Boekverslag : Michael Crichton - The Lost World
De taal ervan is Engels en het aantal woorden bedraagt 1078 woorden.

Plot

This book is the sequel to 'Jurassic Park'. It is ten years later and nobody knows anything about the Jurassic Park Hammond had built. Richard Levine is a scientist, and he's very curious about the strange animals that wash ashore at the coasts of several islands near Costa Rica. He goes there to check things out and discovers an island where dinosaurs live. He thinks of a 'lost world', where the dinosaurs have managed to survive for 65 billion years. Ian Malcolm, who has witnessed the things that happened in the Jurassic Park but denied its existence, helps him with his research, and tells what this place is. On this island the dinosaurs were bred, and after things went wrong, they were left there. In the meantime they continued breeding and a population has arisen. They use the opportunity to study their behaviour, but spies from another research organisation have followed them and have planned to take two eggs from every nest to take them to the civilised world. The dinosaurs don't take it and go kill them. All the bad guys get killed, and so do a couple of good guys, but the main characters (Richard Levine, Ian Malcolm, Sarah Harding, Doc Thorne, Arby and Kelly) get off the island, not unharmed, but alive.



Title

The title refers to a theory there is a place on the earth where extinct animals, in this case dinosaurs, have managed to survive. This place is unexplored and not yet discovered. Levine thinks he has found this place on the island Isla Sorna.



Setting and background

The story partially takes place in the USA, and partially on the island Isla Sorna. In the USA Levine is a teacher on a highschool. Here he also gives Thorne the order to design a couple of special research-vehicles for him. They take these vehicles to Isla Sorna to research the lifeforms there. Levine thinks Isla Sorna is the lost world, so it plays an important role in the book. The places often are called by name, which makes it quite clear where the story takes place.



Character

There are a couple of important characters in the book.

- Richard Levine. He's a famous palaeontologist. He's very rich and not shy to show it. Because he was speeding in his Ferrari he has to teach for a while, as an alternative sentence. He is described as very pigheaded an irritating and he always wants to get things his way and be right all the time.

- Ian Malcolm. He's a forty-year-old specialist in chaos, and very famous. Malcolm has been in the Jurassic Park and had almost been eaten by a tyrannosaur. He was wounded there, and that still shows, and he's traumatised by the things that happened there. But he hasn't told anyone about it. He has a suspicion Isla Sorna isn't the lost world, but just another location of InGen. He's smart and very afraid of the dinosaurs, and he is right.

- Sarah Harding. She's a biologist who works in Africa. She studies the behaviour of the predators there. First she has studied the lions, now she is studying hyena's. Levine asks her to help him with his research, and when Levine disappears she comes to the island to find the rest and help them there. She's a very brave woman and she risks her life several times to save the life of the others.

- Doc Thorne. He's a scientist who has been a teacher at the school where Levine teaches now. He helps Levine by building him special, very strong, equipment to study the life on the island. When Levine disappears he goes to the island with Malcolm and his assistant Eddy to find him.

- Arby. He's a eleven-year-old boy who is in the first class of highschool. He a brilliant kid and has already skipped two classes. He's very smart with computers.

- Kelly. She's a classmate of Arby. She's thirteen years old and his best (only) friend. Arby and she are Thornes favourite students, and they help him find out on which island Levine is. When they hear Thorne and Malcolm are going to the island to find him, they hide in the trailers and go with them.



Technique

There is a person who tells the story. He switches from person to person and tells what they see and think. But he doesn't tell you what is going to happen, so I don't think he's all-knowing.



Meaning

I think the writer is most interested in the ideas of his characters. The book is partly about theories and philosophies. That must be very important to him. On the front page of every 'part' of the book he even uses quotes of Ian Malcolm, a person who doesn't really exist.

Of course the events in the book are important too, because without them there wouldn't be a story, but I think the ideas are the most important things.



Genre

The story is a novel. It is a quite exciting book, I think. It has a lot of wild chases and exciting moments in it. But I don't you can call it a thriller, it isn't that exciting. An example of an exciting part is when the T-Rex-parents have found their young in the trailer and got him out and then start to push the trailer over the edge of the crater, into the precipice. Sarah and Malcolm are trapped inside and if they fall, they will fall 150 meters and definitely wont survive it. And they aren't able to stop the T-Rexes. Fortunately Thorne is there in time to chase the tyrannosaurs away and rescue them out of the trailer before it crashes.



Opinion

I really liked this book, When I started reading I just couldn't stop. I finished it in three days, and it has about 400 pages. I noticed a couple of differences with the movie. I think the book is quite exciting, but they have put in a couple of differences in the movie to make it even more exciting. I don't know if that really was necessary, but Steven Spielberg shall know these things better than I do.

I recommend it to others because, even though it is a large book, it doesn't take long to read it. Because it is exciting, it's hard to lay aside. And I recommend the movie too, although I think a lot of people have already seen it.
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