabulary words and she seems very intelligent, can string together sentences, she can express that she's feeling.

A good ape.

Yeah, I feel like making complex sentences. No conco Coco does. Hurry up, Coco does, like said, love.

Baby, those are complex concepts.

Is the most complex.

I think a lot of humors going.

Has a grass or meaning of love.

There's just just like the caress isn't there, you know, it's all get to it.

Yeah.

I wanted to actually talk about some of the science experience because our science that he cites, like studies and stuff like that, because so many of them are like just the way he describes them flawed. So, for example, when he's denigrating animal rights people, he uses this example, So a factory trained pigeons to work the assembly line basically because it was just like color based or something. And then animal rights said that's not fair to the pigeons.

Yeah.

In another one, he talks about a chimp who was given pictures of other chimps and also humans, and he separates them into groups. And they said he put his own picture in with the humans.

Now, I like that, but how did the monkey know which one was him? How much time is this monkey spending in front of the mirror.

Well, according to the book, animals can recognize themselves in pictures and mirrors.

Clara, Yeah, but to go from I don't know. I don't think so how he looked like. I like it.

I like it because I think that's what ALFI thinks he's human.

Yeah, but you just you just don't believe it.

I just don't believe that he was like, that's a picture of me.

That's that's like this other thing that looks exactly like me. Yeah, I agree. I don't think it was that complex. I don't think that makes sense. But it was fun.

It was fun, and these are things that are in the foot time.

Didn't their footnotes?

Yeah, their footnotes, Like the pigeon thing was a footnote.

It's like, oh, I don't know, I was going to say I skipped it.

I don't think I got a footnote. I don't know that telegraphed in the audio.

Yeah, I don't think it was in I don't. I don't know, like some of that stuff wasn't it but it wasn't.

Yeah, that seems like a major flaw in the audio.

I did say on a bridge, did it?

So?

I feel like a bridge bridge.

James Frank to read the footnote.

Just like another voice that abruptly jumps in during the audio.

A little one, A little one.

Pigeon, a little fact for you listeners.

Yeah, I did want to jump to what they found when they found the Lost City, of which also.

I was reading, is a very different I was reading it. It's like Jay, Yeah, yeah, it was probably zoom.

Yeah.

So they go there, it's pretty much, wow, pretty intact for lost city. So that's lucky. We can't really find any details. But then we find out that there are sort of cave paintings essentially, and the only way they can read the cave paintings is by like scanning it, sending it back to the lab in America. Thank you the computer computers again, and then the computer projects the picture onto the wall or something like that now we can see it or something.

Yeah. I didn't understand that.

I wasn't very good for a book to be have that process described.

Yeah, and it also didn't help that then in the book it said, well you had to be there. It's like so hard to put into words.

Yeah, and the whole thing with this so so the they were silver gray apes that were like they were kind of human.

There are an ape that is never existed before. And all these ape scientists are like, or at least you know, the one main one, like, we don't know what this is, doesn't match up. And then they think that the ancient people who lived there might might have mated with.

Yeah, and we don't know for sure. Yeah, they don't.

They suspect perhaps, And this is where I'd like to bring up another.

And they were like the slaves, the ape slaves, yeah, who they then trained to protect their place. Yeah, it's very weird.

And they were like albino anpe.

No not no, gret And I would like, no, they should have.

Been out the movie, you know, a child's book. Definitely thinking of what I read the child's book.

I think you're thinking of the YETI I would like I wish it was a little bit more invented.

It was just too close.

I kept expecting it to be super exciting or they you know, they were just meaner and different.

What I would like to bring up that racism I promised earlier.

Yeah, I'd like to just wonder why the apes were gray if they mate it with humans, why would that result in a lighter furred animal.

Well, why wouldn't do you.

Think that it's maybe because Michael Crichton's white, so he's like, well, white and black makes gray, And.

I didn't put together that it was that.

Look like him.

Wow, I think that's why they were gray. I think that's why they.

Were like me.

I don't know.

Oh, yeah, that that the racism things. That doesn't that bothers me the least of it, I would say.

So, there was so much more in the book.

Ye, there's the rest of the book is informing this theory of I don't know.

I think you may be right.

