It is easy to fall in love with Crichton’s writing. It immediately grasps you as solid writing. It is funny, easy, polished, gripping when it needs to be, authentic in both styles – fiction and memoir – and it stays with you long after the reading has ended. There is not a single excess word in all his writing; there is a purpose for every word, every phrase, and every chapter. You just know you are in the presence of great writing.In the span of 353 page book, it is not until after the first 80 pages recounting the challenges of his medical days (1965-1969) that he begins to share his extensive travels. These first 80 pages offer many clues into Crichton’s shaping character and his priorities in pursuing his passions of writing and travel, despite the incurred cost and expended efforts on a career in medicine.Crichton’s overall experience during medical school and especially his clinical rotations are disturbing, scary, gory, amusing and frequently daunting. It is the daunting that eventually leads him to quit medical school – the tough choices of bad or worse that a doctor has to make, the changes he observes in the doctors from human to robot for adaptation and survival in their environment, and the loose laws around malpractice which cost patients their lives or their limbs with hardly any punishment more than a slap on the wrist of the responsible doctor – these were the daunting observations that while tolerated and accepted at the time as the norm by his peers, Crichton was not able to live with. So he quit medicine.His accounts of psychiatry are extremely funny. Crichton considered entering psychiatry when he was turning away from general medicine, but his clinical rotations proved his assumptions true – at least for him – that psychiatry does not really help people. There are two groups who dominate the clientèle in Crichton’s view: those who are severely disturbed and need help, for whom psychiatry does not make do much and certainly does not effect cures, and those who make up the self-indulgent, absurdly wealthy crowd for whom psychiatry is a glorified form of treatment and he had no interest to help them.And this brings me to what Crichton does best in this book – and something that I found outright hilarious: He would form an opinion about a subject and act in accordance with that opinion, until someone suggests the opposite view, which, through long analytical monologues, disturbs him to the point that he switches to the opposite end of the opinion spectrum, and adjusts all his actions accordingly. Perhaps, on significant issues this would seem like a person who does not believe in anything, and therefore falls for anything – but these were all petty affairs, such as visiting a psychiatrist – whom he finds to be a waste of time – until his friend tells him that the guy probably would not make time to see him anyway – leading Crichton to panic that perhaps his case is not interesting or important, and he makes an appointment right away!!!The chapter dearest to my heart is on his experience with the Mountain Gorillas. The dialogue between the scientist and Crichton before his journey up the mountains to see the gorillas:“I wouldn’t study gorillas”, Nicole said.“Why not”, I asked.“They are men.”“Gorillas are men?”“Yes, of course”.Gorillas are not animals, they are same as men. The Gorilla story is chilling, sad, beautiful and more. As Crichton comes to see these gorillas close-up, he “drifted into a feeling of extraordinary enchantment. Never in my life had I experienced anything like it. To be so close to a wild creature of another species, and yet to feel no threat…I never wanted to leave.”
I'm actually only in the "medical school" chapters, but I love them enough to rate this book highly already. I've never been a huge fan of Crichton's fiction, but I always liked his prose and I'm delighted to be reading this account of his life, philosophy, struggles, and revelations. Thanks for recommending, AL!!!Update 6-1-13:I loved the beginning of this book chronicling mediical school; and I very much enjoyed most of his travel journals (though I did find myself leaning toward bitterness when realizing how many exotic, expensive places he's had access to his whole life). But near the end it got very new-agey and I found it difficult to understand how an intelligent, scientific person could so easily give credence to things I myself do not believe are possible. He did express a good deal of doubt and initial resistance, so that tempered my irritation somewhat. But in the end he endorses and presents as real many things that just seem imaginary to me. Either he's just done a great job of convincing himself and thus he "sees" what he wants to see; or I'm genuinely missing out on an entire plane of existence.Update 6-2-13:I was premature in delivering that review, as I was a couple chapters away from the end and jumped to conclusions. Chricton actually did a great job closing up the book with a persuasive defense laid out logically and objectively of his "transformation" from an academic/scientific/traditional thinker to one who allows for and believes in at least the possibility of metaphysical and psychic phenomena. I still fall more on the skeptical side, but I loved his final speech (never delivered) addressing the CSICOP. The author redeemed himself to me by acknowledging that his views may not be shared by the majority and he has no interest in "converting" anyone to believe in psychic powers. I liked his assertion that reality is never fully known, and the idea that science is the pinnacle of reason and must always be the accepted explanation of any phenomenon is only what we've been taught to believe in the Western world. I enjoyed his review of the concept of theories and whether in science we are forming theories based upon data or are actually letting our pre-conceived notions determine which data we let ourselves see.I was also very impressed with his assessment of the continual shift away from direct experience via the ubiquity of electronic media and its constant assault on our senses and mind. I'm in full agreement about the resulting bewilderment and the alien pace of information processing forced upon most of us in this part of the world. I continue to do all I can to stay free of such influences, and I sincerely hope to take his advice to heart and travel as much as possible in attempts to reset myself, promote lifelong self-assessments, and directly experience the world.
