Congo (novel)
The novel Congo by Michael Crichton first appeared in 1980 at Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, New York. The first German translation was published in 1981 by Rowohlt Verlag under the alternative title Expedition Kongo , translated by Karl A. Klewer.
Like The Andromeda Strain , Congo is a novel in the form of a fictional factual report with a varied and action-oriented plot. Already in the foreword , Crichton points out that the four main characters of the book will survive , which is detrimental to the tension, but emphasizes the documentary character.
action
In 1979 the US company ERTS (Earth Resources Technology Services) was commissioned to search for so-called blue type IIb diamonds worldwide . In Zaire , Africa , an ERTS team struck gold, but the entire expedition was wiped out within a few minutes by an unknown force.
Dr. Karen Ross, introverted but extremely intelligent project manager at ERTS, can only spot the destroyed camp via video link before the camera is knocked over by a gray, ape-like animal and the connection is broken. Since the order is extremely important for ERTS and its director Travis and at the same time a team of Euro-Japanese is also looking for the diamonds , Dr. Ross lead a new expedition to Zaire as soon as possible to find the diamonds and to find out the cause of the previous failure. Travis is persuaded to send the ambitious, albeit inexperienced in field research, scientist to the Congo.
At the same time, the Californian primatologist Dr. Peter Elliot came to Africa for a chance to gain new insights into the behavior of great apes with his research project Amy . Amy is a teenage female gorilla who was born in the Congo and brought to America as a baby. In an ambitious study, Eliott succeeded in teaching Amy the American sign language ASL , which enables him to converse with the animal (and vice versa). Since Amy has had nightmares lately, he wants to take her back to her original homeland and study her behavior. Convinced that a gorilla attacked the last expedition, Karen Ross persuades Eliott to accompany her to Africa.
Once in the Congo, Dr. Ross the great white hunter , Charles Munro, who is supposed to lead you to the volcanoes of the Virunga area, at the foot of which you believe you will find the diamonds, the camp and an abandoned city called Zinj . After a few adventures (shootings, kidnappings, parachute jumps, encounters with the local population and dangerous rivers) the group, consisting of Ross, Elliot, Munro, Amy and some local porters, reaches the lost city of Zinj. A little later they are attacked by a horde of gray, extremely intelligent gorillas , who can also communicate in a kind of language.
An interpretation of city scenes immortalized on reliefs leads Eliott to speculate that the residents of Zinj crossed gorillas and chimpanzees and trained the offspring to be intelligent guard monkeys that were supposed to kill every stranger. Apparently the monkeys later turned against their masters and have passed their conditioning on to their offspring for centuries. The monkeys make some attacks and many of the porters are killed. Finally, with Amy's help, Eliott manages to use the language of the gorillas to keep the animals from attacking.
The way to the diamonds is now clear and they actually find a rich mine. But when the nearby volcano becomes active and Dr. Ross risked too much due to time pressure, the gorillas, mine and the city are buried under masses of lava. The expedition survives and returns to civilization without any evidence of its adventure.
criticism
Compared to other novels by Crichton, Congo has aged a lot on the technical side. The computer technology, which is described in the novel as future, is already out of date from today's perspective and some of Crichton's prognoses about species extinction and climate change have also proven to be inaccurate.
German editions
- Congo expedition, German Book Association 1981.
- Congo - expedition to the Congo. Novel. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann Club, 1994.
- Congo. Novel. Munich: Th. Knaur, 1995.
Quotes
From the paperback edition: Congo. Novel. Munich: Th. Knaur, 1995.
(39) Travis thinks about Karen Ross (no direct speech). "From his rain-making days he had brought with him the managerial philosophy that a project is best entrusted to someone who would benefit most from a success or to whom a failure would harm the most."
(71) Peter Elliot in view of Karen Ross (no direct speech). "Due to his great experience in the art of getting money for his work, he had long been familiar with situations where the money of others and his own motives could not be exactly matched. That was the cynical side of science. How much pure basic research Had it been funded for the past thirty years because it might come up with a cure for cancer? A researcher made a promise to get money for his work. - It seems that it never occurred to Elliot that Karen Ross used it as coldly as he used it. "
(164) Munro thinks about Elliot and Ross (no direct speech). "Scientists work all day long in laboratories in which all conditions could be strictly regulated and monitored. Sooner or later they believed that the world outside their laboratories was just as controllable and influenceable as the world within. Although they actually knew better, they led Discovery that the natural world obeyed its own laws and took no notice of them, each time to severe psychological shock. "
Adaptations
In 1984 Crichton developed the computer game Amazon , the plot of which was partly based on his novel Congo.
In the course of the incredible success of Crichton's novel Dino Park and its filming as Jurassic Park , Congo was also made into a film in 1995 (like almost every novel Crichtons published to date). The leading roles are played by Laura Linney (Dr. Karen Ross), Dylan Walsh (Dr. Peter Eliott) and Ernie Hudson (Charles Munro). Despite being considered one of the weaker Crichton films, the film grossed $ 152 million worldwide.
Differences between novel and film
- The emotionality of the characters is exactly the opposite in the film. In the novel, Ross, Eliott and Munro are very one-dimensional, intelligent people who don't care about other people more than necessary. Travis is also interested in the success of the contract, but the safety of his people is more important to him. In the movie, Travis is a ruthless tyrant who doesn't even care about the death of his own son. Ross, Eliott and Munro, on the other hand, are consistently portrayed as personable.
- In the book, Amy only uses (silent) sign language , while in the film she uses a computer glove that converts her signs into an artificial voice.
- In the book, you need the diamonds to make the next generation of super-fast computers. In the film, the diamonds are supposed to generate a powerful laser that can be used for communication.
- In the film, ERTS became the communications group TRAVICOM.
- While there is no romantic tension between Eliott and Ross in the book, the film suggests a possible relationship afterwards.
- In the book, according to the cliché, only the (black) carriers are killed. Porters also die in the film, but there are also victims among the (white) expedition participants. These are not mentioned in the book.
- In the book, Eliott first flies back to the USA with Amy , but later travels back to Africa, where Amy henceforth leads a semi-wild life with a group of mountain gorillas and teaches her baby to sign language.