11/2009 Winner: Carl Sagan, "Contact"

Casilda · December 2, 2009, 6:25pm

So I just finished it up, and I quite enjoyed it. Oddly enough as I was reading I totally heard the words in my head in Sagan’s voice, but it was all good.

This books is just so well thought out, I don’t have much to say about it besides it’s really well done. As those familiar with me might imagine, I really love the ending (OK not the whole SoD being an SoB, but the bit with the calculations of pi and Joss). Science and faith!

I’m not sure I would have been so engaged with the novel when I was younger, but definitely a good read. I highly encourage anyone who hasn’t read it before to get themselves to the library to check it out, it’s worth the afternoon or whatever it takes to read it.

fridayjones · January 13, 2010, 6:08pm

After hearing the Cosmos arc and discussion about Contact, I had to stop what I was reading (the excellent "Gallileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson) and re-read Contact. Sorry for the long post, my first one! I promise to observe brevity as the soul of wit in future posts.

What an outstanding book, and what a unique and remarkable individual Carl Sagan was. I really appreciate the depth and richness of the book, as it gets deep into the science behind SETI, as well as issues of gender and religion. Sagan is able to blend this with a compelling story, which I wish I could just sit down and read cover-to-cover without interruption.

Even though it’s dramatically different from the book, I love the movie as well. I think that the arc in the movie with her father (eliminating her mother) added dramatic effect. And I agree with a previous poster who mentioned that Drumlin is a one dimensional douche in the movie, but that adds conflict, which contributes to the drama. The Ellie/Palmer dynamic in the movie allowed them to dramatically display the parallels and differences in the dedicated pursuit of faith and science.

This argument comes up often when translating well-loved literature to the screen. I tend to divorce myself from the text when watching the movie. Two great examples of this from recent memory:
[ul]
[li]Starship Troopers: a rollicking roller-coaster ride of the movie. But it owes almost nothing to Heinlein’s text (full disclosure: I am an avid, huge Heinlein fan). The book is outstanding, with lessons in civics standing along side compelling drama. The movie is a bunch of pretty people blowing stuff up and kicking ass. Pretty cool in its own right, even if it bears no resemblance to the book
[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Return of the King: I’d last read these books as a teenager, and resolved to re-read each prior to each movie being released. Surprisingly, I found myself somewhat disappointed with this book, and actually felt the movie was better. Saurumon and Wormtongue end up in The Shire? Please. The movie ended much better. In this case, the movie trumped the book.
[/li][/ul]

Love this podcast, love this forum. Thanks everyone.

Casilda · January 15, 2010, 10:40am

fridayjones:

After hearing the Cosmos arc and discussion about Contact, I had to stop what I was reading (the excellent "Gallileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson) and re-read Contact. Sorry for the long post, my first one! I promise to observe brevity as the soul of wit in future posts.

What an outstanding book, and what a unique and remarkable individual Carl Sagan was. I really appreciate the depth and richness of the book, as it gets deep into the science behind SETI, as well as issues of gender and religion. Sagan is able to blend this with a compelling story, which I wish I could just sit down and read cover-to-cover without interruption.

Even though it’s dramatically different from the book, I love the movie as well. I think that the arc in the movie with her father (eliminating her mother) added dramatic effect. And I agree with a previous poster who mentioned that Drumlin is a one dimensional douche in the movie, but that adds conflict, which contributes to the drama. The Ellie/Palmer dynamic in the movie allowed them to dramatically display the parallels and differences in the dedicated pursuit of faith and science.

This argument comes up often when translating well-loved literature to the screen. I tend to divorce myself from the text when watching the movie. Two great examples of this from recent memory:
[ul]
[li]Starship Troopers: a rollicking roller-coaster ride of the movie. But it owes almost nothing to Heinlein’s text (full disclosure: I am an avid, huge Heinlein fan). The book is outstanding, with lessons in civics standing along side compelling drama. The movie is a bunch of pretty people blowing stuff up and kicking ass. Pretty cool in its own right, even if it bears no resemblance to the book
[/li][/ul]
[ul]
[li]Return of the King: I’d last read these books as a teenager, and resolved to re-read each prior to each movie being released. Surprisingly, I found myself somewhat disappointed with this book, and actually felt the movie was better. Saurumon and Wormtongue end up in The Shire? Please. The movie ended much better. In this case, the movie trumped the book.
[/li][/ul]

Love this podcast, love this forum. Thanks everyone.

Welcome, FridayJones! I’m glad that you enjoyed Contact - and I share your fascination for the ways novels (or plays or rarely short stories) are adapted to film, though I personally missed the razing of the Shire in the movie version of RotK. I hope you join us in future book club threads!

Samurai_Jack · January 16, 2010, 9:44am

I feel the same way about the movie ending of RotK. I was hoping the raising would be in the extended version or deleted scenes, but sadly it was not. I thought it was great how Tolkien showed us that the hobbits could handle this by themselves (with out the big people) and how much they had changed from the average hobbit.