And do you have a I just want to know, is there going to be like a like a sound cue that accompanies the racism I promised you earlier?

Yeah, yeah, we have a little ditty that plays.

Yeah.

I wasn't. I wasn't, Claire.

I support your theory.

I was.

I was promised racism, and I feel like I didn't.

Get it from here.

Okay, Well, it's a theory.

Do we have any act outs that we can do.

Let's do this scene where they're finally going to get the blue diamonds out before one.

Okay, good one.

This is gonna be tough for me.

Okay, very easy to be the quiet.

Observer and I'll play the blue diamond.

Okay, Okay. Who can anybody do a good Scottish accent and play Monroe? Okay, you're throwing a lot out there.

I can play Monroe.

Okay, fine, I can try.

Just know you were right, it was right the whole time.

I'll be I forget her name, karens Ross. I'll be Karen Ross.

Can I be Amy?

But I'm going to vocalize what Amy would be signing. Yeah, sure, sure, okay, sure, great, And then you two can be other.

The dead porters, the dead the porters have their heads smashed by stove pts.

Okay, so Gas is escaping. My body.

Is not. Everyone needs I'm a ghost, all right? Okay, So I am going to set up these explosive here so we can actually get down to the blue diamonds that are I'm that are so important. So let me set up these explosives.

Amy, he says Novocano.

What do you want me to put them next to the volcano?

Michael Wolf? I really?

Okay?

How do you want your martini.

Dry?

But also, can we leave?

This is really Scottish.

Character that was based on Sean Connery. How would you like your martine?

I couldn't stone?

All right, okay, I'll be over here.

Thanks, And I didn't want one. Please not anyway. I no one thinks there's a problem with Please don't.

I'm sign languaging this. I'm Amy. Please don't put explosives because seems hystical. Amy.

Do you want to hold the thing that sets off the explosives? Yeah, here you go.

That's fun.

Wow.

I love buttons. That's part of my character.

Yeah, button lady.

Yeah, so this is definitely I'm a scientist and I know what I'm doing.

Amy.

Could you press the button for the explosives?

Amy?

Good, gorilla press?

Okay?

Look great?

Now we have blue diamonds and I told you everything.

I was right.

Does anyone wants champagne?

He's hot and scene? Oh my god, what happened?

But we just did?

The volcano exploded?

Yeah?

Yeah, that is wild. No, No, I feel like I've read it now I should.

I feel like you are farther from the end because that happens, and then a lot, No.

It doesn't. That is no more than thirty pages from the end.

I promise you are you reading in a bridge to finish.

You're gonna love how they get away. You're gonna love how they escape.

It's so yeah, wait, there's something I wanted to bring up.

It's kind of snarky. Their whole escape, which.

Is throughout before we know that they're going to escape, Michael Crichton does this thing where he's like months later Elliott would know what Amy was saying. It's like, why did you tell us they escaped?

Total and escape?

Yeah, so unnecessary.

It's not like well written. That is.

It'll be like it'll have like Karen Ross being like, uh, of this moment. Later she would say it was the scariest moment. It's like, why are you giving just say she's scared right now instead of giving away that she is still interview.

We're not kill him again, We're not what the hell?

Don't speak for me.

They they leave velocity of his ine, which is covered in volcano, and they end up Okay, I'm probably skipping things, but they end up basically in that an abandoned like airplane that has much just applot the Japanese the Japanese plane, and they show up and then there's some natives local like his words, not ours.

They're attacking them, and they they're again killing these natives.

They just are like kill them. They're just it's the same as though when the apes were there and they were just killing them. It's the same as when it's people just oh no, specifically just killing them, killing them. And then they're like, they kill the leader, and they're like.

So they a religious leader.

It's like killed they purposely kill the religious leader of this tribe because.

That that's apped up, and so then they leave. But then they're like they'll be back though, and so they're like, we really need to escape, and then who finds.

So it's it's they're like, why is this why there are so many propane tanks? And Karen Ross starts laughing and she's just laughing, and they're like, why is she laughing? And they look and they're like, it's too many propane tanks. They wouldn't use all this for cooking, And then they realize why she's laughing. It's because it's a hot air balloon. But like Michael Criton's so coy about it.