What do You think about Travels (2002)?
There are lots of good reasons not to like or outright dislike Michael Crichton's Travels.He shares very directly his understanding about how women differ from men during the 1980s compared to his experiences in the 60s and 70s. He studies things like psychic powers and auras and spoon bending. He gets married again and again. He might be at his most sympathetic while talking to a cactus. The chapter on Sean Connery felt too much like name dropping (though I liked Connery's advice: always tell the truth. That makes it their problem).At times, I felt like Crichton learned the same lessons over and over (and over) without realizing that he was dealing with the same problem throughout his life.The account ends with an essay criticizing the scientific community for its skepticism of psychic phenomena rather than the introspective conclusion I'd been expecting throughout the book.Basically, it would be easy to dismiss the whole of this book using any one or two parts of it.The only exception might be his descriptions of med school, which are raw and vividly described. I was impressed, and sometimes shocked, by these moments. I was also struck by how many doctors he met who felt powerless to help people.But at all times in this memoir, I found myself thinking something like "here's a Harvard trained physician speaking candidly about auras and psychic powers and what he thinks about just about everything." But I couldn't help thinking about that scene at the end of Pulp Fiction when Jules explains that a dog is dirty, but it has personality. So it's not filthy. This book has personality, so I'm not inclined to dismiss it.But I recalled a line from David Brooks, which goes something like "our character is defined by our attempts to wrestle with our personal flaws." I can't help but notice that Brooks does not mention our victory lap after defeating or solving our flaws. Our personal flaws, from what I can tell, are our personal flaws, and we do our best to recognize and manage them.Crichton could have self censored, and didn't. It takes guts to do that, and sometimes that goes a long way.
—Ryan
This was another life-altering book for me. While it is a travel narrative, not a fictional book as Michael Crichton usually writes, I found something in each of his travels that challenged my thinking, stimulated my imagination, or sparked a desire to follow in his footsteps. I'm not sure why but his telling of his climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro was amazingly enlightening for me. Perhaps it's the mental challenge that accompanied the physical challenge. Whatever it was, I immediately added that climb to my life list. As I get older I question whether or not I'll get to experience it but I'm not giving up hope. I also learned a good deal about meditation, chakras, and aura (I know, sounds odd for a travel narrative but trust me, it fits and it works) that altered my thinking about the body and Eastern philosophy regarding it. This book truly broadened my mind. Even more, it's not filled with trivial travel moments. Each chapter is a different travel and within each one the author discovers something about himself and his world. These discoveries are rewarding for the reader as well and truly elevates this travel narrative above all others. Even his account of his swim with the sharks is fascinating and goes further than what you can ever glean from watching a shark dive on TV. There was one chapter, though, that I didn't find quite as mesmerizing, but that could be due to my spiritual beliefs. Even so, you have to have the information he provides in order to see the full journey the author made. My only regret is that I loaned this book and it was never returned. I've often wanted to re-read different chapters at various times in my life but didn't have the book readily available. I'm going to go right now and add buying another copy to my "to do" list for today.
—Jenger
I thought I was really going to like this book, despite the fact that it really is *very* different than what you'd think. Much less about travel, and more about his life, period. The whole first section was about his experiences earning his medical degree, for example. That part was great, if quite dated. But then he began to come across as a very repulsive person, and I'm just glad he isn't an author I read much of, or he'd have ruined his books for me. Lots of dangerous, ridiculous New Age mumbo-jumbo...and then he visits a child whorehouse. Yes, he does. He goes in, looks at the the little 7 and 8 year old children being "sexy", and while he decides not to actually have sex with a child himself, his friends do. And he seems to make no judgements on this. He just smokes a cigarette and waits for them to finish. Nice. Really nice. I'll be avoiding anything more put out by Crichton, whether books or films.
—Lis
