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A review by athirah_idrus
Disclosure by Michael Crichton
4.0
TW: Sexual Harassment
I must admit that this was not what I had expected at all. Based on my first impression, I thought the story was about employees who were romancing at the office, but boy was I pleasantly surprised! The plot was more complex than I thought. In hindsight, I should not be shocked at all. After all, Crichton was a prolific storyteller and although he was famous for his Jurassic Park, he was also the genius behind ER and many other notable works.
There were so many good lines in the book that I feel compelled to share every single one but by doing so, I’d probably risk spoiling the story. Here’s one to bait you into reading the book if you haven’t already:
“Unfortunately, the law has nothing to do with justice, Mr Sanders. It’s merely a method for dispute resolution”.
What’s interesting to me was that the one being sexually harassed was the male protagonist, whose shrewd new female boss preyed upon for power. From the beginning, Crichton pointed out that "Power is neither male nor female” and while we usually hear cases where women are being harassed by their male superiors, it’s good to remind ourselves that the reverse is also not uncommon.
Throughout the book, I wondered if Crichton himself was a feminist, but I couldn’t find anything concrete to substantiate this. I thought Crichton did a good job with some of the characters. I was grateful for the representation of the women in the story; those who were great at their job, and also those who abused their power to get what they want in life. However, there were some figures who were often mentioned but lacking in character growth.
This was written in 1994 so a lot of ‘technology’ mentioned was outdated. I’m sure at the time it was written, this was ground-breaking but as we all know, technology evolves rapidly so reading it in 2021 I couldn’t help but chuckle. CD-ROMs anyone?
I was hyped up to see Malaysia being mentioned in the book, but after some paragraphs, I realized that they were not representing Malaysia in a good light. Although to be fair, they weren’t necessarily wrong either. Haha yikes
Crichton also mentioned that the book was based on a true account of a male employee being harassed by a female boss. I truly felt that Crichton was ahead of his time, where it was probably the norm that people would deride the idea of a man showing more of the characteristics usually associated with women due to the assumption that the latter is the ‘lesser’ gender.
Thought-provoking and ahead of its time, I’d recommend this book especially those interested to learn more about power play.
I must admit that this was not what I had expected at all. Based on my first impression, I thought the story was about employees who were romancing at the office, but boy was I pleasantly surprised! The plot was more complex than I thought. In hindsight, I should not be shocked at all. After all, Crichton was a prolific storyteller and although he was famous for his Jurassic Park, he was also the genius behind ER and many other notable works.
There were so many good lines in the book that I feel compelled to share every single one but by doing so, I’d probably risk spoiling the story. Here’s one to bait you into reading the book if you haven’t already:
“Unfortunately, the law has nothing to do with justice, Mr Sanders. It’s merely a method for dispute resolution”.
What’s interesting to me was that the one being sexually harassed was the male protagonist, whose shrewd new female boss preyed upon for power. From the beginning, Crichton pointed out that "Power is neither male nor female” and while we usually hear cases where women are being harassed by their male superiors, it’s good to remind ourselves that the reverse is also not uncommon.
Throughout the book, I wondered if Crichton himself was a feminist, but I couldn’t find anything concrete to substantiate this. I thought Crichton did a good job with some of the characters. I was grateful for the representation of the women in the story; those who were great at their job, and also those who abused their power to get what they want in life. However, there were some figures who were often mentioned but lacking in character growth.
This was written in 1994 so a lot of ‘technology’ mentioned was outdated. I’m sure at the time it was written, this was ground-breaking but as we all know, technology evolves rapidly so reading it in 2021 I couldn’t help but chuckle. CD-ROMs anyone?
I was hyped up to see Malaysia being mentioned in the book, but after some paragraphs, I realized that they were not representing Malaysia in a good light. Although to be fair, they weren’t necessarily wrong either. Haha yikes
Crichton also mentioned that the book was based on a true account of a male employee being harassed by a female boss. I truly felt that Crichton was ahead of his time, where it was probably the norm that people would deride the idea of a man showing more of the characteristics usually associated with women due to the assumption that the latter is the ‘lesser’ gender.
Thought-provoking and ahead of its time, I’d recommend this book especially those interested to learn more about power play.