It was such an odd it was so weird.

It also didn't Yeah, I had to read it a couple of times. And it also was confusing that Karen would just be laughing, like, oh, this is a hot air balloon. Let's assemble it and get out of here with this propane.

Yeah maybe, yeah, it's pretty Also, he didn't mention that.

He also described the natives says they have had they had shat on all of the seats.

Oh my god.

It was something that was in there that I was like.

It was like I wanted to put Amy the gorilla down on a seat, but the humans had chat on it. It's like, what the fuck are you doing?

What do you do?

Once you get into the hot once they realize it's a hot air balloon, then it's just done. Yeah, And there's no like, no like them flying away and like trying to reconcile with what they've done. There's no moment of like looking back on everything. And then right it jumps to the epilogue.

Where Sean Connery has put some blue diamonds in his pockets. According to the little kids. Yes, I I wish I could too, but I don't remember.

A little he's proud.

I don't know why it's online, but they were like everything she which is this true?

It said Ross took away some blue diamonds, so she was really happy she had her blue diamonds.

No, it was Monroe. Well I hope that kid got a.

Bad grade or you actually by the report?

Yeah, but then the.

Diamonds were sold to Intel, which is like, isn't the like tagline for Intel? Like what's inside?

Now we know.

People died they started there was like a blue light. Yes, that's definitely what it was.

For all the death that came with this expedition. There's the word again that there should have been one person just being like in the hot air balloon ride away been like, wow, this was an incredible waste of time and human life. That would have been a good end.

Somebody help me wipe all this blood off my hands.

Yeah, because they didn't get away with any of the like any like skulls from the special the human names, the combos, there's there wasn't.

Any information they ruined the last city because.

Of the volcano. They set off half a mile under volcan ye is on inn climate.

Yeah, but he doesn't really it was confusing that what Oh we uncanceled him because of that, yeah, yeah, Michael. Oh.

And then the Amy is left, she's They eventually let Amy out in the wild and then she he comes back and finds her. Peter Elliott comes and finds her, and she has a baby. But then he won't she won't like look at him. And that's what we're talking about.

Is that.

But the baby can sign, right, that's the thing.

Amy has a baby, a monkey baby, I think Peter Elliott Amy.

Yeah, it was, And is she a wild gorilla?

Yeah? Yeah. But also her baby can sign now, which.

Also Michael Crichton should know better with like all his work in television, Like if you have you can't just introduce a baby to the script like it's gonna ruin. That's like a desperate it's so desperate yeah, where.

They're like yeah, kid, yeah, jump the sh Just because I wanted to mention this because I don't know if anybody else was interested in whether humans and apes could. Yeah, I know that I was wondering it the whole time. I know that we don't really know. You just might not be there yet, but I wanted.

To why are you so sure?

Have you tried?

I'm just saying I know that we can't.

So there are some cases of the Soviet experience experiments in the nineteen twenties.

Expedition Where are Soviet expeditions.

In the nineteen twenties where artificial insemination was attempted using female chimps in human.

Sperm less excited.

None of these experiments resulted in pregnancy, much less the birth of the human see, which was what was tried.

Wanted it sounds.

They did, though, I think actually or he would, he had plans to, but then it got like the Soviet Union kicked the mouth the scientist.

I feel like, I grillas. You gotta trite with every single animal.

Well, I think it's closest to us.

I know, I'm talking crabs, I'm talking geckos, I'm.

Talking I'm saying I want a mermaid.

But then also, yeah, like I don't really I can't really wrap my head around. It's like they're saying it's gorilla. It's like a gorilla chimp human.

High gorillas and chimps are different.

Just no, then what the actual combo was.

I think they're trying to claim it was gorilla was He's right, it was three? Is that?

That's what I like in the book. It's like they're saying it's like a gorilla chimp human hybrid. When I was, I was like, so it means one of them had to start like yeah, yeah. It was sort of like a Mori Povich sort of situation where it's like, who's the fun there?

Maybe if it's the chimps are closest to us? Is that what someone just said?

Maybe it's maybe gorilla and chimp can go together, right, that, and then what they can make can go with a human because the shape and human.

