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adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This "review" or whatever it might be considered contains spoilers!
Contact is pretty special. I had actually rewatched the movie adaptation with a friend while in the middle of this book, and it really made the differences a bit more pronounced to me.
Carl Sagan so so full of congeniality in his regard for the human race, all while recognizing the deep flaws we all share. It amazes me how much I'm able to feel so much anger at our internalized awful contradictions and still be convinced there's so much hope and beauty in existence. That's a theme I was constantly reminded of this time around.
Sagan pulls no punches while describing how religious fanatics, the political and power hungry, the average joe, and the skeptic might react to a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence. Everything that humans can think and do in this reaction will be done, and will be thought. It's how humans function, and it's made clear throughout that it's important we recognize all of this about ourselves if we're to have a sliver of a chance at a bright future as a species.
One notable difference between this book and film adaptation would be the movie's hyper-focus on Ellie's love life, which is surely to be expected. But it's impossible not to feel the irony in terms of the book's overall message when you see the simplification and dumbing down of this source material for a late 90's audience. The move to the US President of the book being a woman to being Bill Clinton in the movie, the fact that there are five seats aboard The Machine in the book versus the one in the movie - having the unfortunate side effect of deleting some of the book's best and most interesting characters (in the book, The Five all come from broad walks of life, and have in one way or another, bucked against the totalitarianism of each of their respective cultures).
And then there's the tragic and moving understanding that Ellie comes to at the end in regards to her father and her relationship to her mother. You could make the case that these points are actually central to, not a side effect, of the overall story about a message coming in from outer space, and that their omission from the film version is unforgivable. But of course we are talking about a movie made in 1996, and in truth, the spirit of the thing is so ripe that only a miniscule amount of the hopefulness and adventurousness gets lost in the adaptation.
For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love.
Contact is pretty special. I had actually rewatched the movie adaptation with a friend while in the middle of this book, and it really made the differences a bit more pronounced to me.
Carl Sagan so so full of congeniality in his regard for the human race, all while recognizing the deep flaws we all share. It amazes me how much I'm able to feel so much anger at our internalized awful contradictions and still be convinced there's so much hope and beauty in existence. That's a theme I was constantly reminded of this time around.
Sagan pulls no punches while describing how religious fanatics, the political and power hungry, the average joe, and the skeptic might react to a message from an extraterrestrial intelligence. Everything that humans can think and do in this reaction will be done, and will be thought. It's how humans function, and it's made clear throughout that it's important we recognize all of this about ourselves if we're to have a sliver of a chance at a bright future as a species.
One notable difference between this book and film adaptation would be the movie's hyper-focus on Ellie's love life, which is surely to be expected. But it's impossible not to feel the irony in terms of the book's overall message when you see the simplification and dumbing down of this source material for a late 90's audience. The move to the US President of the book being a woman to being Bill Clinton in the movie, the fact that there are five seats aboard The Machine in the book versus the one in the movie - having the unfortunate side effect of deleting some of the book's best and most interesting characters (in the book, The Five all come from broad walks of life, and have in one way or another, bucked against the totalitarianism of each of their respective cultures).
And then there's the tragic and moving understanding that Ellie comes to at the end in regards to her father and her relationship to her mother. You could make the case that these points are actually central to, not a side effect, of the overall story about a message coming in from outer space, and that their omission from the film version is unforgivable. But of course we are talking about a movie made in 1996, and in truth, the spirit of the thing is so ripe that only a miniscule amount of the hopefulness and adventurousness gets lost in the adaptation.