Could go together. But this whole books about gorillas, and so they had to like throw that in. What's the zebra hybrid? The it's like, anybody gave me one.

If a horse a donkey becomes a mule?

Correct?

There?

Sterile?

Yeah? That basically right, and those things are anders are sterile.

I bet really, I think all hybrids are sterile because they're they're.

Genitals get to twisted because they should.

I don't know why do they still have genitals.

They just don't wear the normal.

Twist twist.

Like QRK screw like a duck.

Yeah yeah, but it doesn't work like the duck.

Yeah yeah, ducks works, dunks works good, dunts.

Works real good.

They have those so that they can rape female ducks.

That's true. This is a disturbing kind of final one of my favorite topics.

If I'm gonna be on.

Well, you know, let's to move to a more positive note. How about that funny Central Park duck, That really colorful duck that's hot, the hot duck.

Gosh, that duck can get it.

Hot ducks asking for it, hot ducks.

Honestly the funnier.

Is it possible for you to take calling and my voices out of this podcast hashtag?

Alright, alright, alright, sorry you guys don't get that going. But what you should get going are these products and services. Be right back.

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See dealer for warranty details. And we're back. I hope you guys are ready for good Reads five star reviews, because that's what's happening right now.

Hell yeah, all right, So I'll these guests the segment just so you know. I'm going to read some reviews and then please feel free to comment on them.

I felt like she was talking to me, and I was like, I know she said guests, but she was making eye contact with me.

I didn't feel I was, And maybe.

I mean, who's up first?

Who am I looking at? Who am I looking at?

Oh my god.

Okay, so Craig needs more time to read. That was his username.

Okay, just wait until you're done.

No, they don't, Craig says, enjoyed this immensely. I have vague recollections of the movie. Group goes to the Congo take a communicating Gorilla, Bad, Gorilla's attack, volcanic eruptions, and Tim Curry ha ha.

But the book is so much better. I love the amount of detail, the.

Science parts, the historical parts, and the atmosphere that the author evoked A bean in the congo.

Brilliant five stars.

I feel like that would be a better summary for Sabrina. Okay, then the child's that gives you more than the child's report.

No, you didn't know Tim Curry was in this book?

That is that's true. The child left that out.

For the book and they mentioned them to me.

Yeah, hu funny. Yeah, great review, but to be fair and needed more time to read.

Yeah, yeah, so Nia says. I do not say this lightly. Michael Crichton is brilliant. This novel is brilliant.

This book was at times Jim.

And although it is fiction, there are a lot of interesting facts. For instance, did you know that some chimpanzees eat human infants in the wild.

I personally did.

Not know where are they getting?

Of course I knew that you.

Could teach apes to sign cough Planet of the Apes cough. But this made me consider just how remarkable that is. I never would have considered just how brilliant primates are before reading this. The characters aren't terrible, not the most remarkable, but that's all right.

Amy the Gorilla was my favorite, especially when she does she's everyone's favorite, especially when she tears up a drawling that symbolizes her tearing up a woman. Crichton had me chuckling a few times. I mid five stars.

Her review was like, at times it was thrilling, no examples because I don't think she could find any, and like the characters weren't very good but okay.

She also didn't say they were good.

She just was like, they aren't terrible.

Also, I think we can agree that Amy had the most character development.

Yeah, I do think so.

Yeah, it's very little, Amy good Gorilla.

She often said, yeah, good grill, Stephen.

It would have been really cool if at the end she said Amy bad Gorilla had a cigarette.

Yeah, she's pregnant.

Like the this like another sequel to like those child playing movies. Yeah the bone song.

But yeah, yeah, Stephen c says, Congo, it's not Jurassic Park because gorillas aren't dinosaurs.

What Okay, so far a minute to unpack that.

But Creighton, like usual, has mastered the ability of giving enough about the characters to keep the story going. This book left me wanting more, more details, more explanations, more action.

Yeah.

Is that meaning because the book's not.

Are all these five star reviews are like listening qualities.

It leaves me wanting more. You're like, I want more chapters, not more details, arcter development, not a lot, more forethought, more adjectives, more proof reading.

Not because it was bad quality, but it was like candy on Halloween. Once you start, you just can't stop wanting more of it.

Five stars.

That is true.

I would part of that, but I have eaten three hundred skod ols. We are eating candy.

Yeah, we haves It works all right. One more from Diana Oliviera.

She says yes.

She says, very nice reading, like the story a lot found in, very captivating, totally comn reading it was.

She complimenting herself. Very nice reading.

It is again.

Also, I just noticed a tendency in myself that I really like reading about Africa. I'm not sure if I'd like to go there because most books I've read involved people getting attacked by animals and or killed. But who knows to summarize liked it, recommend it five stars school review.

Now if she went there, she could speak on behalf of the country continent.

Got yeah.

To reviews, movie reviews, even some Yelp reviews. I feel like it's that it's it's written from that place where you're just falling asleep but you're not fully into treating yet. Words just sort of flow out and you're just like, look was good and words were soft and crush me.

Don't want to Yeah, I'd love to go to Africa if I wasn't so scared about it from all this stuff. I've read five star.

Chimpanzees do eat babies in the wild.

There, Drew, I know what, it's a fact.

Great, let's give our reviews. Let's start with our guests, Colin on a scale of your own, choosing, Oh yeah, how would you read this book and would you recommend it?

Great?

I do?

Oh yeah, I do. I can. I can do it on this the straight up, like one to five or zero to five. But I also do one. Okay, So so this is the So this is pretty much how Michael and I rate all the books that we talk about on our podcast. Let me just pull it up here.

It's it's called a literaty with Colin on Michael wherever you get puking a thousand so funny stuff so.

Yeah, we have our own system of rating books, and we use this system for every single book we read. And uh, it's a five tier rating system. So the first one is the first category is did the book have big ass monkeys? So Congo gets a five out.

Of five on that one, saying it is big big ass.

Is for all books we read. So the next category is did the book provide awesome descriptions of these big ass monkeys? Congo gets a five out of five. Described next one, did the main characters go on a jungle adventure with big ass monkeys as a sidekick? Congo gets a five out of five on this one.

We've read a lot of the Pulitzer Prize wunning books and like they're getting terrible reviews.

Yeah, did the big ass monkeys freak out and function it up? Congo gets a five out of five.

And then uh, this can be applied to like magazine.

Yeah, and then a story plot and captivated captivating writing style, Congo gets a two out of five.

That is that is our rating system, So that's a seventeen out of Yeah, yeah, I did pretty well.

So like other books that have done well for us have been like Curious Geors yeah, Jane Goodall's My Life with the Chimpanzee. Yeah, I'm surprisingly Dunston checks in even though it's a movie did very well.

Yeah.

But yeah, like Michael said, a lot of the what is deemed the classic works of literature don't do on your scale, don't.

Well, yeah, I'm sorry.

We said we'd circle back around to it, so I just want to make sure we hit it. And who would you what deceased author would you have sex with?

Uh?

You would have sex with Jane Goodall? Yeah, because I love those I love those crazy monkeys. He's always talking about those books.

Yeah, I already said, Doctor SEUs. And the fact that you don't remember that makes.

Me, Oh, I remember that you said it. I was talking to Colin. Oh okay, I thought, yeah, what's your reading?

Oh?

My writing two blue diamonds out of five blue diamonds. It wasn't It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read, but it just didn't really like. I found myself angry at the book more often than I wanted to be. Yeah, and I thought that there was if there was a little one or two more layers thrown, and it would have been a really fun, good read. But it just kind of felt like a first draft.

Yes, I agree on that first draft did really make me want a blue diamond.

That was probably the thing that Listen, Sarah, we're looking, We're.

On I really want one expedition.

Wells want to want everyone in the book except Amie.

You got to go to the Congo.

Yeah, okay, and you're gonna get there. Yeah, Sarah, how would you read it?

I thought, I at the beginning of this book thought, oh no, this is a good book.

Oh no, she texted me, I think I like it.

Yes, we secret no, no, but agrees with you on that's this.

Diary very like you were worried.

You're like, oh, this is going to be a good one.

Yeah, and someone when it's a good one, we turn on each other and it's just because we can't make fun of the book because we like it.

So then we're just meanful, genuinely concerned because it could be anyone.

But it would be.

It really could turn on anyone, or it could just be Sabrina. Every time it could be it could be.

It has been a couple of times.

I feel like I I often take.

The role of the villain, so I think that they're very excited to be the nicest.

Nicest, the villain a joker type.

No, I would say that exactly describes Sabrina. I feel like I'm sewing chaos.

Ernest you're wearing right now.

The jokers earnest, he believes the archetypical joker. Yeah.

Anyway, so this book, uh yeah, I would give this a two out of five because I made it all the way through and it sucked, but it didn't suck as bad as other things. So it gets two out of five.

Oh bad, This is Clara. You know I'm going three out of five.

Here's why. Wow, Hi rating?

Okay, First of all, I pushed this book so hard. I have to rate it high. Sure, number two. I like being reminded of Coco. That's gonna do it.

There's easier ways to remind yourself of Coco.

That's true, you too, but this is a nice, nice reminder. And you know what, I did watch some Cocoa videos, you know, during the book. So yeah, three out of five.

Great job, Michael jan Uh this is John and j Bone.

Here I was with Sarah. I was worried the book was going to be good. It was real panicked about it and knew how good Jurassic Park was. I don't like how many times we said we are glad Michael Crichton was dead.

So that is the thing to the podcast.

The author. I'm gonna go ahead and give it a five out of five.

All right, I'm going down to two out of five to start balancing things, Sabrina.

I never wanted to read this book.

Ever.

I do want to clear something up that I forgot. I forgot to my words.

I forgot to clear up when I was talking earlier, when I was talking about the racism, I said that we don't know that Monroe.

Was white because they never said it.

That was a joke because every time someone wasn't white, they did say so.

I just wanted the audience to know that we do.

Know that Monroe is white, and that I'm giving this book a one out of five. I'm going to give the Little Kid's Book Report a four.

Facts wrong.

I thought that the kid, that kid, little Sean Connery, wrote this book report, and I'm giving that a four out of five.

But this book was very, very boring, and I hated it. I hate Clara for.

Picking okay, nice, trying to turn the tables.

You hate Clara Billan for picking it and never want to read anything again one out of five.

All right. Next week we're reading The Woman in the Window by aj Finn, and we've also got a special guest that episode, Becky CHICOI Boo boo boo. So you're gonna definitely want to tune in and listen to that one.

At Meme book Club on all of the socials. Memebook Club at jamail dot com. If you want to get at us, please find our Patreon give us money.

We are so thirsty. Colin and Michael, can I get some plugs from me?

All you guys might have a live show coming up?

We sure do. Well. You can listen to Literati. Colin you want to look up on our live shows unless you know it.

I do know it?

Okay, great, So you can listen to Literati with Colin and Michael anywhere you get podcasts. We have new episodes every Monday, and we have great comedians on reading excerpts from books they've written, but they're just pretending to have written them. So you get really funny people reading really funny stuff and terrible writing advice from Colin and I.

And we got a show coming up at Caveat on November sixth, which is a Wednesday. Uh yeah, Literati is coming back to Caveat uh for the as part of the New York Comedy Festival. So get your tickets, come get your ticket.

A loss in public.

Yeah, and you're you're welcome that you're open to that.

I mean, honestly, we love engagement with our fans, which are mostly enemies.

Are fans.

Yeah, I always say I hate listen still counts as a listen, and everyone says, true, we don't like that.

Usually what I've said, you say, we never have heard you say, well, no, I hate, but we don't want them to hate.

Review us. Yeah, that's what's we want five stars. We would like you to go on iTunes and review.

I believe I'll give you a review right now.

I do think sometimes we make people med and they respond the quick one star.

Have you guys checked oura mean book club Gmail? We've got some complimentary emails recently.

I don't know how to check the femail.

Do you want me to tell you right now? Yeah, it's the password for all of our things. Okay, congo, great, great, great.

Well, thank you guys for being here and we loved it. Didn't we Clara?

I did?

Yeah, two out of five hot garbage.

Oh you didn't mean the book you.

Yes, I.

Was Clara.

Okay, sure, sure, easy, all right?

Bet a fie for Clara.

Thank you guys so much for coming.

We will see you next week.

Bye bye bye, see you later, guys,